I have auditioned the Ideon Absolute Epsilon DAC with Ideon Absolute Time side by side with MSB Premier DAC. The first week was without MSB. My first impression of Ideon was that it is a very high-performance DAC, and I was quite impressed of what I heard. My impression of Ideon is very similar to what Robert Harley writes in his review in the absolute sound (but we come to different conclusions). Compared to my current DAC (Lyngdorf) it is much faster, has much better clarity and is more vivid. The soundstage is impressive. I listened to it a couple of days, but on the third day, a minor doubt crept in. The fourth day some questions arose. Could I hear any signs of transient overshoots of leading edges? No, nothing and no hardening of the tones. But I felt I was listening more to the DAC than the music. After a week, the MSB DAC arrived. I Immediately heard that these two DACs sounded quite different. The performance of Ideon with the reclocker is, I would estimate, slightly better than the Premier in most areas, e.g. somewhat lower noise floor (Ideon plus reclocker is roughly twice the price of the Premier). The big difference was that the MSB DAC never called attention to itself. I never felt that the MSB DAC exaggerated anything. There was a clear difference in soundstage between the DACs. The MSB portrayed the soundstage as a plane between the speakers (not so much front and back), whereas the Ideon projected the soundstage more forward, especially for voice. This more forward soundstage was at first appealing, but after some more days of listening, I felt a hint of obtrusiveness. I will try to describe another difference in soundstage. For simplicity, every instrument in the soundstage is projected as a sphere. These spheres were bigger for Ideon than for MSB. When you listen to multi instrument recordings, these spheres tend to overlap more with Ideon than with MSB. The effect was more blurring between the instruments with Ideon than with MSB. Another difference was that I had to lower the volume by 3-5 dB (I use a SPL meter from listening position) when I switched from MSB to Ideon to achieve my optimal (most pleasant) listening level. An example of a track that suits Ideon best (few instruments and no voice) is the world-class recording of Al Di Meola et al. on Friday Night in San Fransisco, e.g. Mediterranean Sundance. The enjoyment of this track while listening to Premier was almost the same as with Ideon. I also listen to Ideon without a preamplifier, but I thought it was too clinical-sounding.
After a couple of more days of listening and, switching between MSB and Ideon, I came to the conclusion that I prefer the MSB sound. I will categorize the MSB DAC as neutral (although I know it is impossible to agree on what kind of sound is neutral). Most of the posts at WBF discuss what is best in different sonic categories but more seldom neutrality (and deviation from neutrality) is discussed. My claim here is that Ideon deviates more from a neutral sound than MSB. I will bring forth one argument for neutrality. I believe that recording and mastering engineers in general listen to cheaper DACs than these two, and to my experience, cheaper DACs (although having worse performance than high-end DACs) often sounds neutral. The sound the mastering engineer hears when the final master is finished is what is intended to be heard in a playback system.
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