Review: ZERO 24 BIT/192KHz DAC/Headphone Amp/Pre-Amp

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by MikeW

Im thinking of buying a Zero, I noticed there's a pre-moded one on ebay with HDAM, LT1364 and Upgraded volume pot, is this the best Zero combination? and this one is sold by Lawrence which i've heard has been dropping the ball lately, there's also another version sold, it looks like a stock Zero with OPA627's installed in the headphone amp, sold by wcz guy.. which one of these would be best.

Hi,
Lawrence has had some issues. However, I just bought one from him. I ordered it on Saturday, and it was in my hands the following Thurs. One thing he has the others don't have on theirs is the Alps Volume pot. High quality and clean sounding. He also installs and sells the HDAM, that the others don't have, that you will want if you read the thread. I would definitely order it from him on Ebay, so you can bang him with some Bad feedback if anything goes wrong. I understand the concern here though.

With all due respect though, if you have a problem with an asian, you should be polite about it. Just watch Shogun if you don't know what I mean. They can be easily offended by our western barbarian ways. I'm just being a realist here. I would order from him again with my experience.

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by shampoosuicide

Anyone else can chime in on this?

Because I'm seriously considering selling the DV332, but if the problem lies with the Zero, then I'll send it back to get fixed.

You need to isolate the two components to see which is causing the trouble. If you can reproduce the issue, take the DV 332 off the dac, send it the same music and see if the problem goes away whe listening to the dac alone or the DV alone. Listen to the Zero/Dac with the zero's Head amp, see if the problem is there without the DV. Basic troubleshooting here.

[sandchak]

Originally Posted by les_garten

Hi,
Lawrence has had some issues. However, I just bought one from him. I ordered it on Saturday, and it was in my hands the following Thurs. One thing he has the others don't have on theirs is the Alps Volume pot. High quality and clean sounding. He also installs and sells the HDAM, that the others don't have, that you will want if you read the thread. I would definitely order it from him on Ebay, so you can bang him with some Bad feedback if anything goes wrong. I understand the concern here though.

With all due respect though, if you have a problem with an asian, you should be polite about it. Just watch Shogun if you don't know what I mean. They can be easily offended by our western barbarian ways. I'm just being a realist here. I would order from him again with my experience.

I am glad you have had a good transaction with Lawrence, generally speaking, he had an extremely good reputation out here in the forum when things started to go bad.
Since you have bought the moded Zero from Lawrence, I have a question:
What is the HDAM he uses on his moded Zeros? Burnson??..

Here is my corrospondence with lawrence on this issue:


Dear biglawhk,

Hi, Your listing says free shipping, what mode of
shipping would you use to ship to Georgia (NOT
USA) ? and what HDAM module are you using Earth
or SUN?
Let me know
Thanks

and his answer:

Dear sir ,

It is by air mail. Burson HDAM which is the most serious built HDAM and the number of FETs and transistors is more than the other HDAM.

Thank you very much !

Best regards,
Lawrence


Its not about Asian, European or American, its about truth and lie - I decided not to buy from him..

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by sandchak

I am glad you have had a good transaction with Lawrence, generally speaking, he had an extremely good reputation out here in the forum when things started to go bad.
Since you have bought the moded Zero from Lawrence, I have a question:
What is the HDAM he uses on his moded Zeros? Burnson??..

Here is my corrospondence with lawrence on this issue:


Dear biglawhk,

Hi, Your listing says free shipping, what mode of
shipping would you use to ship to Georgia (NOT
USA) ? and what HDAM module are you using Earth
or SUN?
Let me know
Thanks

and his answer:

Dear sir ,

It is by air mail. Burson HDAM which is the most serious built HDAM and the number of FETs and transistors is more than the other HDAM.

Thank you very much !

Best regards,
Lawrence


Its not about Asian, European or American, its about truth and lie - I decided not to buy from him..

Hello,
This is the only Zero I have had. According to the thread, his HDAM is the "original" Earth, or the Burson if you will. It does not have the Cap mods like the new ones.

