Hello Sir, i don't comment often but you are a master and that's a pleasure to listen at you. I could comment on every video regarding the quantity i learn from quality tests. Thanks for all this great information. I took the khadas tone board as a dac after seeing your reviews on audiosciencereview. And i thank you for this too because it was not a waste of money. I just discovered your YT channel and i love it, it's like seeing in real so much reviews i've seen from you on every type of audio equipement. Plus the fact it's nice to see your passion and discipline married together to bring us this high quality content. Sorry if my english is trash.
I assume that the people voting this review down either own one of these and can't face up to reality or work for the manufacturer. Well done Amir. This review is fascinating on a number of levels.
I have an Audio GD DAC-amp and I like it a lot. But I am pretty certain that it doesn't measure very well :o) - I like this channel, and this video and will not vote down anything!
Some people will vote down a video to try to tell RUclips's algorithms that a video that has been recommended to them is not something they are interested in. It is not always a criticism of the video itself.
@@GodmanchesterGoblin I was going to write that. Thanks for pointing that out. Up means "keep showing me things like this." Down means "In not interested." not "I disagree."
There is two kind of HW EE engineer the one that don't understand applications note and not understand the circuit, they put 24 bit DAC , they think they will get 24 bit , and the other side the HW experience engineer, they understood that 24 bit DAC need noise floor better then -144dB , and even reference to that DAC should have accuracy up to 24bit , to get -120dB is easy task for experience HW engineer, but go from -120dB to - 144dB is not easy task . This my 35 years experience as M.Sc. EE.
Well said. Very few engineers are good at this type of design. They can learn though if they start to measure what they are building. Sadly they won't.
True. I had 44 years in electronics (now retired). I always told people... "You need to understand where the electrons go and what they are doing". Too many learn about the basic building blocks of a circuit but know almost nothing about how they may interact on a real circuit board with a real signal chain. Good PCB design (whether audio, digital or RF) is a skill and an art. Applications like high-end audio DACs push those requirements to the limits.
You should test the Holo Audio May custom implementation r2r DAC. Manages around 118dB SINAD with an r2r design. Goes to show that r2r designs don't have to measure badly.
I take it they can't check linearity with the gear they have. Retired instrumenation designer here: selecting resistors to 15 parts per million is quite a challenge. Chopping time with sub nanosecond precision is easier - especially in a dedicated chip, which is the prime reason most aodio Codecs are bitsteam types of device.
For you people that defends this product, I don't care that the measurements are bad, what I care about is that the company lies about the measurements. The company shows great measurements and when a third party measures them and get bad measurements, people defend this company with saying "measurements don't matter". Why does the company lie? Ask that yourself instead. I used to have a NFB-27.38. It was my first audio unit, I thought it would be awesome, then ASR measures it and his measurements tell another story against Audio-gds measurements. I sold it immediately and now I have a RME ADI-2 DAC and SMSL SP400. Much better sounding than whatever Audio-gd was doing.
The thing is.. you probably did not hear a difference between them.. It is god awful when it comes to measurements and there is just about enough wrong with it that maybe.... once you might've had a chance of hearing but didn't notice. You have to do an A/B test, level matched within +-0.1dB or it does not count.
@@squidcaps4308 The highs were distorted on the NFB-27.38, The noisefloor was a lot higher therefore dynamic range felt lower, the unit had a constant grounding noise issue on higher volumes, etc. There is no noise even cranking to the max on RME and SMSL
@@squidcaps4308 A criticism I have of the ASR site is that he's measuring things that don't really matter (DAC's, amplifiers, AVR's), while not having the time and resources to measure the things that do (loudspeakers and headphones). If I've learned anything from the site, it's that adding a subwoofer and multi-channel audio will at least somewhat correct for those flaws. I stick around because it's fun catching manufacturers lying or showing their design incompetence.
I am so happy that Amir shows these measurements. It seems that consumers are still taken for a ride and pretty much are unprotected. Thanks to ASR the consumer has a little bit more confidence in making a choice.
I read the audio science review for master 7 and I bought one. AB tested against several others. Conclusion: I'm sorry but you guys are having a wild trip. If you actually think this DAC sounds bad after actually listening you need to see a doctor.
I didn't quite understand the point at 33:15. The main reason to use PayPal is that you're covered by their buyer's protection when dealing with not completely reliable sellers. And of course you're expected to pay in advance. I've never seen cash on delivery option when buying anything from china.
It's all about the marketing process: expensive, preorder thus long waiting time (afaik) & customisation/addons (at least on some models), then it's the factory burnin and user recomended burn-in. Considering these, IT HAS to sound good :)
The formula is very clear. What is a bit unusual here is that the company not only appeals to the camp of "it sounds good" but also objective customers who would look at measurements by posting some. So the person thinks they are covered on both fronts. I wish what they were showing was true. Overbuilt (and even expensive) is fine in my book as long as performance doesn't suffer but sadly it does here.
I own the newer audio GD products and they sound great. Not sure if they measure badly but compared to other products around their price, they are really pleasant to listen to over the others. In the forums people compare them to even higher priced dacs/ headphone amps. Never heard the Master 7 Singularity though.
It seems to me that you get most if not all your review pieces from people asking to review their gear. I could be wrong, but most on RUclips reviewers get their pieces from a distributor or directly from the manufacturer. Do you review any piece from anyone who sends one in? Would you review what I send you?
While you were making these measurements & creating graphs did you ever take the time to actually LISTEN to the DAC? AUDIO-gd has been around for many years. I have had some experience with their DAC's and found them sound very good. Measurements alone do not tell the full story of how a piece of gear actually sounds
How important are your measurements? Devices with excellent measurement values sound different. How is it possible, when according to the measurements the errors are a few zeros from the perceptible limit? Can you somehow explain how this is possible? Shouldn't some new measurement methods be proposed to measure the differences in the outputs?
The Burr Brown PCM1704 chip used here is not a delta-sigma DAC though. BB refears to it as a sign-magnitude architecture. You'll also see it referred to as a R-2R ladder DAC. It's great to hear Amir's informed opinion on this type of DAC architecture which has an almost mystical aura in some audiophile circles.
@@JesusMartinez-mk6fc I know, but with their R-2R DACs that principle no longer applies, there's no longer a correlation between price and performance. But on the subject of R-2R dacs, I wonder how often people buy them and then play DSD files through them.
@@Phos9Indeed, playing DSD files through a DAC using R-2R DAC chips is a misguided endeavor for those DSD purists. As you probably know the R-2R DAC chips can't play DSD signals, only PCM. The makers of DACs using these types of chips that wish to also support DSD have to include additional circuitry to convert the DSD signal into PCM, which completely defeats the purpose of safeguarding the putity of the DSD signal.
please can you measure some dacs from older top of the range av recievers specifically the pioneer vsa ax10i and the yamaha dspa3090 ? I own these and others and would be interested on your opinions on using these older high priced products as dacs /dacs preamplifier today . if we had a high quality dac and used eq to voice the sound if needed then I feel like that's going yo be the best option to get the sound you like
I have the original Audio GD Reference One DAC, it sounds better than all the other DACs I have tried including the Topping D90. I am very sure it measures bad, I also read somewhere that ladder DACs are more distorted but more musical than delta sigma DACs... like tube equipment.
@@heathwirt8919 Let me guess you have never heard one and your comment is childish BTW, if you are a child then forgive me. I have a Topping D10 used for USB to SPDIF to feed this DAC. The D10 internal DAC scores high by Amir but does not sound close as musical and detailed. My friend has a PS Audio Directstream DAC that scored poorly by Amir but sounds amazing on his Mcintosh C1100, 1.25KW and B&W speakers.
@@V.Hazezz Musical is when it sounds like music to "my" ears. Among a large variety of test equipment I have have been using an oscilloscope and RF spectrum analyzer since the 80s to make certain conclusions, nowadays I accept RFC and BERT results at my day job. I believe in test results and for a long time it is how I defined audio gear. These days, when it comes to audio equipment I strictly rely on my ears to determine what sounds good and when that stop working all the numbers in the world wouldn't matter.
@@scorpven Well said @V. But I'm afraid you will never convince the "measurements are everything" crowd. They seem to know best how music sound to you.
Can't help but wonder what the owner thought of this DAC before you analyzed it Amir - - my question is more about what his subjective thoughts generally were as compared to the measured reality of this lagging design.
