As I reported in an earlier post I've been playing with a new Zhaolu
2.5C DAC this winter. I've modded it per information found in several
places:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?
s=&threadid=77992&perpage=25&pagenumber=1

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/mod-your-zhalou-thread-178893/

Note: you may want to start on page 130 or 150 for the Head-Fi
thread, since it is 200 pages long.

I Finally got a chance to put my modded Zhaolu 2.5C up against some
strong competition. This DAC has been modded per post #303 and a few
others here recommended by Kevin. It has the CD DAC chip in it and
the 4562 op amps in the output stage.

I also replaced the power supply filtering with a "Felix" power
conditioner, as described by Paul Kap on many threads at
www.audiocircle.com. In fact, Paul was at this showdown and brought
his Zhaolu 2.0 DAC along to compare also.

So, what did we put it up against? A Remyo CDP-777. We used this as
the transport and just flicked back and forth between the 777 and the
Zhaolu - a very easy compare. Here's a link to a 6-Moons review of
this $17,000 CD player, which some reviewers think may be one of the
best in the world:

[URL=http://6moons.com/audioreviews/combak2/cdp_3.html]
http://6moons.com/audioreviews/combak2/cdp_3.html[/URL]

So how did it fare? There were subtle differences, but in a nutshell
I believe we all agreed that if we walked out of the room and back in
again we wouldn't be able to tell which player was playing.

So, what were the subtle differences?
- There was a slightly better inner dynamic on the Reimyo, like the
difference between f and ff or p and pp.
- The broad dynamics were pretty close with the Reimo having a better
bass, which is where it manifested mostly. The Zhaolu was ever so
slightly light sounding in the midbass and lower midrange, but that
could also be the op-amps I chose, and so can be adjusted.
- There was a very slight veiling on the Zhaolu's. The leading "ting"
of cymbals was not quite as sharp and pronounced.
- Also, the Reimyo had better decay of notes, letting them fade away
more naturally.

Am I picking nits here? Yes, the differences were very subtle and
probably not noticeable at all except that we had a direct A-B
compare via a switch.

The bottom line, this DAC, which I have maybe $300 into, stood up
incredibly well against a state of the art $17,000 player. Not bad
for this little champ.

The difference between the 2.0 and 2.5C was even more subtle, with a
bit more detail and transparency going to the 2.5C, but I'm sure Paul
will be addressing this in his unit to bring them closer together.

All in all, both of us were very happy with the outcome, and the
owner of the Reimyo was glad that there were differences, but with a
$16,700 difference in price I think I'll stick with the Zhaolu for
now.

How does it compare to the DI/O? Well, I think the DI/O has been
beaten finally in the inexpensive giant killer category. There is
more detail and imaging and soundstaging and dynamics and just about
everything else. So the Zhaolu is now my reference.

Next discussion topic, are high $$$ digital players one of the
biggest scams in audio?

Enjoy,
Bob