Ok so, I did a test. I’m confused. I need your input to figure out what’s happening. I mix and match 3 DAC/AMPs with 2 IEMs. The question I have is that, if DAC/AMPs are supposed to be transparent, aka outputting a flat FR, what else can affect the tonal balance in the chain?
Gear list:
HIFIMAN EF600(Low Gain NOS), Cayin RU6 NOS, FiiO BTR7
Truthear Hexa, Moondrop Aria 2
I tried my best keeping all the volume same, vocals especially. The EF600 has A LOT more bass than the other two, but also having a much clearer instrument separation and clarity, by a great margin. BTR7 has somewhat good bass while RU6 has the least. RU6 has the least clarity as well.
I know this may sound obvious, “Duh, DAC/AMPs are different.” But I’m wondering the root cause of this, like is it because they output different non-flat FR? Or is it the output impedance that’s affecting the sound? I specifically used two IEMs with different setups, single DD and 1DD+3BA, the results are exactly the same so IDK if it is impedance. I’m curious what’s behind this. I know RU6 has very bad THD so a lack of clarity can be explained. BTR7 has better THD on paper than EF600 but the actual perceived clarity is audibly lacking. It could be IMD or something else but the drastic difference of tonal balance is beyond my understandings.
If the EF400 is indicative of hifiman standards, I wouldn’t expect great things from the EF600 measurement wise - https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/hifiman-ef400/
Honestly none of these measure that well compared to other options out there, if you’re looking to power IEMs then I would look towards one that measures cleanly e.g. moondrop dawn/dawn pro, tanchjim space, tempotec sonata bhd pro. When you have messy measurements I’d imagine tonal balance would be affected as well and not just clarity, but I’m not sure in what way
Yea I’m wondering how the EF600 measures but I can’t find anyone doing it. Hifiman has EF500 and EF499 now as well. The EF400 uses a worse r2r chip so I assume other ones should be technically better, especially when correlating to their price. After all, they are r2r so they’ll always measure terrible compared to delta-sigma ones. But measurements aren’t everything. The btr7 was in wired mode and it has much lower THD than ef600 as claimed by manufacturer. But I still think the ef600 sounds more “resolving” and “natural”. It could be placebo tho since it wasn’t a blind test. At that low level of THD I doubt it would be audible anyway so it’s probably something else.