We generally don’t hear all that great, or as great as we think. I’d say your average Joe off the street couldn’t tell this over a competent DAC. But the price value is silly.
It was my 1st DAC, so nothing to compare it too. I bought recently a Topping D90 SE and I noticed a big improvement (this is 100% subjective). So I decided to send it to Amir in order to confirm my feelings.
@@Mike2far Thanks Mike - appreciate you describing what you experienced - interesting, at least to me - - and like homeboi808 is pointing out, "average Joe" or not, I doubt that I personally could detect that this is evidently an inferior implementation, especially without something to compare it to - so thanks again, it is cool to now have your insight - Skip ( ;
@@skip1835 Wether you can hear it or not, it's nice to know that it's being reproduced the way it was intended to sound. For that same reason I don't understand tube amps. Just give it to me straight. Don't try to color it or smooth it out.
I don't know anything about the DAC in the video, but I challenge you people to properly A/B test a currently in production Audio-gd DAC to your SOTA measuring Topping D90 which is kingdom of heaven for you. (Although price/performance it may be the best really.) ...Yes, listening test. I know it sounds kinda weird for you to listen to a DAC, since you just make assumptions based on some measurements and opinions from the web. It just happens that I owned both (at the same time), and I know the result - it would surprise you. *As I revisited this comment by accident, I have to correct my wording a bit. I'm not against the ASR community at all, but a lot of people on the forum trash talks (they in fact love to do that) on products that ie. they measure not 0.00003 THD but 0.003 THD, or when they measure something at -120db. That's crazy. They talk about how important measurements are and how you can't hear or there are no "audiophile magic things", yet they adore those ridiculous numbers the same as some the "magic things". That is the complete opposite dreamworld of the dreamworld some audiophiles live in. The two extremes.
It seems that there is a lot of money in snake oil. The easiest way to become rich in audiophile manufacturing is produced some beautiful cables and charge a fortune.
True, but I would not call this product snake oil - I would call it incompetent. Snake oil to me implies a fraudulent attempt to extract money from a buyer using false "scientific" claims. This product just fails to deliver because it is a very poorly executed design.
I’ve had the Master 9 pre/head amp for years, it’s fantastic. I’ve never bought a product on measurements but on how it sounds. Hifi + magazine has always been my favourite mag for reviews, they use their ears for reviews. I bought the early Shanling cdt 100 cd player the thing was phenomenal. After 20 years it finally died but I think it was a good purchase. As for Audio GD I ‘m going for one of their DACs to match my master 9 with Acss connection. Audio Gd engineer has received an award for his designs so he must be doing something right? Eh?
Measurements police out in full force these days. I’m grateful there are still manufacturers that listen to their products instead of basing everything on measurements.
Wonderful review Amir. I've been wondering about how Audio-GD gear performs for some years now. What appears to be a great design at first sight results in a total catastrophe. This one is too funny. 😁
Listening to the r 7 mark 2. Initial desire was the Aqua Audi la scala , at 8300 out of my range. Had a credit with the distributor, that made the r7 less than 3 k. Comparable to the la scala in my system. It’s a keeper, and based on these measurements, doubt any chance of reselling it.
This looks like the typical "design by datasheet" that some brands put out. Sadly, I have seen this elsewhere in consumer audio, where well specified parts are effectively trashed because the circuit designer and / or PCB layout engineer do not have the necessary knowledge of how to manage things like crosstalk, signal and power grounding, how to manage component tolerances, and in this case, clock recovery and synchronisation issues. I see lots of parts here, but very little know-how. As for ever sending a product back for repair - that's a very valid point. In this case, I would doubt that they would be able to adequately identify faults and implement the repairs correctly.
@@AudioScienceReview I´m into graphics nowdays tho my background is electronics/electric (college/uni), but even I fell for some of the HiFi-BS. Your page/vids are so usefull for the community - cheers!
I have heard a lot about it. As custom DACs that is one of the very few that seems to work well. I tested one of their other models a while back: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-holo-audio-cyan-dsd-dac.6992/
@@AudioScienceReview will read it thanks. As a musician of over 40 years, yeah I just aged myself lol, playing piano, violin and guitar, DACs are fascinating to me. I recently auditioned the Topping SE90 and it was one of the worst sounding DACs I’ve heard. And ive heard quite a few. Timbre was the most off. I know very well what violins sound like , pianos and even more so guitars. Yeah it sounded like an A440 if that is the note that was being played but didn’t sound like a violin. There is something else going on that hasn’t been measured or hasn’t been quantified yet. Was it quiet? Yes. Extremely. Very very low in output volume however. Had to boost my benchmark LA4 to volume match with some other DACs I have. Maybe that’s how they get the low noise floor. Don’t know. He benchmark DAC3 was one DAc that was very well measured and actually sounded really good. Same chipset as the Topping but a much better sounding musical reproduction. Cheers
@@Nightjar726 I have tested 350 DACs in the last three years. I can tell you with completely confidence that your impression of Topping SE90 is wrong. Please do a blind test where you don't know the identify of the unit. Only then you can have a reliable judgement of it.
@@AudioScienceReview pardon. But you are telling me my opinion is wrong? Nice. I don’t care if you have measured one million DACs. I spent most of my life devoted to learning music and how to play three instruments. That’s thousands of hours learning and playing. I know what instruments sounds like and actually what they feel like. The tactile response. I also bought the benchmark AHB2 and LA4 preamp because they measure well and sound great. So I’m not against measurements. Not in the least. But my ears tell me what I’m hearing as well. A bit of humility would maybe serve you well, before making a statement that someone else’s opinion is blatantly ‘ wrong’ as you say. Pick up an instrument and devote thousands of hours learning how to make it sound good. Then come talk to me. Humility and curiosity is also a part of science. Maybe dig deeper and see why no one who is serious about sound uses that DAc. Or are you saying you’ve learned as much as you can and that’s it? Cheers
@@Nightjar726 Topping D90SE is one of the best measuring dacs in existence. Its beyond audibly transparent. Its like not having a dac at all. Either your other dacs werent very good or your topping was faulty.
That single ended output rising distortion looks more like the DAC circuit having a huge amount of common mode noise in the entire path, but the differential circuit is just hiding the sins.
Thx a lot Amir for doing these things. Just gotta love what you do here 🤓 I was really shocked by what you presented, such a high priced product with completely sub-par performance. My view is that great measurements does not guarantee great performance but this kind of measurements easily guarantee unacceptable performance.
Gosh, if someone showed me a photo of that PCB, I would say "wow, this must be some expensive piece of hi-end gear with reference-class performance". But no, somehow it's a total crap easily outperformed by some budget Chinese DACs.
This seems to be a standard routine in the audiophile world. Especially with high end cables, where the 'return if not satisfied' window is shorter than the burn in time.
I'm an engineer and I congratulate you on your technically flawless analysis, we're dealing with a poorly designed Chinese product, whose project guidelines are sloppy. Nonetheless, if you'll allow me, and with due respect, I'd also like to take this opportunity to comment on your overall reviewing bias as well. I can see that you're predominantly a "workbench-oriented" and "technical" kind of guy. Nothing wrong with that at all, but please realize that by keeping such profile you just manage to cover the "electrical-signal-integrity" side of things, but you don't necessarily accomodate the listeners' side. Our ears behave non-linearly many times, and psychoacoustics is a large field that must be taken into consideration, one where surprises abound, and which may cause listeners to look for design preferences that would not always be deemed technically "sacrosanct", and which measure perfectly on the bench. (Don't get me wrong - this Chinese DAC is poor indeed, but I'm speaking of generalities here) Also, the CD is a medium which was created with several compromises and intrinsic deficiencies, which cause DAC decoding to be incomplete and far from perfection. Having said that, I can understand that audiophiles are able to detect some things now and then - for instance, my ear does prefer some non-oversampling DAC's due to their being able to retrieve more ambient space with a sense of increased airiness, and so I realize where the NOS DAC "myth" might have come from. (Causing us to ask if it's really an audiophile myth after all. Have people listened to supposed technical flaws as detected on the workbench? Have people dared check these things out by listening attently?) So, if somebody is to write reviews, I think one had better go to the test bench but also go listen afterwards and bridge up these two reviewing philosophy extremes (as long as one has got good ears for the job, that is, something that does not always happen), so that the product's designer philosophy may or may not be confirmed/justified by the reviewers/buyers. I've seen many electronic designs which are technically perfect on the bench but which I'd have restrictions about upon listening more carefully, and also the other way round, i.e., seemingly poor designs which may incredibly sound good overall or present some aspect which is rewarding (i.e., the ambiance retrieval I've mentioned). So it's not black and white; objectivism only has value when (and if) it teams up with some subjectivism so that the general outcome can really portray a better reviewing reality. (Again, this does not apply to this particular Chinese DAC that you're reviewing)
To comment on the Chinese stuff I can say I have 1000 euro headphones from a very well respected in pro circles and that is from Europe that measured poorly by Amir, has had cables melt (poor casing), and stupid expensive to fix. They are also part of a group who has a sister company with some of the best measured Studio monitors on AVS. As a music producer it is brutal in trying to find objective reviews so I applaud these reviews.
