I was honored to become the first "test pilot" in Russia to test this miracle of Chinese engineering. Yulong DA1 came as a kit with an external Power Station supply in one big box. The sound is detailed, high resolution and high transparency, but hard and dense. The first impression is crumpled, and that's okay. It is not worth making hasty conclusions when you turn it on for the first time, because the device is just out of the box and requires warming up. Within two days, the rigidity faded away, and after another two days the residual brightness disappeared and the DA1 played comfortably, airily, as expected.
The first thing that catches your ears is the high resolution and stunning transparency. Each sound is outlined with jewelry, as a facet of an exquisite decoration. The entire frequency range is full of textures and subtle nuances. The music is presented clearly, expressively, like a graphic drawing by the greatest master artist. I would especially like to note the exact and correct localization of musical instruments in the imaginary space of the stage. The division of complex musical compositions into parts is impeccable.
The stage is airy, voluminous, correct: all the musicians are in front of the listener and take their place in space relative to each other as it should be in reality. In scale, the DA1 expands to a large area, more than almost all audio headphone combines I know, with the exception of the Audio-GD R27.
The highs and mids are fairly flat, clear, with a bit of fun, but without the extra warmth. A clear, concrete sound that does not slide into icy analyticity, but also without an emphasis on wadded emotions. The physicality and "thickness" of the sound are palpable. Plus, DA1 pampers the listener with richness and richness of timbres, their depth and beauty. The bass is concrete, collected, percussive and punchy, powerful and deep, yet stunningly textured and varied. With Yulong DA1, you can hear 50 thousand shades of bass. The tonal balance and shifting emphasis in a device of this high end can largely depend on the cabling and, of course, the headphones. In my version, the bass has an accent.
Classical music
In the interpretation of Yulong DA1, strings, large symphony orchestras, concerts for violin and orchestra, string trios and quartets, guitars, and so on sound best, very expressively and fascinatingly. The piano sounds clear, expressive, but cool, for the piano I would like to add a little warmth and smoothness to the sound. Male voices are filled with courage, but female voices are also lacking in warmth, which can be solved by purchasing headphones with a thick rich mids, as opposed to my Fostex TH900. The vocals stand out from the general mass of musical parts and in it you can hear a lot of nuances, the breathing of the performers, the mood swings. Opera vocals deserve special mention. If the original recording is high quality, then listening to the opera brings a disproportionate endless WOW. On classical pieces, at the moment when the orchestra dies down, absolute silence and absolute emptiness reigns - the whole world froze in anticipation. The breaks on Yulong DA1 become an integral part of the compositions and contribute to the emotional perception. For classical music, the Yulong DA1 is an amazing machine.
Death and Black metal
Strong bass has a positive effect on heavy music. Assembled and percussion, it flies like a hurricane with a massive underside. To the new album "Blood Red Throne - 2021 - Imperial Congregation" I felt like shaking my head. Yulong DA1 is rhythmic, fast and bass. On Black Metal, biting cymbals successfully enter, adding to the sound of Norwegian anger.
DA1 Power Station добавляет воздух, масштаб сцены, обеспечивает точную локализацию образов в пространстве, наполняет звук текстурами и в целом выводит Yulong DA1 на новый уровень.
Comparison with competitors
Of those headphone combines that I have dealt with, none in price before the Chord Hugo TT2 can fully compete with the Yulong DA1. I don't see the point in a direct and detailed comparison of any Burson, Senheiser, junior Chord, Mytek Brooklyn - all of them are much inferior in class DA1. Only the Violectric V590 is chosen from the branded devices closer to the DA1. (Unknown Flux Lab Atlas - maybe it's better, maybe not, I don't know). The junior combine Flux Lab FC-10 is tough, loud and not as rich in timbre in comparison with Yulong.
Chord Hugo TT2 and Mytek Manhattan II are devices of a different price and sound quality level. Although, as headphone combines, both devices can be criticized for their price tag. The TT2 and Manhattan II are much more open to being a DAC with an external high-quality amplifier. By the nature of the sound, Chord and Mytek are prone to audiophile refined presentation of musical material and meticulous study of the clarity of each micro-nuance. Yulong DA1 is below HiEnd grade components. But the value of the DA1 lies in its balance between the digital part and the headphone amplifier - the DAC and the amplifier are matched in quality. If you want a superior DAC for a large audio system with the ability to listen to headphones from it, the Chord and Mytek are great choices. Yulong boasts of being an exceptional headphone device for a reasonable price tag and is a self-contained desktop audio component. It makes no sense to buy another amplifier or a separate DAC for it. It is enough to put DA1 and Power Station on the table, connect and the headphone system is ready, and has no obvious drawbacks in its class.
The Audio-GD R27 stands aside. Unlike other combines based on AKM and Sabra chips, R27 is built on R2R and offers the listener a completely different approach to sound philosophy. After Yulong DA1 R27 seems unclear, not so clear and expressive, but compensates for this lack with other strengths - massiveness, fusion, analog sound, soulfulness. The taste difference between Audio-GD R27 and Yulong DA1 is so great that I could not express it briefly in a nutshell and decided to devote a separate review to this topic.