Last Sunday I spent three hours in a audio shop to audition a combo consisting of MCINTOSH MA8000+ TANNOY CANTERBURY GR + DI322 (with the cables as big as the snakes in the Amazon forest (!) of which I do not know the brand, but I am sure they all are very expensive ones)
I do expect a monumental ​performance from such a combo set up by an expert audiophile. But to my astonishment, the system sounded so badly. . The sound of the guitar played by John Williams, Julian Bream and David Russell, as well as Mozart's piano conceros played by Martha Argerich and Rubinstein etc . are all souless and bloodiless! Only some songs performed by Emi Furita, Enrico Marcias etc.  are not too bad and acceptable.
Never have I heard such a bad system in its range of cost. I wonder how the DAC DI322 can help the system sound great with its two chips ESS9016 , which is often used in cheap DAC like Q-DAC!
Perhaps DAC DI 322 matches well only with Wadia power amplifier such as WADIA A315/A340. Hope so!
I do expect a monumental ​performance from such a combo set up by an expert audiophile. But to my astonishment, the system sounded so badly. . The sound of the guitar played by John Williams, Julian Bream and David Russell, as well as Mozart's piano conceros played by Martha Argerich and Rubinstein etc . are all souless and bloodiless! Only some songs performed by Emi Furita, Enrico Marcias etc.  are not too bad and acceptable.
Never have I heard such a bad system in its range of cost. I wonder how the DAC DI322 can help the system sound great with its two chips ESS9016 , which is often used in cheap DAC like Q-DAC!
Perhaps DAC DI 322 matches well only with Wadia power amplifier such as WADIA A315/A340. Hope so!