This stuff amazes the heck out of me and shows the disdain they have for their customers by charging top dollar for this "thing". Don't they know about Matrix audio and Holo audio and for "similar" prices how they go about presenting their final products?
@@jeremyglover5541 It seems that neither of us has heard this DAC so we can only guess how it sounds but there are those who have heard it and report that it sounds very good so personally I reserve judgement until I have heard it. Conversely though, I have heard plenty of DACs that measure well and don't sound that great.
@@mikelm222 I design high performance DACs for kicks these days. this thing is horrendous and insisting that someone has to hear a DAC to know that something so obviously incompetent isnt somehow magic is ridiculous. I could select the components in diptrace, hit autoroute and get a better result a few seconds later.. This dac has performance that is quite literally hundreds of times worse than modern units costing $100. The suggestion that any comment on a design isnt relevant unless you've heard it is laughable and usually spouted by people who dont know what they are looking at. To throw so many resources at a design and miss so badly, says it all. theyve paralleled 8 x pcm1704 chips for a stereo unit, 4 per channel and this decision, at todays prices would add a few hundred to the BOM for EOL parts. This technique has no purpose other than improving objective performance, yet they couldnt match datasheet level performance you should expect when using the standard 2, let alone 8 pieces.. This isnt just pleasant sounding even order harmonics either. Its a shambles. I'm not against discrete circuits. You can get very good results with simple/elegant designs and there is something to achieving high performance with a minimum components. To miss the mark so badly, while throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it is sad IMO
@@mikelm222 People think the crap stock speakers that come in their cars sound good. They don't know what they're missing. It's the same thing with this. If you actually think that subjective tests are somehow better than objective tests showing us a SHIT LOAD OF NOISE, you're blind ... and just the perfect person that this DAC is meant for.
Inside of that thing is a copper scrappers dream come true. Damn all that Got enough VA capacity to drive a 400W amplifier and the thing is just putting out puny signals.
I used to have DAC that "attempted" to reclock input to an internal clock, except buffer seems to be too small... So every few seconds there will be a "click" of buffer either overrun or underrun... It boggles my mind that I kept seeing these type of stuff (once in late 2000, another around 2013, both creators are about a few thousand of km apart)... Do they have no idea it would be a problem in the concept stage? Or are they dead in the prototype stage?
It's sad that there are still many audio EE engineers who don't understand that electronics isn't just about beautifying a PCB with expensive passive components. It is not surprising that there are only a few brands - such as Apple, that can do both proper analog semiconductor circuit design and aesthetic PCB design.
my gut feeling told the GD Audio devices should be good, but no. It shows that you can't go by gut feeling, be it with shiny boutique brands or alleged underdogs..
Replaced my Topping DX7 pro with an Audio-Gd R28 about three months ago. Had a Benchmark DAC before that. The Audio-Gd has much richer, fuller sound than either of them. Maybe I enjoy the extra harmonics.
Clearly you do. And there's nothing wrong with that ... audio is about what sounds good to you. If you like having a lighter wallet and something coloring your recordings, go for it and enjoy. It's your money and your time. Do whatever the heck you want with it!
Honestly the way you are putting hate on Audio GD in order to get who knows what it's really a badass… I own one DAC Singularity that sound fantastic at my listening room and a lot of friends appreciate the sound. Do not know what NOS means (No oversampling) really. Or the unit you’ve tested were broke/defective or your measurement equipment is obsolete or your knowledge doesn’t let you go further. Awesome to see the bunch of all sheep followers relying on bad personal experiences or hate on a good product. It’s a shame because I opened my eyes. When listen to you, you look to have a big knowledge and understand the Audio world. Unlike other reviewers or experts you keep pushing forward and writing coments over and over only to provoke more comments and incite the already created hatred. I’m wondering if I should keep following you. Use please good “frequencies” Criticism can always be done in a positive way. Being wiser than the others. Specially when you are the leader of the forum/discussion.
Without these proper objective measurements, you might assume a high level of precision from it's internals. Shows you how much overall product/circuit design will affect sound quality over the amount, type or cost of components. With modern technology, there's no reason to drop $10,000+ to get "audiophile" levels of sound quality. Approx $200 to $300 will afford you a USB DAC (or PCIe sound card) capable of 127dB+ SNR and 0.0008% (or lower) THD.
lol!! That is epically bad, but exactly what I would have expected. I've been bagging this company and their clear lack of design chops since they arrived on the scene. I was never impressed. Its always been about throwing as many audiophile trends/cliches at a design as they could. An example. that FPGA in the middle section, surrounded by a ring of pretty red WIMA film caps for decoupling, when PTH film caps are precisely the worst type of capacitor to use for decoupling HF digital signals and power, exemplifies the problem. Their fanbois are typically the least technically informed audiophiles and would recoil in horror at smd ceramic X7R caps surrounding it; even though they are absolutely the best part for the job.
@@homeboi808 They do, because a design this bad will also have plenty of opportunity for intermodulation distortion where those harmonics may mix and create additional components which are audible.
This instrument is bizarre to say the least, over designed to the umpteenth degree and yet plagued with circuit gaffes that bring the performance to a very mediocre level. Thank you for this informative review.
I own the Master 19 and for the Money ive never heard something better..." Its dead silent and my Hifiman HPs sound all great. The Dynamic is exceptional, all the Topping Stuff sounds like Kindergharden, 2-3 Leagues below. in spite of the excellent Numbers on the Specs Sheet... Iam pretty sure the better and more expensice Audio-GD Models sound even better...than my Master 19. But for me its enough and my He1000v2 is shining like a SuperNova. I dont care abour Measurements, thats your Problem...(: OM
Well, I don't care about opinions that are not backed by anything. You could say UFOs are real. Or that aliens live among us. What am I going to do with such assertion? Nothing.
@@AudioScienceReview U are not very intelligent, may be ? My Feeling (Heart) and my Ears are my Leader and my Guru, and not stupid Measurements. Who are U, am Human Being or a Robot?
This seems to show a big disconnect between price and performance, and the all-too-common, odd, false correlation of those factors in the minds of a large part of the audiophile faithful. The poignant part is that another RUclips audio pundit might name this a 'product of the year.' And the faithful would lust after it. .... It's why I don't believe a word of most subjective reviews without other corroborating objective testing of the same model. Meanwhile, most of the popular subjective reviewers won't even ADMIT that they check objective reviews before they write or speak their purple prose. But they slavishly read the nearly useless datasheets from the manufacturer as though there is some useful truth to them.
@@busterb11702 And you can neither describe it nor communicate it subjectively. How do you describe a string bass to someone who only knows rap? A piano to someone who only likes electric guitars? Yeah sure -- price will do it, wouldn'tyousay?
It's quite unfair to compare a R2R dac with a bunch of D/S dac and you probably know it. As someone from commet said, it's not designed to measure well. IF you still want to make measurement comparison at least compare to other R2R dacs such as ones from Metrum or some other brands. No one who buy this are looking for the best measurement equipment
Why is it unfair? The device is capable of better performance, but due to bad design, it's not testing well. Why would you want a poorly designed DAC? I mean, do you hate tests so much that you purposely choose the shit that tests poorly?
@@Wizardofgosz In which part did I say I want a poorly designed dac or I hate tests? I simply stated that comparing measurement of an R2R dac with D/S dac is unfair by nature. Jeez the freaking attitudes
You still haven't answered why this test is unfair. It's a DAC. DACs can be compared. It's 2022, and if you're still making a cap DAC something is wrong. Why would anyone want to buy a DAC that measures poorly? You say "No one who buy this are looking for the best measurement equipment" 1)Well then what DO they want? They want something that measures atrociously?? 2) How do you know what they want? Did you talk to all of them?
