Haven’t heard it myself but I believe its an excellent tuning, same as all the rest of MoonDrop’s single DDs. And therein lies the problem; if you already own something with this tuning, then there is no reason for you to sidegrade to the Aria2. Also I find that $90 is a bit high for most newcomers to the hobby, so even though its the newest generation of MDs single DDs I don’t know that I’ll personally be recommending it to anyone.

No shade to Aria2 though, I expect it to sell just as well as the rest of the MD lineup. I remember a lot of shade being thrown at Aria SE on launch as well, even tho current opinion seems to have shifted in favor of it and I’ve seen enough customer photos to convince me that people are buying it despite the similarly lukewarm reviewer takes.

Ended up purchasing a Softears Volume because I’ve been needing something after the right DD in my 41t failed… Honestly though I was really tempted to just buy another 41t

This is probably because the onboard DAC in your laptop is not transparent. You should check your laptop spec sheet for details, but most likely yours has an entry level ALC/Realtek chip, which are known for being pretty lousy.

If this is the case, then yeah you would find most amps brighter than your laptop out.