CEntrance Hifi-M8 (Portable DAC / headphone amp) - review

[quadpatch]

I've had a couple of months to play with this awesome machine now, even got a chance to try some balanced headphones on it. Here's a link to explain a little more:

http://noblehifi.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/centrance-hifi-m8.html

 

[dalethorn]

Hi Edd - In regard to the tone controls you mention, I use Audioforge on the i-devices. Do you think that a digital EQ/DSP like that is a compromise with the M8 DAC? I'm thinking of analog -vs- digital tone controls, but also about the limits of the standard i-devices in not playing hi-res tracks.

 

[quadpatch]

Hi Dale, sorry for the late reply. In terms of analogue vs digital EQ I think that former has more potential. I'm not so convinced by high-res audio, but it does have more potential for EQ in theory if it's done right.

 

[dalethorn]

Hi Dale, sorry for the late reply. In terms of analogue vs digital EQ I think that former has more potential. I'm not so convinced by high-res audio, but it does have more potential for EQ in theory if it's done right.

I've found that with i-devices and the Audioforge equalizer, I can effectively remove the closed-headphone colorations that I couldn't address very well with Foobar or iTunes. That's digital EQ of course, so I'm wondering if you're aware of anything on the analogue end that would do as well in an iPhone-to-M8 configuration? And the other thing I wonder about is the ultimate quality compared to, say, the $300 AK10/Beyer A200p? Oh - there is a third thing - it wasn't perfectly clear from reading Centrance's site that the full 'asynchronous' feature of the DAC (irrespective of sample rates etc.) is employed in processing the digital data from i-devices.