As a matter of fact, the hissing level when paired up with Zeus XRA is very mild – impressive, considering I usually keep P2 in high gain (headphone setting). That’s a reason why lately P2 became my go-to DAP (and I’m aware I said that in the past about other daps) where I don’t have to think if I’m using balanced or single ended cable, or to worry if IEMs needs more driving power due to lower sensitivity, or to worry about hissing due to high sensitivity or low impedance. If you don’t take JetEffect into consideration, PM2 would make a great pair up with a more revealing or neutral IEMs, but P2 neutral-revealing signature is more versatile to pair up with headphones/earphone of any sound signature and without a need for JetEffect. I guess everybody has a different sound preference, but in my opinion the P2 is a very noticeable upgrade from PM2 which I’m quite familiar with, where PM2 is smoother, warmer, not as layered and not as revealing.

In a few discussions with the original P1 owners who asked me about the sound of P2, I sensed a bit of a disappointment from some who had expectations of a warmer, thicker, musical type of sound they got used to with the original line up of Plenue DAPs. And it also nicely expanded in terms of the soundstage where the width and the height are only limited by the tuning of your headphones/earphones. The sound is dynamically expanded, doesn’t feel compressed at all, and has a fast-transient response of the notes, and black background, especially when you compare SE (3.5mm) to BAL (2.5mm) HO where I hear a little improvement with higher res files. Also, it has a very impressive technical performance with a sound being layered, transparent, and resolving. To my ears, P2 has a tonality which keeps the balance between these two worlds. But nothing is perfect, and you have variations of sound being skewed either toward the more revealing or smoother/warmer side of neutral. In my opinion, the ideal signature of any DAP is to be as neutral as possible so you can evaluate and enjoy the true sound signature of your headphones without additional coloring of the sound. And I don’t mean “reference” as in thinner, harsher, or analytical, but rather a more revealing sound which can reach a micro-detail level when it comes to retrieval of details. As I already mentioned, I didn’t hear the original P1 and only familiar with PM2, but based on everything I have read about the original P1, my experience with PM2, and many listening hours I spent with P2 (after 150hrs of burn in), I can draw a conclusion that Cowon decided to take advantage of the new AKM AK4497EQ DAC and move to a more neutral revealing signature with a natural reference quality tonality.

Cowon D2 Usb Driver