Totaldac d1-digital-mk1 → d1-dual
To be frank, I am a bit torn on this one. Overall I like this chain a lot. The real problem is that I am having a hard time putting this sound into words. The d1-dual has a very obvious NOS sound, but as you likely know there are a great deal of varieties to this sound. The totaldac stack leans very heavily in organic Ness and tonal density. Its certainly heavily colored but instead of being dark/bright, I would more of call it vivid. It does this weird thing where it smooths over texture to the point where it isn’t spicy, but still somehow also presents very texture forward? TBH it kinda is like “the best low-fi experience possible”. I kinda listen for stuff and go “ew” when I pay attention to what its really doing but I also just cant bring myself to take the cans off (have needed to go down to the floor for a n hour and just keep putting it off). Like I am fairly certain its got dog shit SINAD and maybe even an IMD hump, but it just kinda works anyways? IDK, this shit is seriously hard to explain for me right now.
Over all its got fantastic organicness without actually having the outright best timbre. I also think the detail is a step back from something like an m1se (but I would need side by side to say for sure since they are so different in signature). The stage isn’t massive but extremely well used and stuff fades off into the distance quite well making the stage feel larger than it really is. I think the only real complaint I have is that I would like it if the dac kicked a bit harder. AIC has great control but it isn’t the absolute most punchy, so it can use a dac that leans very punchy when used with sus IMO, and the totaldac seems to fall more into the middle ground of punch. Its certainly not soft, but its also not exaggerated like I tend to enjoy. This would be a non-issue on most other cans though (for example I suspect something like x9k would still punch plenty quick)