I just have received my DAC and I am a little disappointed.
i owned till now a "half the price of D90SE" DAC and I was very satisfied. I am an audio enthusiast for more than 30 years. Till recently I didn't give much attention to digital world, since always seemed dull compared to my analogue sources.
Lately seeing the highres audio etc, started to look into it to see if I can get decent sound from digital sources. I found out that things are really getting better, so I bought a lot of hires music (i prefer to have it than streaming). I was quite happy with the outcome, even if analogue is still better but I could now listen with pleasure to digital audio. My previous DAC has as said half of the price of D90SE.
Since I try always to upgrade my audio, I decided based on the reviews here to buy the D90SE. A very disappointing experience, expected a lot more. I was balancing if I will write this post but I decided to do it, even if I am expecting flame...
So let's start.
System accompanying the DAC: Nordost SPM reference cables (tried also OCC Oyaide and Neotech), Symphonic Line RG-3 turbo preamp, 1 KW pure Class A monoblocks, Magnepan 3.6, Focal Aria 948 and Focal Grand Utopia.
Good things:
Quiet: The quietest solution ever! It is THAT quiet that you think your ears have problem.
Detail: Yes, there is detail, unquestionably. In certain areas of the frequency ranges there is more detail than my current DAC.
Bass: A LOT of control. It never looses control. Good extend.
Stage: You can tell the very exact instrument/organ position. Too much focus and precision. Best I have ever heard in digital.
Filters: They do make difference #3, gives more treble and better voices but reduces a little sharpness of stage
IMD: This DAC produces the cleanest sound when a lot of organs play together. Excellent, you can listen to metal and rock with no fatigue.
Bad things:
Stage: The stage does not have the proper extent. In my setup, normally the extend of the stage is more than 4 meters. Somehow, it was shrunk a little. However, as I said had the best precision. Another thing was that precision in depth was not so good as in width and height.
Live experience: I couldn't get persuaded that I had a live stage experience. Curiously enough my cheaper DAC does.
Voices: Female voices lacked the proper warmth that sometimes have in certain songs and they got a little "far", this gets together with the "live experience" issue
Fading: I noticed that sometimes notes are not properly fading away, especially when they have tremolo and at the same time fade away, an effect like a compression thing. This is important to me for a hi end experience, since my SE Class A amplifiers manage not to loose these fading notes when are there and this feature is exquisite to my ears.
The above was a three day test so far, I will listen to the DAC a lot more and see what happens. It seems I will search for an even better DAC. Don't misunderstand me, it is a great DAC but it was not what I expected to be, based on the reviews.