@@Wizardofgosz go educate yourself, it’s not my responsibility. If you only listen to sin waves and pulse signals, the go ahead and buy a cheap smsl or topping dacs and call it a day. They are among the best measuring dacs out there. If you listen to actual music by any chance, go to a showroom or Canjam and do some comparisons yourself. It’s 2022, it’s not that hard to find equipments and try them yourself. End of discussion.
@@llevine6510 No. You please educate me. You're putting yourself in a position of superiority. Why is it against the law to compare one DAC to another? Or are you just running because you have no fucking idea what you're talking about and when someone pressed you into actually providing evidence you ran like a little girl snowflake?
I have borrowed Master7 2016 version, so it's probably not singularity, from my friend few days ago and I can't get that beautiful sound and of my had. I knew that it measures badly so it was rather for fun and to hear how creepy this DAC is. I had a lot of DACs with superb measurements like Smsl 400, Gustard x16, AKM 4497 dac board in my Audia Flight Fls1, Denafrips Venus and with no doubt Master7 out performs this DACs in each aspect of sound quality. It's ugly I must admit. In term of naturality it comes very close to my hi-end analog rig. So I don't know what to think about this measurement although I really like to read all of this tests. Maybe the differences are in a very small scale and not noticeable for our ears and they have no influence on SQ? I don't know and I'm confused but I know what I hear and I know that I will get that DAC.
Everyone is making comments about how bad Audio Gd is and have probably never even heard any of their products. You do not hear scientific measurements when listening to music. Also if this guy knows so much why is he making YT video's and not designing audio gear.
mmmadog Smith Exactly!!! I got Audio GD NFB-7 on a Sabre chip, made 6 years ago and it is dead silent. Sounds fantastic. It was recomendation from my friend who replaced Mark Levinson source with even older NFB DAC for 10 times less money. I didn't measure my DAC, but background is silent black!!! Maybe that piece is broken???
@@sheerenergy8602 Despite this device not measuring as well as others, it's probably still at the limits of human hearing for noise etc. I guess the question then becomes, would a $200 DAC suit your purposes just as well?
@@RennieAsh 200$ DAC is way worse than any 1000$ DAC and above, it's different league. But cheap dac is better than integrated sound card in PC or cheap phone or dvd player.
They all say sounds like tubes all warm ! Its called distortion ! Funny 99 % of reviewers can not hear dont know audio got a fancy pair head phones they know all !! Every dac n other gear they say is great ! Run 😮😮 😅 Gregory Knows Gear ! 😊
consider the price of this unit - only $2500! the engineers of this should consider adding a tube/s somewhere, anywhere, even if the tube is disconnected from the circuit. oh, and some anti-vibration jigamajing preferably made out of audiophile approved wood. but but but, the soundstage man, listen to the decay, man.
But how does it sound? Isn't that what an "audio" review is all about. Who would believe that different cables sound different but they do. You can look at it, examine it, measure it, but know nothing about what it can do for your system until critically evaluating it with your ears.
Doesn’t the Toslink and Coax are synchronous transmission which is susceptible to the jitter introduced by the source that you are using to feed the signal into the DAC? Where USB is asynchronous so the jitter would be mostly introduced by the DAC itself? What the hell are you talking about digital transmission are all the same? No they are clearly not all the same. Even all synchronous digital transmission are not the same. For example I2S uses 3 signals, one is the audio data and the other two are clock data for synchronisation. Toslink and coax use just a single signal so it need to encode both audio data and clock data into one signal and then the receiver on the DAC side needs to retrieve both data from the encoded signal. Hence, why it is susceptible to jitter introduced by the source you are using to feed the signal into the DAC… Seriously, I’ve seen quite a lot of your reviews and videos and you seems to have absolutely no clues on what you are talking about at all… A lot of what you are saying isn’t audio science. Its a lot more like the science of trying to BS other people. You should seriously considered what you are doing and be ashamed of yourself for spreading all these misinformation to other people.
Many professionals and great reviewers said this over and over again, measurements does not tell you if components sounds good or not. just an example is this video here. Cheers! ruclips.net/video/IyFfF6cL6OU/видео.html
Are you jokeing??? He never do listening tests. He is a measure guy. You can sold him lead instead of gold, because he only measure those aspects he can. Weight in this case. Just spray it in gold colour.
@@lightbit553 Yes i know, but its hilarious how he wanted to measure dff:erent sound signature on cables. Hi thinks osciloscop or other devices are measuring everything😂.
Complete nonsense, you can’t measure sound quality. Only listening test A/B with a high end system could tell the story. Your sample might also be defective. Or jumper settings might be wrong. It also depends on how to feeds them. Did you use I2S in or the Acss output? You also should tell the truth regarding warranty. In Europe you can buy at shops in the Netherlands. You can even test the devices at home and send it back if you don’t like it. They also provide a repair service over years.
Audio GD R8 DAC + Thiel (demo) ruclips.net/video/xVTKm7MoWSA/видео.html Anyone hearing any problems with sound or background noise???? Hard to belive any DAC can measure this bad as shown.
The sad thing is it is clearly not cheap to build, but the designer obviously has no clue what the heck he is doing.
Yup, expensive discrete components.. wasted. It is like a golden toilet.
Hello Sir, i don't comment often but you are a master and that's a
pleasure to listen at you. I could comment on every video regarding the quantity i learn from quality tests. Thanks for all this great information.
I took the khadas tone board as a dac after seeing your reviews on audiosciencereview. And i thank you for this too because it was not a
waste of money.
I just discovered your YT channel and i love it, it's like seeing in real so much reviews i've seen from you on every
type of audio equipement. Plus the fact it's nice to see your passion and discipline married together to bring us this high quality content. Sorry if my english is trash.
I assume that the people voting this review down either own one of these and can't face up to reality or work for the manufacturer. Well done Amir. This review is fascinating on a number of levels.
Thank you Simon. You are very kind.
I have an Audio GD DAC-amp and I like it a lot. But I am pretty certain that it doesn't measure very well :o) - I like this channel, and this video and will not vote down anything!
I have a 350 bucks machine btw.
Some people will vote down a video to try to tell RUclips's algorithms that a video that has been recommended to them is not something they are interested in. It is not always a criticism of the video itself.
@@GodmanchesterGoblin I was going to write that. Thanks for pointing that out. Up means "keep showing me things like this." Down means "In not interested." not "I disagree."
I misheard your use of the word "tweeter", and I interpreted: "All the junk above 22kHz gets sent to Twitter". Seems legit?
All well and good but how does it sound ?
Thanks Amir. You’re really helping us Audiophiles who don’t have a lot of money to spend avoid being ripped off. Keep up the good work!
There is two kind of HW EE engineer the one that don't understand applications note and not understand the circuit, they put 24 bit DAC , they think they will get 24 bit , and the other side the HW experience engineer, they understood that 24 bit DAC need noise floor better then -144dB , and even reference to that DAC should have accuracy up to 24bit , to get -120dB is easy task for experience HW engineer, but go from -120dB to - 144dB is not easy task . This my 35 years experience as M.Sc. EE.
Well said. Very few engineers are good at this type of design. They can learn though if they start to measure what they are building. Sadly they won't.
True. I had 44 years in electronics (now retired). I always told people... "You need to understand where the electrons go and what they are doing". Too many learn about the basic building blocks of a circuit but know almost nothing about how they may interact on a real circuit board with a real signal chain. Good PCB design (whether audio, digital or RF) is a skill and an art. Applications like high-end audio DACs push those requirements to the limits.
You should test the Holo Audio May custom implementation r2r DAC. Manages around 118dB SINAD with an r2r design. Goes to show that r2r designs don't have to measure badly.
Stereophile already did that - they said "In almost every way, the HoloAudio May (Level 3) is the best-measuring D/A processor I have encountered"
I take it they can't check linearity with the gear they have.
Retired instrumenation designer here: selecting resistors to 15 parts per million is quite a challenge. Chopping time with sub nanosecond precision is easier - especially in a dedicated chip, which is the prime reason most aodio Codecs are bitsteam types of device.
For you people that defends this product, I don't care that the measurements are bad, what I care about is that the company lies about the measurements. The company shows great measurements and when a third party measures them and get bad measurements, people defend this company with saying "measurements don't matter". Why does the company lie? Ask that yourself instead.
