Christian Chan
Christian Chan
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- 20
- Region: Australia
- Location: Sydney
- First Name: Christian
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My Topping D90 and A90 stack arrived in the post today!
You might have seen my previous post where I upgraded from a Sennheiser HD660S to a Hifiman Arya, and noticed a Schiit Magni Heresy / Modi 3 stack in the background. Well here is Part 2 [hopefully also the final part] of that upgrade process!
I went into the amp and DAC shopping process with the view that all solid state amps should sound about the same and that DAC quality was a load of crap after a certain point. That said, I wanted something that looked really cool on my desk and was a bit curious if I would hear the slightest bit of difference vs no difference at all.
The Heresy and Modi 3 have excellent subjective and measurements based reviews and so I really wasn't expecting even a moderate difference, and only if I listened very very closely.
So I turned the Topping stack on and plugged in my Arya [single ended] thinking I'd listen for a bit then laugh at audiophiles and their pricey products [that look incredibly sexy though], and... Confession time... it turns out that I was the one that was full of **** [or Schiit as the case may be].
The sound is much, much clearer, much more detailed, altogether fuller sound particularly in the mids, smoother, punchier bass, and bigger sound stage. It's just altogether much more musical and enjoyable to listen to.
I honestly can't believe how big a difference it made to the sound quality. Whilst it wasn't as big as moving from the HD660S to the Arya, it's not that far off. To put this in perspective, for me, the improvement was more easily noticeable and more quickly noticed than going from the Ananda to the Arya in A-B testing.
Bear in mind, I'm definitely not an audiophile so please take my opinion with a massive grain of salt. I also didn't blind A-B test them so this could all be confirmation bias [yes, even though I thought it wouldn't make a difference, it can still be confirmation bias]. I suspect there has to be a fair amount of confirmation bias here as I'm upgrading from a good solid state stack, so there shouldn't be as big a difference as I'm experiencing.
Take this as just another anecdote in the litany of opinions on audio gear.
Finally, looks-wise they are clearly killer. That's why I bought them and they don't disappoint in that regard. That black aluminium look!
- 7
RankStranger
RankStranger
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- 3.6k
- Region: Australia
- Location: Wurundjeri land
- First Name: Simon
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Handsome stack. Great photos ?
JohnL
JohnL
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- 1.3k
- Region: Australia
- Location: Melbourne
- First Name: John
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Not the least bit surprised..........
Love my D90 used in DAC mode hooked up tomy OPPO 205 via HDMI de embedder
Edited July 30, 2020 by JohnL- 1
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