sorry for ressurecting this thead. Just snagged this baby. Going back between this and Meitner MA-1 (which is around 1.5k more). After some pretty much extensive hearing, climbing 5 lvel of stairs (the ECD show room is 5 floors below the Meitner) and pissing off the meitner salesman (because I didnt buy frm them), here's my humble observation:
1. Technicality, Meitner is better. Vertical soundstage is top notch. The EMM Labs DAC 2x is even better. Separation as well where the Meitner is tad better, and detail. This all sum up to one word : CLINICAL. Bass is what it is, High if its piercing it will cut your ear. True to the recording.
2. Musicality, this ECD beat it hands down. A bit of hump in the mid area but not enough to be annoying. The rest are perfect especially if you're listening to instrumental music. The mid also can be shouty but not to the degree of fatiguing. Toe tapping music everytime I put a new track.
One caveat, I auditioned both this DAC on speaker setup AND on different setup. There's a lot that can be differ there if it comes to headphone.
One weakness so far for the ECD, the USB section only support up to windows 7. My laptop is on windows 8. Hopefully the release the driver soon.
And I should've hunted for the ECD-1 instead.......could've save me lots of money but this brand is quite a rarity down here