I used to have a NFB-27.38. It was my first audio unit, I thought it would be awesome, then ASR measures it and his measurements tell another story against Audio-gds measurements. I sold it immediately and now I have a RME ADI-2 DAC and SMSL SP400. Much better sounding than whatever Audio-gd was doing.
The thing is.. you probably did not hear a difference between them.. It is god awful when it comes to measurements and there is just about enough wrong with it that maybe.... once you might've had a chance of hearing but didn't notice. You have to do an A/B test, level matched within +-0.1dB or it does not count.
@@squidcaps4308 The highs were distorted on the NFB-27.38, The noisefloor was a lot higher therefore dynamic range felt lower, the unit had a constant grounding noise issue on higher volumes, etc. There is no noise even cranking to the max on RME and SMSL
@@squidcaps4308 A criticism I have of the ASR site is that he's measuring things that don't really matter (DAC's, amplifiers, AVR's), while not having the time and resources to measure the things that do (loudspeakers and headphones). If I've learned anything from the site, it's that adding a subwoofer and multi-channel audio will at least somewhat correct for those flaws. I stick around because it's fun catching manufacturers lying or showing their design incompetence.
@@Daniel_Ho_Status_101 Send him your stuff. He'll gladly measure it.
I am so happy that Amir shows these measurements. It seems that consumers are still taken for a ride and pretty much are unprotected. Thanks to ASR the consumer has a little bit more confidence in making a choice.
I read the audio science review for master 7 and I bought one. AB tested against several others. Conclusion: I'm sorry but you guys are having a wild trip. If you actually think this DAC sounds bad after actually listening you need to see a doctor.
I didn't quite understand the point at 33:15. The main reason to use PayPal is that you're covered by their buyer's protection when dealing with not completely reliable sellers. And of course you're expected to pay in advance. I've never seen cash on delivery option when buying anything from china.
It's all about the marketing process: expensive, preorder thus long waiting time (afaik) & customisation/addons (at least on some models), then it's the factory burnin and user recomended burn-in. Considering these, IT HAS to sound good :)
LOL! You've forgotten the weight!
It's _really_ heavy so, it must be good!..
The formula is very clear. What is a bit unusual here is that the company not only appeals to the camp of "it sounds good" but also objective customers who would look at measurements by posting some. So the person thinks they are covered on both fronts. I wish what they were showing was true. Overbuilt (and even expensive) is fine in my book as long as performance doesn't suffer but sadly it does here.
I own the newer audio GD products and they sound great. Not sure if they measure badly but compared to other products around their price, they are really pleasant to listen to over the others. In the forums people compare them to even higher priced dacs/ headphone amps. Never heard the Master 7 Singularity though.
Great review as always. Please keep doing those!
Utterly Misleading comments on PayPal. Read up before you pass on such comments Untrustworthy reviewer!
Your analysis was destructive and instructive. Nice combo.
It seems to me that you get most if not all your review pieces from people asking to review their gear. I could be wrong, but most on RUclips reviewers get their pieces from a distributor or directly from the manufacturer. Do you review any piece from anyone who sends one in? Would you review what I send you?
While you were making these measurements & creating graphs did you ever take the time to actually LISTEN to the DAC?
AUDIO-gd has been around for many years.
I have had some experience with their DAC's and found them sound very good.
Measurements alone do not tell the full story of how a piece of gear actually sounds
Just a crappy overpriced POS.
Well, that's nice that you enjoy their cool-aid. For sure it's a lot easier than admitting oneself that you've been swindled.
😂
shouldnt your site have a chart section so we can endlessly zoom and read them also wouldnt a vertical orientation be better for readability?
I used to own a Master11 DAC/pre-amp and was shocked how much better the RME ADI-2 FS sounded for
But how does it sound.
How important are your measurements? Devices with excellent measurement values sound different. How is it possible, when according to the measurements the errors are a few zeros from the perceptible limit? Can you somehow explain how this is possible? Shouldn't some new measurement methods be proposed to measure the differences in the outputs?
Does all R2R dacs measure bad? Is it the smoothness to them that appeals so many people?
Is the distortion soundig good like tube amp distortion does?
I love watching you absolutely destroy audio gear that I used to lust over in my younger, inexperienced days of the personal audio hobby.
did you hear it?
@@net_news usually placebo. Trust me I want to believe too.
@@blanchbacker graphs could be placebos too.
@@net_news I'm one of those who side with actual measurements, but yes, I am curious to hear one.
@@Jose_Pointero me too i love graphs but I love even more listening... I cannot have an opinion without listening.
Major design flaw: USB card is mounted sideways, so some of the electrons will fall out, thus degrading the signal
My theory regarding Audio GD is that, among their delta sigma DACs, the more something of their’s costs, the worst it measures.
Pretty defensible summary. :)
The Burr Brown PCM1704 chip used here is not a delta-sigma DAC though. BB refears to it as a sign-magnitude architecture. You'll also see it referred to as a R-2R ladder DAC. It's great to hear Amir's informed opinion on this type of DAC architecture which has an almost mystical aura in some audiophile circles.
@@JesusMartinez-mk6fc I know, but with their R-2R DACs that principle no longer applies, there's no longer a correlation between price and performance. But on the subject of R-2R dacs, I wonder how often people buy them and then play DSD files through them.
@@Phos9Indeed, playing DSD files through a DAC using R-2R DAC chips is a misguided endeavor for those DSD purists. As you probably know the R-2R DAC chips can't play DSD signals, only PCM. The makers of DACs using these types of chips that wish to also support DSD have to include additional circuitry to convert the DSD signal into PCM, which completely defeats the purpose of safeguarding the putity of the DSD signal.
You will be able to count all the owers of this dac by aĺl the thumbs down.
please can you measure some dacs from older top of the range av recievers specifically the pioneer vsa ax10i and the yamaha dspa3090 ? I own these and others and would be interested on your opinions on using these older high priced products as dacs /dacs preamplifier today . if we had a high quality dac and used eq to voice the sound if needed then I feel like that's going yo be the best option to get the sound you like
looking forward for DAVE review any time soon..thanks for great info!
I have the original Audio GD Reference One DAC, it sounds better than all the other DACs I have tried including the Topping D90. I am very sure it measures bad, I also read somewhere that ladder DACs are more distorted but more musical than delta sigma DACs... like tube equipment.
Face it, you got ripped off. These DAC's are garbage.
@@heathwirt8919 Let me guess you have never heard one and your comment is childish BTW, if you are a child then forgive me. I have a Topping D10 used for USB to SPDIF to feed this DAC. The D10 internal DAC scores high by Amir but does not sound close as musical and detailed. My friend has a PS Audio Directstream DAC that scored poorly by Amir but sounds amazing on his Mcintosh C1100, 1.25KW and B&W speakers.
@@scorpven Define 'musical'? Another question, why do you think your ears are better at assessing fidelity than a APx555B?
@@V.Hazezz Musical is when it sounds like music to "my" ears. Among a large variety of test equipment I have have been using an oscilloscope and RF spectrum analyzer since the 80s to make certain conclusions, nowadays I accept RFC and BERT results at my day job. I believe in test results and for a long time it is how I defined audio gear. These days, when it comes to audio equipment I strictly rely on my ears to determine what sounds good and when that stop working all the numbers in the world wouldn't matter.
@@scorpven
Well said @V.
But I'm afraid you will never convince the "measurements are everything" crowd.
They seem to know best how music sound to you.
After reading about blind tests all these DACs are not so exciting.
Very true
Can't help but wonder what the owner thought of this DAC before you analyzed it Amir - - my question is more about what his subjective thoughts generally were as compared to the measured reality of this lagging design.
We generally don’t hear all that great, or as great as we think. I’d say your average Joe off the street couldn’t tell this over a competent DAC. But the price value is silly.
It was my 1st DAC, so nothing to compare it too. I bought recently a Topping D90 SE and I noticed a big improvement (this is 100% subjective). So I decided to send it to Amir in order to confirm my feelings.
@@Mike2far Thanks Mike - appreciate you describing what you experienced - interesting, at least to me - - and like homeboi808 is pointing out, "average Joe" or not, I doubt that I personally could detect that this is evidently an inferior implementation, especially without something to compare it to - so thanks again, it is cool to now have your insight - Skip ( ;
@@skip1835 Wether you can hear it or not, it's nice to know that it's being reproduced the way it was intended to sound. For that same reason I don't understand tube amps. Just give it to me straight. Don't try to color it or smooth it out.
