|Headphones: Sennheiser HD660S2 | HIFIMAN Sundara | AirPods Pro 2 | Audio Technica ATH-M50X | AKG K371 | Sennheiser HD380 Pro The feature set in the iFi Zen Stream or Node 2i sans DAC is a pretty good start. Minimum requirements though:

Three different anti-aliasing filters are provided, selectable via the supplied remote control, with 'fast roll-off – minimum' being the default setting. This sounds like an exciting feature, but on most music, much of the time, there wasn't a huge degree of difference in terms of sound – the changes were pretty subtle. Nevertheless, this cute little device has an extremely clear, clean and detailed sound for its price – and of course, it is an inexpensive way into MQA. It is easy to use and has a very handy (for some) balanced output facility. It's hard not to recommend, all things considered. The PA5 is a dinky Class D power amp claiming to deliver 65W RMS per channel into 8 ohms for less than 1% distortion, or 85W into 8 ohms with distortion rising to 10%. It measures 150x130x40mm and has a chunky outboard power supply. There are two sets of balanced inputs using TRS connectors and a single set of loudspeaker outputs for spade terminals or 4mm plugs. The front panel has a power on/off switch and a selector for the two balanced inputs.Are any folks using the E50's balanced output in preamp mode to drive powered monitors? Is that working well? plastic penguin I wasn't even aware they made DACs, probably because I though of them as CD players. I bet they are excellent but the cheapest USB one is around €1900. For that sort of money I suddenly don't have that big of a problem with my current dacs And for quite a bit less money I would just go with an Ares II or something like that.

If you operate the volume without knowing this, it will cause serious troubles such as destroying the speaker. I immediately reported this issue to Topping. I hope it will be improved as soon as possible. The Topping is simply more correct which some may find dull/clinical. I wouldn't argue with any view taken in that regard. Hi, I recently upgraded my system to a pair of Q Acoustics 3050i and a Rega IO as per great suggestion on this forum. Very happy with them but since then I had the suspicion that my IFI Zen is actually a weak link on the whole thing.

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Most amplifiers have SNR at 105db. I could be wrong. I know SNR is important. Then you can hear small nuances in the mix better. During use, the PA5 runs fairly cool and produces no physical noise. However, the instructions warn that the two negative speaker terminals should not be connected together; otherwise, damage might occur. Measured distortion remains low up to about 50W of output, then increases considerably – so it's best used with reasonably efficient loudspeakers. Input sensitivity is given as 2.6V, which is about average for a power amp. THE LISTENING As with more recent Topping products, it uses TRS output for balanced output instead of XLR which takes up a lot more space. Well if you have a good DSP in the chain for room correction, then concepts such as 'clinical' etc become pretty much irrelevant if your correction DSP allows you to choose a target curve/tilt towards whatever level of natural/warm tilt you desire and your DSP, DAC and amp all combine to flawlessly reproduce that to whatever speaker you use. The E50 supports selectable USB+Coaxial+Optical input modes and RCA+TRS output options. USB input supports formats like DSD512 & PCM768kHz of high-resolution audio. On the E50, the optical and coaxial input not only supports 24bit 192kHz PCM but also supports DoP DSD64 with MQA rendering. E50 offers fully balanced TRS output and single-ended RCA output. You can choose “TRS Only”, “RCA Only” or “TRS+RCA” output to meet different usages in the multiple systems.