tee 0 Report post Posted May 24, 2003 Thanks N@Z for the advice. I have just got hold of a Bit88 from a friend yesterday for testing. Will post details after spending some time on it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tee 0 Report post Posted May 27, 2003 I have tried out Bit88 last nite. The general aspect of its builds and looks have been covered in the url links provided previously. So i shall not take up your time here. In terms of sound quality, i would say that it is a far distance off from the transparency that Corda HA-1 or Grado RA-1 brings. However, it does provide some mellowing effect for vocals so that you get the warmth feeling from the singers (similar to MF X-10D's effect). This is in addition to the amplification functionality that comes naturally with it. Soundstage or soundfied wise, i would rate it as mediocre at best (no apology although Stax may have caused that shift in my referencing benchmark). But for a good system set-up (with speakers), the enhancement loses its shine as the clarity factor suffers quite a fair bit in return for warmer sound that could actually be taken care of with appropriate matching of the interconnect and speaker cables (using Blue Heaven in this case with Shangling as source and Krell as driver). In fact, for a good tube-driven setup (based on my use of Shangling's tube output as proxy), the mellowing function maybe superfluous. But if used strictly for headphones, then i think it offers an additional purpose of creating a gentle hall effect or reverberating sounding (as found in most DSP processers in HT setups). This is useful, IMHO, more for background music but not for critical listening. In my short analysis and conclusion, i would classify Bit88 more as a sound processor for toning the sound characteristics towards more mellow voicing with some hall effects. And hence it is definitely not for the purists. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