I don't know anything about the DAC in the video, but I challenge you people to properly A/B test a currently in production Audio-gd DAC to your SOTA measuring Topping D90 which is kingdom of heaven for you. (Although price/performance it may be the best really.) ...Yes, listening test. I know it sounds kinda weird for you to listen to a DAC, since you just make assumptions based on some measurements and opinions from the web. It just happens that I owned both (at the same time), and I know the result - it would surprise you.
*As I revisited this comment by accident, I have to correct my wording a bit. I'm not against the ASR community at all, but a lot of people on the forum trash talks (they in fact love to do that) on products that ie. they measure not 0.00003 THD but 0.003 THD, or when they measure something at -120db. That's crazy. They talk about how important measurements are and how you can't hear or there are no "audiophile magic things", yet they adore those ridiculous numbers the same as some the "magic things". That is the complete opposite dreamworld of the dreamworld some audiophiles live in. The two extremes.
It seems that there is a lot of money in snake oil. The easiest way to become rich in audiophile manufacturing is produced some beautiful cables and charge a fortune.
And add lots of capacitors to make a beautiful PCB
@@donniemulligan9241 I would marinate the cables in snake oil to stop them oxidizing after they've been cryogenicly frozen for a few weeks.
True, but I would not call this product snake oil - I would call it incompetent. Snake oil to me implies a fraudulent attempt to extract money from a buyer using false "scientific" claims. This product just fails to deliver because it is a very poorly executed design.
@@GodmanchesterGoblin Yep all that stuff in there would add up to more cost than say whatever they do in super expensive USB cables
I’ve had the Master 9 pre/head amp for years, it’s fantastic. I’ve never bought a product on measurements but on how it sounds. Hifi + magazine has always been my favourite mag for reviews, they use their ears for reviews. I bought the early Shanling cdt 100 cd player the thing was phenomenal. After 20 years it finally died but I think it was a good purchase. As for Audio GD I ‘m going for one of their DACs to match my master 9 with Acss connection. Audio Gd engineer has received an award for his designs so he must be doing something right? Eh?
Basically a boat anchor, binning material, unbelievable in this day and age.
Measurements police out in full force these days. I’m grateful there are still manufacturers that listen to their products instead of basing everything on measurements.
Wonderful review Amir. I've been wondering about how Audio-GD gear performs for some years now. What appears to be a great design at first sight results in a total catastrophe. This one is too funny. 😁
Thank you Jesus. I was impressed as well the first time I went to their site and saw pictures of what was inside. And some measurements.
Listening to the r 7 mark 2. Initial desire was the Aqua Audi la scala , at 8300 out of my range. Had a credit with the distributor, that made the r7 less than 3 k. Comparable to the la scala in my system. It’s a keeper, and based on these measurements, doubt any chance of reselling it.
why no one is sending denafrip dac to this guys for testing?
This looks like the typical "design by datasheet" that some brands put out. Sadly, I have seen this elsewhere in consumer audio, where well specified parts are effectively trashed because the circuit designer and / or PCB layout engineer do not have the necessary knowledge of how to manage things like crosstalk, signal and power grounding, how to manage component tolerances, and in this case, clock recovery and synchronisation issues. I see lots of parts here, but very little know-how. As for ever sending a product back for repair - that's a very valid point. In this case, I would doubt that they would be able to adequately identify faults and implement the repairs correctly.
But can you tell it from a good dac in a blind test? :P
Thank you Amir. You're amazing.
But. Saying "I own the Audio-GD. 2.500 USD" impresses noobs more than a statement like "I use the Topping D50s ChiFi" ... LOL.
You are right but I think that perception has been changing since a few years ago.
@@AudioScienceReview I´m into graphics nowdays tho my background is electronics/electric (college/uni), but even I fell for some of the HiFi-BS. Your page/vids are so usefull for the community - cheers!
@@AudioScienceReview It surely has for me.
TotalDac owners voted thumb up for having made the good choice.
He measured the d1-six. It also landed firmly in the "poor" category.
You should measure the Holo May R2R DAC. Hardly anyone knows about this DAc
I have heard a lot about it. As custom DACs that is one of the very few that seems to work well. I tested one of their other models a while back: www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-holo-audio-cyan-dsd-dac.6992/
@@AudioScienceReview will read it thanks.
As a musician of over 40 years, yeah I just aged myself lol, playing piano, violin and guitar, DACs are fascinating to me. I recently auditioned the Topping SE90 and it was one of the worst sounding DACs I’ve heard. And ive heard quite a few.
Timbre was the most off. I know very well what violins sound like , pianos and even more so guitars. Yeah it sounded like an A440 if that is the note that was being played but didn’t sound like a violin.
There is something else going on that hasn’t been measured or hasn’t been quantified yet. Was it quiet? Yes. Extremely. Very very low in output volume however. Had to boost my benchmark LA4 to volume match with some other DACs I have. Maybe that’s how they get the low noise floor. Don’t know.
He benchmark DAC3 was one DAc that was very well measured and actually sounded really good. Same chipset as the Topping but a much better sounding musical reproduction.
Cheers
@@Nightjar726 I have tested 350 DACs in the last three years. I can tell you with completely confidence that your impression of Topping SE90 is wrong. Please do a blind test where you don't know the identify of the unit. Only then you can have a reliable judgement of it.
@@AudioScienceReview pardon. But you are telling me my opinion is wrong?
Nice. I don’t care if you have measured one million DACs. I spent most of my life devoted to learning music and how to play three instruments. That’s thousands of hours learning and playing. I know what instruments sounds like and actually what they feel like. The tactile response.
I also bought the benchmark AHB2 and LA4 preamp because they measure well and sound great. So I’m not against measurements. Not in the least.
But my ears tell me what I’m hearing as well.
A bit of humility would maybe serve you well, before making a statement that someone else’s opinion is blatantly ‘ wrong’ as you say.
Pick up an instrument and devote thousands of hours learning how to make it sound good. Then come talk to me.
Humility and curiosity is also a part of science. Maybe dig deeper and see why no one who is serious about sound uses that DAc.
Or are you saying you’ve learned as much as you can and that’s it?
Cheers
@@Nightjar726 Topping D90SE is one of the best measuring dacs in existence. Its beyond audibly transparent. Its like not having a dac at all. Either your other dacs werent very good or your topping was faulty.
That single ended output rising distortion looks more like the DAC circuit having a huge amount of common mode noise in the entire path, but the differential circuit is just hiding the sins.
Checked their specs.. they advertise it with >120dB s/n...
People can't accept that this performs worse than an Apple Dongle
Congratulations on the out-of-chart distortion performance lol
Didn’t Amir like how it sounded regardless how it actually measured?
Listening to this device could cause hearing damage.
@@4everB2 It would have made an excellent April fools’ joke. 😝
Try listening to it.
Thx a lot Amir for doing these things. Just gotta love what you do here 🤓
I was really shocked by what you presented, such a high priced product with completely sub-par performance. My view is that great measurements does not guarantee great performance but this kind of measurements easily guarantee unacceptable performance.
Gosh, if someone showed me a photo of that PCB, I would say "wow, this must be some expensive piece of hi-end gear with reference-class performance". But no, somehow it's a total crap easily outperformed by some budget Chinese DACs.
I'm glad I've never been convinced to buy anything from audio-gd and partly because of your measurements
Great review, thanks Amir!
Looks like the burn-in hours is relative to warranty. By the time you completely burn it in... you also burn out your warranty period LOL
This seems to be a standard routine in the audiophile world. Especially with high end cables, where the 'return if not satisfied' window is shorter than the burn in time.
You are describing glitches no real users mentioned in reviews how do you explaining this?
