Hey all,
So I've had a little bit more of a chance to take in the Cyan 2 over the past few days and think I can offer a little more of my impressions overall. Personally, I'm a big fan of comparisons specifically because just describing subjective sound, while useful to some degree, often makes it hard unless there's a sense of "scale" to something else I'm familiar with. In this case, I desperately wish I had a Spring/May or even another R2R dac to compare to. Unfortunately, I don't, and I think it means my impressions will be fairly useless for most of you. But in the effort of at least providing some early takes, I had the chance to compare it directly to my RME ADI-2 this morning.
First off, based on the pictures, I expected this thing to be sorta small. Even only a bit bigger than my RME. I was wrong. It's obviously not the size of a Spring or May, but thing is no slouch. You can kind of tell from my pictures above that its a fairly decent size. And, man, is it BEEFY. I mean, it's a brick. And interestingly, that's kind of how I'm hearing the sound as well. Beefy.
Before I get to comparisons, here's what I noticed straight-up as I listened to a lot of familiar music the past few days: First off, separation is fantastic. Just, no matter what I listen to everything just feels so easy to pinpoint and, in some cases, extremely so. It can be super holographic at times. But interestingly, I also noticed that the soundstage feels less wide than I'm used to. It *can* be wide, depending on the recording, but a lot of stuff that I'm used to being wide seemed slightly pulled forward. It was a bit jarring at first, making some tracks feel more in your face with the vocals, but I quickly realized this is actually something I like. As I've adjusted to it I've realized the stage is deeper than I'm used to. There was a day there where I worried that it might even become fatiguing, but today, when I put my RME back in the chain and listened, I immediately missed it because I realize it's quite fun! The C2 kind of places the music right dead in front of you, and it makes everything a bit more engaging. I'm making this point because I can see this being an issue for some. And again, this is subjective, and I have to account for how the C2 is interacting with the other components in my system, so it may be different for others, but I noticed this effect with both my speakers (Focal Chora 826s) and my headphones (Hifiman Arya Stealths).
So on the comparison side: on my RME I made sure to turn off any EQ presets to just get everything as even as I could. It's one thing that's just been a huge difference with the C2. You just plug it in and that's it. It does the rest. There is nothing you can do with it. No input switching, no nothing. You just play music through it and it shows you the input and the sampling rate. That's been an adjustment for sure, but with the RME I just constantly fiddle and then get frustrated thinking about how I may not be hitting my ceiling there. The fiddling almost becomes a distraction more than an advantage. And no matter how much fiddling I do, I could never seem to get something I was 100% satisfied with. This is one reason I decided to upgrade my DAC. I wanted something I *couldn't* fiddle with. Boy did I get that.
So ya, the first thing I noticed, as I mentioned above, was weight and texture. Every piece of music I put on feels thick and textured. Putting my RME back in, I noticed, even if I turn up the bass there, it's not working my Rel sub to the degree that the the Cyan 2 is. I mean, to put it simply its a difference between the RME being intentionally polite and neutral and the C2 being bold and energetic. And when I say energetic, I really mean it. The attack is potent. I mean, guitars, drums, everything just punches. Now on the RME, to get this kind of punch I had to really push the high and low frequencies a bit more, and it often would quickly get fatiguing. On the C2, however, you get a kind of natural, organic punch but the resolution is still there in spades. It doesn't feel like you're losing precision or resolution in any way. But I'd be lying if I said that, from my initial impression, this isn't a DAC that has a pretty big personality. I'd be doing you a disservice to suggest that this is a very clean and neutral DAC that is going to present everything uncolored. Granted, I'm not as astute as a lot of you, but that just hasn't been my experience so far. But for me, it's EXACTLY what I was looking for. I absolutely LOVE listening to vinyl records for this very reason and I have wanted an R2R dac, and specifically a Holo Audio DAC, because I knew that this is the kind of experience you can get there.
One caveat here is that Focal speakers are kind of known for being punchy like that as well, so I know that the C2 is working in concert with them to really deliver that experience in spades. If you have a more laid-back speaker the experience may be different. I just know that when I went back and forth between the RME and the C2, there was a palpable difference in energy. The RME has maybe just a TINY bit more resolution behind it, but it seems like it may be at the expense of immersion. The C2 has a ton of resolution, though, and I'd say it's only a fraction off. It's just that the C2 has more texture to everything. The timbre of guitars feels more realistic and organic, whereas the RME presents everything sparkling clean and a bit sanitary.
I'm not sure what more to say here, and happy to answer questions anyone has, but I will just close by saying this: it took me all of a couple songs listening to the RME before I was desperate to get the Cyan 2 back in the chain. The cleanliness is nice to have in some respects, but with the Cyan 2, so far it's been a blast to just throw ALL kinds of things at it and see how it presents it. I've been rather shocked and surprised on numerous tracks where I got a presentation that felt altogether new and exciting and it's that experience I think we hope to have when we introduce new components to the chain. And I am extremely grateful for Holo Audio working to build this unit. I've wanted to try a Holo Audio DAC for a long time, but I just don't make that kind of money. I'm so grateful they managed to transplant some of the magic I've read about for so long into a package like this that I could afford and try out. I have not been disappointed in the least. And I very much look forward to hearing from those that have other R2R dacs and even the Spring or May to see how this stacks up!
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