I'll take an old Burr-Brown over a new ESS any day except when it comes to really small items such as one of those rare "audiophile" cell phones where an innovative enterprising electronics manufacturer, LG not to name it, gambled that some people would rather spend their money on sound rather than sight so forego the fancy quadruple-lens, bi-turbo zoom and amoled display favored by the likes of Apple and Samsung and instead asked ESS and BB what sort of performance could they achieve installing a high-performance DAC and assorted paraphernalia within the confines of a handset that should be no larger and, most important, be slimmer than a Samsung S9's with its 6-inch display. BB declined saying they couldn't do it in such a slim case as it would require an all-digital environment and ESS said they could fit their new "Quad DAC" Sabre model chip in there if LG stretched the display to 6.1 inch. The QD is actually four small DAC chips summed into one. Deal done, the very nice sounding (for a phone) LG G7 flagship saw the light of day a few months later. I still use mine to this day because nobody has come up with a better sounding phone since.
I find that fit and finish on Chinese-made audio has been way above Western standards over the last 10 years or so, They appear to be using materials and machining techniques on most of their stuff that we keep that for high-end here. Much like the Japanese did in the 70's... and still do but it comes at a very high price. Is that evidence of quality? Not sure, after all NAD's plastic sounded good all the same. Still sounds good but ever since NAD moved to Canada it seems that they concentrate on pricey high-end materials like exotic wood veneers and cast aluminum knobs... and hefty price tags
I hope you like like it and it works out well in your system.
Had a 5S and a 6S (7 in disguise, the 6S had nothing to do with the 6) that I suspect had the same DAC because the sounded the same. They were excellent but not quite to the G7's level. The G&'s DAC had an odd limitation though, it wouldn't kick in if headphones connected to the phone's jack had below 50-ohm impedance with LG stating a lower load was "too unstable" to reliably power with a tiny amplifier. I used 80-ohm phones so no problem but friends with near-nil impedance phones had to use gimmicky line impedance boosters I wouldn't be caught dead relying on. Can't tell if that was a problem with the Apples since I never used low-impedance loads on them either. As for external amps the G7 had no problems, just use a good quality Y-cable at line level and it played like a CD player would only sounded better than a consumer-grade one would. You need to keep the charger plugged in when you do that.
I ran mine for 24/7 for a week. I leave mine on 24/7 too and in my opinion it takes about 30 minutes after I start playing music to really start sounding good. All in all a pretty surprising DAC for the money.
Most of my listening is done with headphones. I still have a pair of refurbished KLH Model 5 speakers manufactured in 1968 that i love. I sold my New Large Advents, AR-2ax, and AR-4ax speakers before an out of state move 3 years ago. Love the "east coast" speakers.
I agree, DACs all have a different sound signature. One ladder DAC from another, one delta sigma from another, or one Sabre DAC from another. It definitely depends on how the DAC is implemented in the DAC itself. I've read on other forums where members insist that DACs all sound the same. I haven't found that to be true.
This is the exact opposite of my experience. Ok maybe not the exact opposite but the one time I’ve actually heard a difference was when I went from a Technics MASH CD player to a Marantz DV8300 player. I just bought it on the cheap to try out after reading some reviews. I’m no hearing expert but it sure sounded way more detailed. I could hear things that I’d never heard from CD’s I’d listened to a million times. I then got a Marantz Sa11s1 and couldn’t hear any difference between that and the DV8300. So that was a $1000 lesson learned..hehe
