Yulong DA1: owners’ impressions

Owners of the Yulong DA1, a two-box DAC and headphone amplifier, describe a long burn-in, a large and realistically laid-out stage, and a clear difference made by the external DA1 Power Station. Below we summarise the sound by range, their comparisons with the Audio-GD R27, Chord Hugo TT2 and Violectric V590, and the practical complaints.

These impressions are summarised from owners’ posts on an audiophile forum. They are the subjective views of their authors, not measurements or claims of Demograf Audio.

Sound, range by range

Bass

• Owners describe the bass as firm, punchy, deep and richly textured. In one owner’s system it was slightly emphasised.
• Out of the box one listener found it less deep and full-bodied than the Audio-GD R27’s; after further burn-in it went deeper and gained confidence.

Midrange

• Even and clear, but a little cool: piano and female voices lacked some warmth for one owner.
• Another found female vocals recessed at first; after burn-in they came forward, clear and expressive.
• In a blind comparison, one listener heard less midrange presence than from the Hugo TT2.

Treble

• Fairly even and clear, without added warmth.

Soundstage and imaging

• Airy and large. One owner found it bigger than almost any headphone combo he knew, the Audio-GD R27 excepted.
• Instruments are placed precisely and in believable positions, and complex music separates cleanly into its parts.
• Without the Power Station the stage shrinks and localisation becomes vaguer.

Resolution and detail

• Owners consistently report high resolution and transparency, with a wealth of texture and fine nuance.
• One heard more detail and transparency than from the R27.

Dynamics

• Strong drive and punch once run in, with silent backgrounds in pauses.
• With the Power Station, one owner heard more microdynamic detail within each sound.

Tonal balance

• Close to neutral, but not icy, and with body.
• One owner heard the soft, rounded character he associates with AKM converter chips, with a slight veil compared with ESS Sabre designs.
• Hard and then slightly bright out of the box; both faded within about a week.

Compared with other gear

vs Audio-GD R27

The most frequent comparison. Owners found the DA1 more neutral, higher in resolution and cooler in the mids, while the R27 leans towards body, emotion and an analogue warmth. With the Power Station, one heard the DA1 as denser, with tighter bass and clearer outlines. The R27 builds a bigger three-dimensional stage, but one owner felt it places images somewhat arbitrarily, where the DA1 places them as they would sit in a hall. Early in burn-in the R27 still had the more natural piano and vocals. Later, one owner preferred the DA1 on every count and saw why it costs nearly twice as much.

vs Chord Hugo TT2 and Mytek Manhattan II

One owner places both in a higher price and performance class, and feels they show more of their ability as DACs feeding a separate amplifier. In a blind test, another preferred the TT2 narrowly: it sounded more technical, more neutral and more open in the midrange, while the DA1 was more velvety, fuller and deeper in stage.

vs Violectric V590

One owner named the V590 as the branded combo that came closest to the DA1 in his experience.

vs Flux Lab FC-10, Burson, Sennheiser, smaller Chord models and Mytek Brooklyn

The same owner placed these a class below the DA1, and found the FC-10 hard, shouty and less rich in timbre.

vs Yulong DA11

One listener preferred the DA1 for classical and atmospheric music, and the DA11 for rhythm and emotional immediacy.

With and without the Power Station

Owners who tried the DA1 without it agree that the external supply matters. Without it the DA1 sounds simpler and more blurred: separation, empty space between instruments and precise localisation suffer, and the stage shrinks. One owner preferred his R27 to a DA1 without the Power Station.

Source

One owner heard the DA1 improve dramatically when an Aurender N200 streamer replaced a laptop with an iFi iUSB3.0, and concluded that the laptop had shown only a fraction of what the DA1 can do.

What owners report

One owner lived with the DA1 for a week before drawing conclusions. Out of the box it was transparent and highly resolved, but dense and hard. After a couple of days it became more spacious, with a slight brightness; after a week both the hardness and the brightness had gone. He placed the DA1 and the Audio-GD R27 together as the strongest value among headphone combos he knew, neither trading musicality for specifications.

A longer review describes each sound as cut like a facet of a jewel, with instruments placed precisely in front of the listener. Strings, orchestras, chamber music and guitar suited it particularly well, and opera from good recordings was a highlight. Piano and female voices could have been warmer through the owner’s Fostex TH900, and he suggests headphones with a denser midrange as the remedy. On rock and metal the bass is powerful and the drive is intact; on electronic music it pumps convincingly. He valued the DA1 as a self-contained system whose DAC and amplifier are well matched, so that nothing else needs to be added.

Another owner compared the DA1 with his R27 throughout burn-in, through the same cables, to rule out simple adaptation. At first the Yulong was the more detailed and transparent of the two, but less deep and less rich in timbre, and it drew every plane equally sharply. After further hours its timbres filled out, depth appeared, and dynamics and punch improved; on rock and metal detail now came with weight, and female vocals moved forward.

One owner found the DA1 an excellent match for the Meze Liric and for HiFiMAN’s HE1000SE and HE6, and a sound one for the Audeze LCD-4 and LCD-4z, the Dan Clark Audio Stealth and the ETHER C Flow. The Audeze LCD-5, however, sounded mechanical and unnatural on it.

Reported problems

• Hard, harsh and bright out of the box; the harshness eased within a few days, and the brightness within about a week.
• The power switch is on the rear panel.
• The bright display cannot be turned off for night listening.
• No high-gain mode for hard-to-drive planar headphones.
• Very poor sound through the coaxial input, according to one owner.

Summary

After about a week of burn-in, and with the external DA1 Power Station, owners rank the DA1 among the strongest self-contained headphone combos below the price of a Chord Hugo TT2. They describe high resolution, a large and realistically laid-out stage, and deep, textured bass. Without the Power Station it loses much of that.

The practical complaints are consistent: a rear-panel power switch, a display that cannot be switched off, no high-gain mode for difficult planars and a weak coaxial input.