Audiophilepure

Astell&Kern KANN MAX DAP: Review

Most of the over-ears I wear while travelling are considerably easier to drive and so with all that power available, noise floor becomes a real issue.  By dropping gain back to medium, the MAX performs well with the Campfire Cascade and DCA Aeon Closed and with its 8 channel volume control placed between the DAC and amplifier sections of the MAX, clarity and distortion stays nearly the same at all gain levels.   

It certainly takes more effort to wrangle 8 independent volume controls, but by placing them on the output of the DAC and before the amplifier, the volume control is in the best position to adjust overall output without introducing additional noise.

The Bluetooth features remain largely the same as the KANN Alpha with support for LDAC, and aptX HD; the KANN MAX also supports the Bluetooth Sync feature which allows you to use the KANN MAX as a Bluetooth-enabled source device for supported loudspeakers or headphones.

https://www.hifinews.com/content/chord-mojo-2-usb-dacheadphone-amp

Nevertheless I was also keen to hear the Mojo 2 as just a DAC, with a Toslink connection from a universal player and the analogue out into my regular system. Fed with George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass 50th Anniversary [Capitol/Dark Horse/Apple 02435 65238], I ran it alongside a couple of highly-regarded DACs which I’m choosing not to embarrass. Chord’s Mojo 2 delivered such smooth, silky, open, transparent and undigital sound that it’s now a reference in my system.

Downsides? The Mojo 2 begs for a tiny touchscreen, as does the Poly, to make it usable for those of us who cannot tell the difference between, say, Pantone 290CS and 291CS colours regardless of ambient lighting. But, ergonomics aside, as both a DAC and a headphone amp, the Mojo 2 is amazing.

https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1659-focal-aria-k2-906-loudspeakers

I then turned to a track I often use to evaluate speaker transparency, which relates to the clarity of a speaker and how well it projects sound without calling attention to itself. Colin James’s “National Steel,” from National Steel (16/44.1 FLAC, Warner Music Canada), is a well-recorded, minimalist track that is an excellent test for this attribute. The tune opens with two guitars, one centered at the back of the stage, the other off to the left and closer to the front. On this track, I like to focus on the reverberation of the strings during the attacks and decays, to see if the sounds remain focused in space, or if subtle cabinet resonances “link” the aural image back to the speaker, muddying the sound and hindering the illusion of realism. I can say without hesitation that the Focals did not disappoint in this category. They placed the guitar plucks authoritatively, with attacks and decays confined to well-defined aural bubbles that hung in free space—it sounded very real indeed.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/reviews/ifi-hip-dac-2

Now, 44.1kHz and 48kHz files are represented by a yellow light, but 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192, 352.8 and 384kHz files will be denoted by a white glow. DSD64 and 128 files are signified in cyan, while DSD256 (aka quad-rate DSD) files will now make the LEDs glow red. Thanks to the DAC’s ‘three unfold’ decoding process, now performed internally (as opposed to just the final unfold in the manner of an MQA ‘renderer’ – the method undertaken by the original hip-dac), MQA files glow green but MQA Studio tracks are now recognised too, glowing blue. Magenta means the file is playing in its original sample rate (MQB). The keen-eyed will note that iFi has added two new colours to the swatch here (red and white) to accommodate this functionality – and very helpful they are too.