Hehe definitely not over yet
I A/B'd the DX300 Max Ti & N8ii with XE6 and the Max Ti was the clear winner for me. N8ii still sounded great, but compared with Max Ti, it came across overly clean, lacking character and somewhat boring imho.
M9 and DX300 Max Ti are so vastly different in sound signature that I don't even like comparing them. They are both Summit-level sound DAPs with two different flavours. Max Ti for the clarity, resolution, stage and detail. M9 for musicality, immersion and texture.
Thank you! I was kind of hoping, you would reply something like that. First of all because it is in some way consistent with what I felt / heard, but even more so, because after all the N8ii hype at the beginning I thought: "what if Cayin really produced the player that rules them all?". What about Watercooler and all this, if we did find THE end game player? Well this fear hast past. It will stay interesting and I need to reserve an hour a day to read here. Uff ...
So while walking this morning I came to an idea, that I would like to bring up here. My thinking was inspired by this post:
I am like a 7:3 in terms of musicality vs clarity.
Speaking of which, if the old 1Z is 8:2, then M9 is around 6:4, and the new one is around 6.5:3.5/7:3, comparatively speaking. Just a ratio - the number is not representing actual technical performance being better/worse.
What about if we try a tiny and of course still very subjective overall rating off the TOTL DAPs that just sums up our overall feeling in something like
1. "clarity" which consists of clarity, resolution, stage and detail (not a fan of calling it "technicalities" since it sounds judging. Music is more then "technical" also for those who prefer better "clarity")
2. "musicality" which consists of flow of music, immersion and texture, "magic", ...
These are the terms, that I (we) used for 30 years now having come from record player / loud speaker Hifi. (Linn Glasgow TOTL stuff, some of which I still have)
The terms could still be the same, although we deal with different issues (mechanical issues vs. digital issues like Jitter etc.). Power btw. was and will always be an issue.
So often in all this years and hundreds of serious comparisons we had the conclusion, that A "sounded" better ("sound" = "clarity"), but B made more "music". And this curse seems to continue in the digital world.
Anyways, since we already agreed, that finally it is about preferences and that we to some point also concluded, that "clarity" vs. "musicality" is one of the main preference, why not try a little simplification?
So I give it a go for my last experince:
M9 --> 8/10 (clarity/musicality) IMO
M8 -->7/9
3MAX -->10/8 (in Mango mode)
220MAX -->9/7 (in Mango mode)
(all with EXT and local music. Result might be different if I would do streaming)
... anyone feels like adding N8ii or WM1Z to that list? ...
M15 was like 8/6 (from memory)
If necessary one day we can go higher than 10
I listened a bit further with Orphy and if im honest, I prefer the stock cable with EXT. I think the Orpheus takes EXT a little too far in that musical direction tonally. It's like adding sugar on an already sickly-sweet dessert. Too much sweetness and you lose the balance.
trying to get one with the tubes seems hard for an amateur like me. Maybe someone needs to ship one to @Deezel177 or @gLer
