Which Eversolo is Right for Me?

Apple Music integration is ok but not worth the price of entry if you ask me as it’s compromised as it always will be due to Apples approach to all things.

Confusingly there is two ways to access Apple Music. You can use the Eversolo Apple Music service or via the Official Apple Music Android app. The former isn’t lossless it’s AAC as it’s using the WebAPI to the service which is limited to AAC and it’s limited in functionality compared to full application. For lossless and full features you have to install and use the Android Apple Music app on the device and then use screen casting in the Eversolo phone app to use it. It’s a bit laggy and the interface really doesn’t map well to a landscape screen if you ask me. If you don’t have good WiFi it can be a pain. I can’t stand using it all and I have a good setup, but it’s never been my first choice as I only use Apple Music for the family as it’s cheap with the one pack and I don’t do Spotify at all. Android app is usable I suppose but not overly slick the Eversolo one works well if you happy with lossy streams.

 

I take your points on board, and appreciate that Apple Music may have issues with Eversolo, but I place a high value on the familiarity of the Music app and am paying for the content I wish to stream. I too don’t use Spotify, I stopped paying and using when I learned Daniel Ek is investing in AI weapons development. I would use Tidal but it’s too expensive to add in to the subscription lists. If I understand correctly, it might be possible to upload CDs in to the Eversolo and I think the memory can be expanded if needed. Thank you for the advice.

 

If you just go by measurements, you are correct. And yet when I output my a6 to an rtr dac and play over speakers the imaging is way better. Not even close to internal dac

 

Another over active imagination.
Compare unsighted,
Keith

 

I wish, it would be less expensive . I have compared unsighted. If I were just listening through headphones, you might be right, but special information is definitely different between delta sigma and R2R dacs.

 

Thank you to all for the insights and help.

I have plumped for a second hand A6 off of eBay and hope to receive it in the next day or so. Then the fun of configuring it to play with the Naim etc will begin. We are also having full fibre broadband installed tomorrow (if all goes to plan and so am hoping the WiFi will be much improved now we have the TP Deco 'mesh' around the house.

 

‘Special information’ !
A really well designed R2R design will have inaudible amounts of distortion and sound identical to SD, a poorly deigned one might add audible distortion but I don’t consider that particularly ‘special’.
Keith

 

I do not totally agree Keith. It's been demonstrated (yes, for the fun of the non-believers, on ASR) that R2R DACs are nowhere near the performance and cleanness of SD ones: lots of distortion is one of the main factors. Of course, this means warmth / colour / tube-like / you name it... but transparency is another thing: if you are on the quest for an extremely well performing DAC, IMHO, you should look for, and ONLY for, transparency. And if it is so, R2R DACs should be left out of the equation a priori.

 

I do not agree. The Holo Audio Cyan 2 measures exceptionally good over at Headphones.com, not to mention it's also an R2R-NOS design. Call me a "non-believer", but it definitely and with no doubt sounds better then all the DAC's i owned and own, DS, R2R, FPGA you name it. For example, the Chord Qutest vs. the Cyan 2. They are in about the same price range and they both measure very good. I compared them level matched and unsighted, with the help of my wife and one must be almost deaf not to recognize the difference in sound quality. The Cyan 2 has a pronounced roll-off in the very high frequencies compared to the Qutest in the measurements, but that, according to the "believers" should not be audible for a 68 year old.

 

The interesting question is how much distortion does the component have to add before we can reliably tell the difference between two ( one blameless) components.
Keith

 

Plenty of on-line hearing tests, Amir has measured this one,
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...measurements-of-holo-audio-cyan-dsd-dac.6992/
Pretty poor but probably still audibly transparent, if it does sound different, which it might it is just distortion you are hearing, which is not ‘better’.
Keith

 

I was talking about the Cyan 2 and the meaurements are from headphones.com and not from Bhagwan himself.

 

I can't contribute to the above debate, but just to say that the eBay A6 arrived today and is working. Please see pictures. I didn't have to tweet anything, so far, I just ran the update when prompted. It is connected to the Naim Nait via RCAs in to the Tuner inputs and the volume of the A6 is set to 0db. So far so good. As you can see Apple Music is playing nicely with the A6 and the Apple TV. What I don't know about is the the 44.1KHz? Is this the quality of the Music 'file' I know I'm on a learning curve and maybe shouldn't be anywhere near anything technical but, hey, I'm retired now so, you know, I have time

 

It's the number of samples of an audio signal per second. In this case 44100 samples per second.

 

Clearly I need to learn how to set it up properly, but thank you for the answer. I'm wondering about the A6 Volume at Zero db though as this seems to equate to full volume? If I then turn the volume up on the Nait, it is sounding distorted at normal listing levels.

 

If you take an analog signal and you want to convert it to digital often pulse coded modulation is used, meaning you slice an analog signal in time and magnitude. Time is the sampling rate and magnitude is the resolution. For example 44,1khz and 16bit is CD-Quality.

 

Set the A6 to passthrough and only use volume control on the naim. What you are doing is using two preamplifiers.

 

Try passthrough mode:

 

Thanks Richard, I've downloaded the PDF of the User Manual and then searched for 'passthrough', 'bypass' and 'pass through' but nothing is found? The closest I could figure was Settings, Source, XLR/RCA Output and RCA Output. It was set to XLR/RCA and there's no difference I can tell in sound between the two. Sorry if I'm missing something really obvious, and thank you for your patience.

 

Ah! Now I see. I wonder why the User Manual doesn't have that phrase in it the print? Anyway, I turned it to On and as you and _Richard_ will know, hey presto ! Thank you both so much!

P.S. The Optical Out works with my little Sennheiser BT Headphones unit so all is well for now,