Affirrmative on untapped headroom. Negatory on liposuction needs. With a dynamic driver's often greater speed over a typical twin-motor planarmagnetic's air flow issues from prison bars of stave magnets covering half the diaphragm on either side, I heard no fat. But thinness or deep-fried crispness were decidedly absentee, too. My DSP tweaks added just enough spatializer fill. At my dosage I still prioritized keen diction and control but mixed in just enough body and elasticity extras to service my taste. That's right back at the new paradigm of higher fidelity to personalized pleasure – without yet tapping the library of custom EQ curves which should add further layers. That's right back at the power of DSP when harnessed sophisticatedly. Be it tube emulators injecting tailored harmonic distortion, micro-specific amplitude profiles, counter-channel expansion and more, imagination seems the only limit on what can be tweaked. Legacy 'philes play with pre-school toys of footers, cables and endless hardware swaps to chase their perfect sound. Modern hedonists avail themselves of advanced university-level DSP which is far more predictive and surgical then has the advantage of being reversible without retreading the buy'n'sell hamster wheel. And we can A/B sundry settings without futzing about with cable, footer or actual component swaps for instant contrast. The obvious beauty of the X9 is its onboard DAC. If we enter USB, coax or optical, we're already in the digital domain. We can tap Luxsin's DSP without extra A/D conversion.

There's more. The current touch-screen craze with components meant to sit in a rack is utter silliness. Not only are those screens too small at distance, they're out of reach. Now you want a tablet or smartphone app. On a desktop meanwhile, touch screens are ideal. If they're as responsive, intuitive and crisp as Luxsin's plus angle up, we are in Fat City; with zero fat shaming. As to life expectancy where thin people live longer, I never trust that electronic displays won't eventually dim. It's why I turn them off when not needed and don't use max brightness. That seems common sense and self preservation. Being able to even bag a touch screen of Zidoo quality with real-looking dancing needles without spending a mint is a side effect of the cultural overlay of smartphone tech on the audio sector particularly in China. Such users demand equivalent features and functionality. Brands like Eversolo, FiiO, Luxsin and Shanling know and how to actually do it. Unlike hardware meters, software meters give us variety of colours and styles. It's something legacy 'philes of endless pockets could only dream of. Puritanical indoctrination then didn't even allow them to remember such lusty dreams. If you've tired of me ribbing such folks, it's all for a good cause. Hifi really has moved on from Harry Pearson's The Abso!ute Sound. That's a good thing. In 2025 engineers have learnt to do more with less—smaller lighter chassis, the latest IC, lower pricing—which makes this hobby more approachable. Availing ourselves of digital signal processing needn't be a dirty three-letter affair. The backwardness of such thinking drives home with simple bypass functions. They allow us to calmly inspect the various sonic permutations on tap. If we end up preferring straight up, no problem. Hold the ice and lemon wedge. We simply won't run the extra code. Chances are high though that like yours truly, you could shock yourself. You could find that a carefully tailored amount and type of DSP has your unequivocal vote. In which case you just leapfrogged from the last century to this. Good to finally meet you in the present!

In this mid 2025 present, the X9's sonics are an obviously moving target. In my view, the success of its many tuning options relies directly on the stock sound being maximally unadorned. To really hear what the enhancements do, we need a white canvas. That's poetry for neutrality. We only ever guess at it by contrast. Over many years of regular hardware encounters against familiar tunes, we build a personal idea of neutrality. But it's never more than that. None of us would know perfect neutrality if it slapped us. In full bypass, the X9 just met my idea of it whilst referencing prior comparisons between discrete and IC-based circuits. Invoking imagined neutrality simply isn't synonymous with having no taste. Equating neutrality with tastelessness is a curious but common mistake. The taste is in our tunes and their recorded values; then the mechanical transducers which convert electrical signal into air motion. This causes by far the most distortion in the entire chain to become the biggest seasoning agent. Having said that, with identical 6.3mm and 4.4mm cables for the Meze can at hand, exiting balanced has a resolution advantage which I even noticed with speaking voices of a podcast. If you invest in the X9, invest as well in a balanced cable. Otherwise you're buying a 4×4 to never go off-road or hit serious snow. It's not illegal but just an iota or eleven illogical? Strike that question mark. It is illogical. What also would be highly illogical is for a headfi amp to betray self noise. Into my loads the X9 was the proverbial grave though I didn't try über-efficient IEM. That would be more anti logic. IEM go walkabout. The X9 is stationary. There are mechanical clicks whilst quickly traversing the attenuator's resistor relays but we don't hear this with music playing or wearing cans. In practice it's thus a non issue. The remote control confirms each command with a flash of a small white LED between its two top buttons. If that LED no longer triggers, we know the batteries need replacing. It's a very small thing but testament to Luxsin sweating those. As we can agree, many small things add up quickly. Other than the always-on WiFi/BT transmitters which really ought to become software defeatable, I had zero complaints. Team Luxsin have done their homework then gone beyond with niceties like automatic Ω recognition, multi-pronged DSP tuning options and a gorgeous ideally angled touchscreen so very sensible on the desktop.

Back to sonics in an attempt to lock in this moving target with full bypass. My brighter more lit-up aune headphones registered as clearly as the darker bassier Final planarmagnetics. Even with the aune, the X9 didn't strike me as too dry or tonally bereft. I simply heard the rhythmic rigor which I equate with high negative feedback. Without overriding that gestalt, injecting medium xfeed and stereo width expansion relaxed it for a 'fluffier' feel without giving up more focus and adroit diction than I wanted. If you arrive from pure class A like aune's Evo amp; or discrete class AB like Kinki's THR-1; then the X9's bypass sound will probably strike you as somewhat stark and 'matter of fact'. That's especially true with this Rafael Cortés production Espada de Fuego. With lightning-fast Flamenco guitar technique of nearly clipped string stoppages, tonality naturally leans into the glassy. It's inherent to the recording to translate regardless. The question is merely of degrees. I thought that even with the SR7000, the Luxsin walked the straight 'n' arrow of recorded wiriness without tipping into recoil. But warmth and cuddliness clearly don't live on this album. Now it could surprise how little screen tapping it takes to shift that opinion with some DSP. You'll never morph into tube sound. That kind of range wouldn't be realistic. Yet with xfeed engaged, punctiliousness can become subtly more effusive, taut timing more elastic. Whilst classic amps sans DSP might start there, their fixation won't include crossfeed's spatial expander benefits. Anti-headfi sufferers would still complain of skull-locked imaging. With the X9, they won't. That's how I see the difference. The Luxsin arrives via DSP detour. Direct/pure is so last century and plainly too inflexible to account for individual listener preferences without an endless parade of musical chairs to chance upon a copasetic hardware combination; or tire of frustration well before it. The X9 can be set 'n' forget; or play 'n' tweak. The latter not only is fun and allows us to change our mind as often as we want. It's educational. We learn about different flavours and what we like. We can't like what we don't know. Exposure is king. Here the X9 is a kind of royalty despite not being priced for just blue bloods. Armed with these impressions and opinions, what should my conclusion be?