Audiophilepure

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“Matt enthusiastically preferred the Pass to the Mjolnir. Matt and David sometimes differed in their reactions, a matter of taste, but keep in mind the Mjolnir was designed to emulate a classic triode circuit, which saturates a bit as things get loud. Single tone tests on the Mjolnir show predominance of 2nd and 3rd harmonic. However, harmonic distortion is a funny beast, sometimes it can manifest itself as presence, sometimes as warmth, and often as fat bass, very dependent on the material, so I’m not surprised at the sometimes apparently contradictory reactions depending on the musical source. Distortion is compression, it can subjectively soften dynamics, but when it’s enhancing a range, that range can seem louder and counter intuitively dynamics can appear to increase.”

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” I appreciated the fact that the Prism Sound Callia has a volume control, which meant that I could connect it directly to my power amplifiers and not have to use a preamplifier. But I missed having a remote control to adjust volume—and the way my system is now configured, DACs work best for me when connected via Ethernet to the host computer rather, than the Callia’s USB input:.

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“Micro processor controlled relais eliminate all possible pops and clicks when turning the unit on or off. This headphone protection circuit makes sure that you won’t harm your headphones when connected with said pops. I came across many headphone amplifiers that don’t have this circuit implemented, which is a shame.”

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“A really good OTL design makes your transducers sound like they are direct-coupled to the music, and that is precisely what the Feliks Audio Euforia does to your headphones. For some, I can see that being too much of a good thing; and they will want an amplifier with more guts, more drive, more volume, and more distortion. OK, at the limits, it goes for refinement rather than edginess, and this might not be my first choice for thrashing out old Guided By Voices albums. On the other hand, the sound of the system with the Euforia in place is so sophisticated and dynamic, I might not want to put those old GBV albums on the playlist; it won’t make ‘Hardcore UFOs’ from Bee Thousand[Scat] sound awful, but the lo-fi quality of the album is not enhanced by being played with refinement. And that’s what the Euforia does so well – make music sound refined. ”

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“Conclusion: For the price there are more powerful amp combos out there, but few offer the digital filters this DAC has. And also few are running the newer ESS9038Pro chip, which provides excellent sound quality. Use as a standalone DAC is outstanding for the price, it surpasses my JDS Labs EL DAC in sheer detail retrieval and absolute neutrality, whereas the EL DAC is ever so slight smoother and a little less focussed on absolute transparency like the DA9.1.
The DA9.1 has an ok built in headphone amp, it drives most headphones well, and the adjustable output impedance is great with certain high impedance loads. This little unit has tons of features for the price, and I can easily recommend it if you are after absolute neutrality and a clean sounding DAC/Amp.”