I'm an engineer and I congratulate you on your technically flawless analysis, we're dealing with a poorly designed Chinese product, whose project guidelines are sloppy. Nonetheless, if you'll allow me, and with due respect, I'd also like to take this opportunity to comment on your overall reviewing bias as well. I can see that you're predominantly a "workbench-oriented" and "technical" kind of guy. Nothing wrong with that at all, but please realize that by keeping such profile you just manage to cover the "electrical-signal-integrity" side of things, but you don't necessarily accomodate the listeners' side. Our ears behave non-linearly many times, and psychoacoustics is a large field that must be taken into consideration, one where surprises abound, and which may cause listeners to look for design preferences that would not always be deemed technically "sacrosanct", and which measure perfectly on the bench. (Don't get me wrong - this Chinese DAC is poor indeed, but I'm speaking of generalities here) Also, the CD is a medium which was created with several compromises and intrinsic deficiencies, which cause DAC decoding to be incomplete and far from perfection. Having said that, I can understand that audiophiles are able to detect some things now and then - for instance, my ear does prefer some non-oversampling DAC's due to their being able to retrieve more ambient space with a sense of increased airiness, and so I realize where the NOS DAC "myth" might have come from. (Causing us to ask if it's really an audiophile myth after all. Have people listened to supposed technical flaws as detected on the workbench? Have people dared check these things out by listening attently?) So, if somebody is to write reviews, I think one had better go to the test bench but also go listen afterwards and bridge up these two reviewing philosophy extremes (as long as one has got good ears for the job, that is, something that does not always happen), so that the product's designer philosophy may or may not be confirmed/justified by the reviewers/buyers. I've seen many electronic designs which are technically perfect on the bench but which I'd have restrictions about upon listening more carefully, and also the other way round, i.e., seemingly poor designs which may incredibly sound good overall or present some aspect which is rewarding (i.e., the ambiance retrieval I've mentioned). So it's not black and white; objectivism only has value when (and if) it teams up with some subjectivism so that the general outcome can really portray a better reviewing reality. (Again, this does not apply to this particular Chinese DAC that you're reviewing)
To comment on the Chinese stuff I can say I have 1000 euro headphones from a very well respected in pro circles and that is from Europe that measured poorly by Amir, has had cables melt (poor casing), and stupid expensive to fix. They are also part of a group who has a sister company with some of the best measured Studio monitors on AVS. As a music producer it is brutal in trying to find objective reviews so I applaud these reviews.
Thanks for u job, Amir!
This stuff amazes the heck out of me and shows the disdain they have for their customers by charging top dollar for this "thing". Don't they know about Matrix audio and Holo audio and for "similar" prices how they go about presenting their final products?
I agree that this DACs design seems a bit random but still it is rather strange to Damn a DACs performance without once listening to it.
Not with this level of performance. There is simply no way this is going to sound good.
@@jeremyglover5541 It seems that neither of us has heard this DAC so we can only guess how it sounds but there are those who have heard it and report that it sounds very good so personally I reserve judgement until I have heard it. Conversely though, I have heard plenty of DACs that measure well and don't sound that great.
@@mikelm222 I design high performance DACs for kicks these days. this thing is horrendous and insisting that someone has to hear a DAC to know that something so obviously incompetent isnt somehow magic is ridiculous. I could select the components in diptrace, hit autoroute and get a better result a few seconds later.. This dac has performance that is quite literally hundreds of times worse than modern units costing $100.
The suggestion that any comment on a design isnt relevant unless you've heard it is laughable and usually spouted by people who dont know what they are looking at. To throw so many resources at a design and miss so badly, says it all. theyve paralleled 8 x pcm1704 chips for a stereo unit, 4 per channel and this decision, at todays prices would add a few hundred to the BOM for EOL parts. This technique has no purpose other than improving objective performance, yet they couldnt match datasheet level performance you should expect when using the standard 2, let alone 8 pieces..
This isnt just pleasant sounding even order harmonics either. Its a shambles. I'm not against discrete circuits. You can get very good results with simple/elegant designs and there is something to achieving high performance with a minimum components. To miss the mark so badly, while throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it is sad IMO
@@mikelm222 People think the crap stock speakers that come in their cars sound good. They don't know what they're missing.
It's the same thing with this. If you actually think that subjective tests are somehow better than objective tests showing us a SHIT LOAD OF NOISE, you're blind ... and just the perfect person that this DAC is meant for.
@@orangejjay - Hahaha - I never heard this DAC and am quite happy with the one I already have ( which measures & sounds pretty good ).
Inside of that thing is a copper scrappers dream come true. Damn all that Got enough VA capacity to drive a 400W amplifier and the thing is just putting out puny signals.
Well said. I feel like getting a broken one just to salvage the parts out of it. Or put a class D amp inside it.
I used to have DAC that "attempted" to reclock input to an internal clock, except buffer seems to be too small...
So every few seconds there will be a "click" of buffer either overrun or underrun...
It boggles my mind that I kept seeing these type of stuff (once in late 2000, another around 2013, both creators are about a few thousand of km apart)... Do they have no idea it would be a problem in the concept stage? Or are they dead in the prototype stage?
It's sad that there are still many audio EE engineers who don't understand that electronics isn't just about beautifying a PCB with expensive passive components. It is not surprising that there are only a few brands - such as Apple, that can do both proper analog semiconductor circuit design and aesthetic PCB design.
We live in the era of ugly and finger-sized "D" class amplifier boards are destroying the holy sanctuary of enthusiasts.
my gut feeling told the GD Audio devices should be good, but no. It shows that you can't go by gut feeling, be it with shiny boutique brands or alleged underdogs..
Astounding, over priced over built unit that performs poorly to a $100 DAC. Just criminal level of poor engineering. Another audio scam.
I remember when this shop was all the hype back on head-fi, glad i didnt plunk down $500 or so
Apparently, they went to great lenghts to create this 'monster' DAC. So did Amir 😄
Replaced my Topping DX7 pro with an Audio-Gd R28 about three months ago. Had a Benchmark DAC before that. The Audio-Gd has much richer, fuller sound than either of them. Maybe I enjoy the extra harmonics.
Clearly you do. And there's nothing wrong with that ... audio is about what sounds good to you.
If you like having a lighter wallet and something coloring your recordings, go for it and enjoy. It's your money and your time. Do whatever the heck you want with it!
I suspected what their dealer sells is crap. Thank you for corroborating my suspicions.
Honestly the way you are putting hate on Audio GD in order to get who knows what it's really a badass… I own one DAC Singularity that sound fantastic at my listening room and a lot of friends appreciate the sound. Do not know what NOS means (No oversampling) really. Or the unit you’ve tested were broke/defective or your measurement equipment is obsolete or your knowledge doesn’t let you go further.
Awesome to see the bunch of all sheep followers relying on bad personal experiences or hate on a good product.
It’s a shame because I opened my eyes.
When listen to you, you look to have a big knowledge and understand the Audio world.
Unlike other reviewers or experts you keep pushing forward and writing coments over and over only to provoke more comments and incite the already created hatred.
I’m wondering if I should keep following you.
Use please good “frequencies”
Criticism can always be done in a positive way. Being wiser than the others. Specially when you are the leader of the forum/discussion.
Without these proper objective measurements, you might assume a high level of precision from it's internals. Shows you how much overall product/circuit design will affect sound quality over the amount, type or cost of components. With modern technology, there's no reason to drop $10,000+ to get "audiophile" levels of sound quality. Approx $200 to $300 will afford you a USB DAC (or PCIe sound card) capable of 127dB+ SNR and 0.0008% (or lower) THD.
lol!! That is epically bad, but exactly what I would have expected. I've been bagging this company and their clear lack of design chops since they arrived on the scene. I was never impressed. Its always been about throwing as many audiophile trends/cliches at a design as they could. An example. that FPGA in the middle section, surrounded by a ring of pretty red WIMA film caps for decoupling, when PTH film caps are precisely the worst type of capacitor to use for decoupling HF digital signals and power, exemplifies the problem. Their fanbois are typically the least technically informed audiophiles and would recoil in horror at smd ceramic X7R caps surrounding it; even though they are absolutely the best part for the job.
Why do harmonics above 20KHz matter? This is out of the audibility range.
They don’t, but they show competence of design.
@@homeboi808 They do, because a design this bad will also have plenty of opportunity for intermodulation distortion where those harmonics may mix and create additional components which are audible.
All that tech packed in there, but the sum doesn't equal the parts. I'm still loving my $200 BAL DAC.
This instrument is bizarre to say the least, over designed to the umpteenth degree and yet plagued with circuit gaffes that bring the performance to a very mediocre level. Thank you for this informative review.
Bizarre indeed! But I suspect it was designed to a level to be sold at a bazaar... :) (apologies - couldn't resist)
@@GodmanchesterGoblin Truly bizarre. ;)
I own the Master 19 and for the Money ive never heard something better..."
