my S9 doesnt sound as good as my D2

[trautix]

hello . i was proud user of D2 for 2 years and i decided to buy new s9. to be honest i am not impressed as much as the reviewers around are. especially cnet. for first. wolfsonchip used in s9 is actually older then one being used in d2(!!!!).
SQ of s9 is kinda not good. i am mostly metal/hard rock listener atm , and i dont like higher-mid frekvencies too strong, especcialy loud vocals and some guitarrs( i tweaked eq many many times with no pleasing results).if anyone experienced the harsh effect of ''S'' in some singer's voice, then this is similar, except its in middle. the result of this is , that it kinda overshadow some details which i am missing from d2, because its way too overpowered. is it possible my s9 has internal dac/amp error? i bought it from amazon, so i can still return it, and try buy new one from diff website. pls note , that it still sounds kinda fine, but not as good as my d2. thanks
P.S. is possible , that after burn-in my s9 ( 300h+) it wil be just fine?
my setup is decent : S9--> Fiio E5 --> Grado SR125.

off topic i wanted to test it myself on Right Mark Audio Analyzer , but idk how
edit: well i bought new model from sennheiser HD238 open type headphones designed specifically to flat eq,since they r meant to be used that way. synergy with s9 is better then with d2. on the other hand d2+fiio e5+grado sr125 is superb

edit: to be more specific i found frequency range in mids that r overpowered ,almost resonating. It is range between 1Khz-1.5Khz. i carefully tested my music on foobars spectrum visualization. and i found that heavy female vocals r in that range. so i basically edited s9 equalizer. narrow -3dB at that range. its bit muddy for first listening, but after a while i get used to and overall annoying passages was sounding much more ballanced.

[CrowdAds]

[cloudscapes]

interesting.

I went through something similar, going from an iriver H140 (which has excellent SQ) to this one. at first I was dissapointed, and I had spent about a week tweaking the EQ a good 20 times daily, on different songs. I got it "close" to how the H140 sounded but not quite.

then I started looking up different headphones. I had been using senn PMX60s up till then which sounded great on the H140. the more I read about them however the more I found out it wasn't as good as it could of been. I looked at other phones then tried the PX200s on. it took a bit more EQ teaking (less than a day) but I got it to a point where it was much better than even my original H140+PMX60 setup! more definition across the spectrum, better bass/BD seperation, etc. no way could I have gotten the same thing with the old setup. And I swear it gets better al lthe time as I'm discovering new details in songs I hadn't heard before.

I guess my point is that you might need to give it time, and yes unfortunatelly may need to look at different headphones which will suit the S9's sound better.
or stick with the D2, which is excellent!

[dfkt]

Without any EQ or BBE enhancements the S9 and D2 sound pretty much the same. I couldn't really tell them apart in an AB test.

As for the RMAA tests: http://rmaa.elektrokrishna.com/Compa...l%20Volume.htm

[roebeet]

I have my new S9, and I also own an original D2. After doing some tests between them and also the Zune HD that I eventualy returned, I would also agree that it really depends on your EQ settings, your amp and your headphones. I wasn't too thrilled with my S9, for example, until I tweaked the settings and then tried it with my MiniBox E+ and HD 600's.

I've also noticed that, even with my Yuin PK1's / FiiO E5, the S9 seems to be able to process higher volumes without distortion - something that I've had issues with the D2 at times.

[EddieE]

They are very similar. I think the S9 has a slightly softer and warmer sound which I prefer while the D2 is slightly crisper. I guess which you are going to prefer depends on your preference for sound. I think they both sound amazing and I'm glad to own them both. :-)

Of course when it comes to video, there is really no competition. :-)

[Heathie89]

I don't use an amp for my S9 but would having one improve the audio quality significantly?

[roebeet]

Originally Posted by Heathie89

I don't use an amp for my S9 but would having one improve the audio quality significantly?

Depends on the headphones.

It certainly improves the sound on my PK1's and HD 600's, as they are high impedance. Going on past comments I've seen , I believe the technical reason for that is because those headphones need extra power that the internal amp cannot provide.