My maybe-not-so-humble opinion on the FUBAR III DAC+Headphone amp

[DervishD]

Hi all

I recently purchased a FUBAR III from Audiophile Products, and first of all I want to publicly give a big "thank you" to Todd Berreth, the "visible head" of Audiophile Products, because he has been very kind to me. I asked a whole lot of questions before buying the product, and he always was responsive and solved all my doubts. I've seldom being treated as good when buying online. And the package would survive a fall of 10 metres Now seriously: the attention has been perfect, period. I recommend this shop, really.

And now, go to the hardware I don't think I can do a correct review of the sound quality, being sound perception so subjective. I can only say that this little thing (it is MUCH more little than I thought, it's perfect for my crowded desktop!) sounds much much better than any of the other soundcards I have, which are an ES1371, which doesn't sound bad but has a lot of distortion if used with headphones and an intolerable level of noise, which is annoying when listening to quiet passages, and the AC'97 compatible (5.1) integrated soundcard of my ABit mobo, which outputs VERY little power (even with an amplifier it is almost unusable), distorts a lot and has the poorest basses I've ever heard in a computer.

With the FUBAR III I've noted much less distortion, specially with headphones (of course, it HAS a headphone amp!). To tell the truth, I have to put the FUBAR all the way up to eleven to hear distortion. OK, this is probably not a top notch DAC, but the increase in sound quality from the integrated soundcard and even the ES1371 (which sounds much better than the integrated soundcard) is incredible for the price (I paid 170 EUR, including shipping to Spain from Canada, which is damn cheap).

But I must confess that it's not the sound quality that impress me the most. All my life I haven't used my PC as my primary sound source because hearing the electrical noise through the sound card annoyed me a lot, and with the FUBAR there's no noise at all. I have to use quiet music or digital silence and put the knob to the far right to hear an appreciable noise. Given that currently the knob points to the third "dot", fourth "dot" from time to time, it's impossible for me to hear the noise.

Last but not least, I'm going to dare to say a couple of technical terms I find the sound highly detailed, which is something I've always missed when hearing music in computers, with punchy basses (punchy enough for me, at least, I don't like "hit my stomach" basses, but I want them deep), crystal clear mids (voices, I like how the voices sound!) and highs that can be heard but that doesn't hurt the ears (sorry for the non-technical expression...). But the details... oh, my, I thought I won't ever hear so highly detailed music in my life using my PC as source.

With this DAC and linabx I can now detect a 256kbps MP3 or a Q7 Ogg against a FLAC. Previously I had serious problems above 200kbps MP3 or a Q5 Ogg, I had to choose the samples carefully to detect some compression artifacts or things like that. Now, a Q7 Ogg sounds clearly different than the lossless FLAC. You can tell from this the sound quality I had before...

I like my new toy and I'm very happy with the purchase. I was afraid that the increase in sound quality would be negligible, but not: using the headphones (and I use them a lot, believe me) it is just another world. And very important: it works seamlessly with my Ubuntu Linux (Gutsy), except some programs that use the default ALSA device doesn't like when the DAC is power-cycled (the device appears in use when it is not) and the ALSA volume control doesn't seem to work OK. I have to investigate that. The sound part, which is the part I cannot get my hands on, is perfect. For the rest, I have the source code

Again, thanks to Todd Barreth and BIG BIG FAT THANKS to the people on this forum, who made me know the FUBAR III and the world of USB DAC's in general. Dudes, I owe you a lot because I needed to use my PC as sound source (long story) and I was resigned to stand the poor sound quality until the DAC came to me ))) Sorry for the long thread, and feel free to ask whatever you want!

Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado.

[IceClass]

I'll X2 the props to Todd @ Audiophile.

I've received an answer to every dumb question I sent to Todd and was more than pleasantly surprised by the service I received.

I guess this helped to turn me on to the Firestone line

[DervishD]

Amazing!

[pearljam5000]

Cool pic

Originally Posted by IceClass

I'll X2 the props to Todd @ Audiophile.

I've received an answer to every dumb question I sent to Todd and was more than pleasantly surprised by the service I received.

I guess this helped to turn me on to the Firestone line