Its dead silent and my Hifiman HPs sound all great. The Dynamic is exceptional,
all the Topping Stuff sounds like Kindergharden, 2-3 Leagues below. in spite of the
excellent Numbers on the Specs Sheet... Iam pretty sure the better and more expensice Audio-GD Models sound even better...than my Master 19. But for me its enough and my He1000v2 is shining like a SuperNova. I dont care abour Measurements, thats your Problem...(:
OM
Well, I don't care about opinions that are not backed by anything. You could say UFOs are real. Or that aliens live among us. What am I going to do with such assertion? Nothing.
@@AudioScienceReview U are not very intelligent, may be ? My Feeling (Heart) and my Ears are my Leader and my Guru, and not stupid Measurements. Who are U, am Human Being or a Robot?
This seems to show a big disconnect between price and performance, and the all-too-common, odd, false correlation of those factors in the minds of a large part of the audiophile faithful.
The poignant part is that another RUclips audio pundit might name this a 'product of the year.'
And the faithful would lust after it.
....
It's why I don't believe a word of most subjective reviews without other corroborating objective testing of the same model. Meanwhile, most of the popular subjective reviewers won't even ADMIT that they check objective reviews before they write or speak their purple prose. But they slavishly read the nearly useless datasheets from the manufacturer as though there is some useful truth to them.
You can't argue with what someone hears. Audio IS subjective
@@busterb11702 And you can neither describe it nor communicate it subjectively. How do you describe a string bass to someone who only knows rap? A piano to someone who only likes electric guitars?
Yeah sure -- price will do it, wouldn'tyousay?
It's quite unfair to compare a R2R dac with a bunch of D/S dac and you probably know it. As someone from commet said, it's not designed to measure well. IF you still want to make measurement comparison at least compare to other R2R dacs such as ones from Metrum or some other brands. No one who buy this are looking for the best measurement equipment
Why is it unfair? The device is capable of better performance, but due to bad design, it's not testing well.
Why would you want a poorly designed DAC?
I mean, do you hate tests so much that you purposely choose the shit that tests poorly?
@@Wizardofgosz In which part did I say I want a poorly designed dac or I hate tests? I simply stated that comparing measurement of an R2R dac with D/S dac is unfair by nature. Jeez the freaking attitudes
You still haven't answered why this test is unfair. It's a DAC. DACs can be compared. It's 2022, and if you're still making a cap DAC something is wrong.
Why would anyone want to buy a DAC that measures poorly?
You say "No one who buy this are looking for the best measurement equipment"
1)Well then what DO they want? They want something that measures atrociously??
2) How do you know what they want? Did you talk to all of them?
@@Wizardofgosz go educate yourself, it’s not my responsibility. If you only listen to sin waves and pulse signals, the go ahead and buy a cheap smsl or topping dacs and call it a day. They are among the best measuring dacs out there. If you listen to actual music by any chance, go to a showroom or Canjam and do some comparisons yourself. It’s 2022, it’s not that hard to find equipments and try them yourself. End of discussion.
@@llevine6510 No. You please educate me. You're putting yourself in a position of superiority. Why is it against the law to compare one DAC to another?
Or are you just running because you have no fucking idea what you're talking about and when someone pressed you into actually providing evidence you ran like a little girl snowflake?
I have borrowed Master7 2016 version, so it's probably not singularity, from my friend few days ago and I can't get that beautiful sound and of my had. I knew that it measures badly so it was rather for fun and to hear how creepy this DAC is. I had a lot of DACs with superb measurements like Smsl 400, Gustard x16, AKM 4497 dac board in my Audia Flight Fls1, Denafrips Venus and with no doubt Master7 out performs this DACs in each aspect of sound quality. It's ugly I must admit. In term of naturality it comes very close to my hi-end analog rig. So I don't know what to think about this measurement although I really like to read all of this tests. Maybe the differences are in a very small scale and not noticeable for our ears and they have no influence on SQ? I don't know and I'm confused but I know what I hear and I know that I will get that DAC.
Everyone is making comments about how bad Audio Gd is and have probably never even heard any of their products. You do not hear scientific measurements when listening to music. Also if this guy knows so much why is he making YT video's and not designing audio gear.
mmmadog Smith
Exactly!!!
I got Audio GD NFB-7 on a Sabre chip, made 6 years ago and it is dead silent. Sounds fantastic. It was recomendation from my friend who replaced Mark Levinson source with even older NFB DAC for 10 times less money.
I didn't measure my DAC, but background is silent black!!!
Maybe that piece is broken???
Amen,
Wonder how well a live performance of the NY Philharmonic measures
@@sheerenergy8602 Despite this device not measuring as well as others, it's probably still at the limits of human hearing for noise etc. I guess the question then becomes, would a $200 DAC suit your purposes just as well?
@@RennieAsh 200$ DAC is way worse than any 1000$ DAC and above, it's different league.
But cheap dac is better than integrated sound card in PC or cheap phone or dvd player.
They all say sounds like tubes all warm ! Its called distortion ! Funny 99 % of reviewers can not hear dont know audio got a fancy pair head phones they know all !! Every dac n other gear they say is great ! Run 😮😮 😅 Gregory Knows Gear ! 😊
this must be the complex piece error making machine
consider the price of this unit - only $2500! the engineers of this should consider adding a tube/s somewhere, anywhere, even if the tube is disconnected from the circuit. oh, and some anti-vibration jigamajing preferably made out of audiophile approved wood. but but but, the soundstage man, listen to the decay, man.
is damping horns an option for this?
But how does it sound? Isn't that what an "audio" review is all about. Who would believe that different cables sound different but they do.
You can look at it, examine it, measure it, but know nothing about what it can do for your system until critically evaluating it with your ears.
Plaudit for this perfect demonstration of ignorance...
Seems like you were hungry while reviewing this :)
Doesn’t the Toslink and Coax are synchronous transmission which is susceptible to the jitter introduced by the source that you are using to feed the signal into the DAC?
Where USB is asynchronous so the jitter would be mostly introduced by the DAC itself?
What the hell are you talking about digital transmission are all the same? No they are clearly not all the same. Even all synchronous digital transmission are not the same.
For example I2S uses 3 signals, one is the audio data and the other two are clock data for synchronisation.
Toslink and coax use just a single signal so it need to encode both audio data and clock data into one signal and then the receiver on the DAC side needs to retrieve both data from the encoded signal. Hence, why it is susceptible to jitter introduced by the source you are using to feed the signal into the DAC…
Seriously, I’ve seen quite a lot of your reviews and videos and you seems to have absolutely no clues on what you are talking about at all…
A lot of what you are saying isn’t audio science. Its a lot more like the science of trying to BS other people.
You should seriously considered what you are doing and be ashamed of yourself for spreading all these misinformation to other people.
Many professionals and great reviewers said this over and over again, measurements does not tell you if components sounds good or not. just an example is this video here. Cheers!
ruclips.net/video/IyFfF6cL6OU/видео.html
RIGHT !
It measures so bad you did not include listening test.
Are you jokeing??? He never do listening tests. He is a measure guy. You can sold him lead instead of gold, because he only measure those aspects he can. Weight in this case. Just spray it in gold colour.
He usually has short part on end of review for listening test.
@@lightbit553 Not for cables...
This is not cable. :)
@@lightbit553 Yes i know, but its hilarious how he wanted to measure dff:erent sound signature on cables. Hi thinks osciloscop or other devices are measuring everything😂.
Good bye audio-gd
Oh, now I get it… knackered pink panther for rubbish/snake oil…🙄
Complete nonsense, you can’t measure sound quality. Only listening test A/B with a high end system could tell the story. Your sample might also be defective. Or jumper settings might be wrong.
It also depends on how to feeds them. Did you use I2S in or the Acss output?
You also should tell the truth regarding warranty. In Europe you can buy at shops in the Netherlands. You can even test the devices at home and send it back if you don’t like it. They also provide a repair service over years.
More garbage masquerading as high end ..... Amir is worth his weight in gold
Oh dear, looks like terrible grounding in the circuits.
Now snake oil in DACs. My goodness
😂Id pair this with ps audio power conditioner.. Maybe its a power supply issue
Audio GD R8 DAC + Thiel (demo)
ruclips.net/video/xVTKm7MoWSA/видео.html
Anyone hearing any problems with sound or background noise????
Hard to belive any DAC can measure this bad as shown.
ruclips.net/video/xVTKm7MoWSA/видео.html
It sings...
@@sheerenergy8602 so many things can brake on this art work of over engineering, adding all the things is not the way to make a DAC
Perfect channel for people who listen to music with their eyes.
LOL, so true