My first impression on Mystic XP1 is the wide soundstage, the bold and warm musical signature. It is different from any portable devices I’ve been listening to.
Mystic has superb soundstage and great instrument separation, vocal is warm and smooth. Drums and percussions are bold and punchy. Guitar is lack of the metallic pitch, but I like it. Sorry I’m not a reviewer, I don’t know how to categorize these music sounds as low, bass, mid or trebles etc, ha! I really feel it push my IEM (Elysian Gaea, Project Zero, IE800, Tangzu Waner, Shimin Li and Campfire Solaris etc) to their limits. I also tried the HD6XX, it sounds great too. But I’m not a headphone guy. I really enjoy the music with this dac/amp.
I also tried to listen to music from the micro SD card using the Shanling app. It works fine and sound great. Didn’t try the Bluetooth yet, I’m not interested of this function on this device. I own an Ifi Go Pod, I’m very happy with that.
As compared to Hugo2. It is transparent, relax and analytics compare to Mystic XP1. I never realize the “ss” “SH” in vocal (in Hugo2) can be a bit annoying after listening to Mystic for a few hours (hope it make sense). Both have different sound signature, but feature wise Mystic is a beast with all the gadgets and gimmicks that I’ve been looking for. Some may thing it is an upgrade from H7. I’m not sure as I haven’t tried.
Before I tried the Mystic, I was listening to Enleum HPA-23RM with Hiby RS2. Then someone (I think is the sales guy) pass me this device, I’m impressed by how good it sounds at first impression. This is much cheaper than the Enleum, so I ordered one. Not saying it sound better or on par with Enleum, that would need more listening and comparison.