[helicopter34234]

A lot of people on here seemed to think that I was over-reacting, and that Lawrence would come good in the end. He never made contact again, and more and more people on here started to come forward with problems with their purchase - from incorrectly installed opamps, and standard opamps rather than the paid-for upgraded items, to units built with incorrectly-orientated capacitors, and failing to work at all.

Yea, I too was chastised about my “jumping the gun” and not waiting for him to “make things right.” Well, I am still waiting. After having read the writing on the wall of how others had been treated by Lawrence I immediately knew what I was going to get, or more explicitly, where I was going to get it.

Hi,
Lawrence has had some issues. However, I just bought one from him. I ordered it on Saturday, and it was in my hands the following Thurs. One thing he has the others don't have on theirs is the Alps Volume pot. High quality and clean sounding. He also installs and sells the HDAM, that the others don't have, that you will want if you read the thread. I would definitely order it from him on Ebay, so you can bang him with some Bad feedback if anything goes wrong. I understand the concern here though.

I am glad you had good luck with Lawrence, noone is saying that Lawrence can't ship a good product, the problem is that he sometimes doesn't. The even bigger problem is that when he does ship a bad problem, he makes you pay to make it right (ship it back at your own cost) before he sends you a new one. I don't know, maybe he would be better behaved if the purchase was through ebay and he feared his feedback rating decline. Yes, it is true that you can only get the volume pot through Lawrence, but I think the risks aren't worth it. At least wsz0304 will ship you a new unit free of charge if something goes wrong. Lawrence will not.

Its not about Asian, European or American, its about truth and lie - I decided not to buy from him..

I also feel that he lied to me. He told me he burned in my Zero for an hour before shipping and verified that it was functioning. He claimed that my malfunction was due to shipping damage even though there was no indication of any external or internal physical damage. I don't believe that at all.

[sandchak]

Originally Posted by les_garten

Hello,
This is the only Zero I have had. According to the thread, his HDAM is the "original" Earth, or the Burson if you will. It does not have the Cap mods like the new ones.

Naa, its not the same, I think Burson HDAMs costs twice if not more than the Earth HDAM it uses, it might sound the same, but its not the same.. and then if you see the courteous mail I had written to him, I had asked him if it was Earth or Sun.. Anyway, I just found his reply not truthful and I pulled back from dealing with him..

[ScottieB]

Originally Posted by sandchak

Naa, its not the same, I think Burson HDAMs costs twice if not more than the Earth HDAM it uses, it might sound the same, but its not the same.. and then if you see the courteous mail I had written to him, I had asked him if it was Earth or Sun.. Anyway, I just found his reply not truthful and I pulled back from dealing with him..

You're right about the cost, but I think he's right about it being the Earth. The way I understand it is Audio-GD makes them, but didn't always sell them. They were sold by 3rd parties (like Burson). Then Audio-GD improved the HDAMs and started selling them directly - effectively cutting out the middleman and lowering the cost. It has been stated here several times that the Burson HDAM IS, in fact, the 1st-gen Earth module.

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by sandchak

Naa, its not the same, I think Burson HDAMs costs twice if not more than the Earth HDAM it uses, it might sound the same, but its not the same.. and then if you see the courteous mail I had written to him, I had asked him if it was Earth or Sun.. Anyway, I just found his reply not truthful and I pulled back from dealing with him..

Cost doesn't mean anything. You could take a lot of things out of China and depending on who you buy it from, the cost is radically different. I've seen the same Porsche headers with different names on them go from $1200 to $600 to $350 depending on who you buy them from. Same headers made in the same factory in China. If you have some proof he is not using Burson, please present it. The thread here from the guys who have handles a lot of these units suggest it is Burson, if that really makes a difference in the scheme of things. If the Audio-gd ones are about the same and cheaper, just seems like one Chinese company ripping off another one to me!! What goes around comes around!

[sandchak]

Originally Posted by les_garten

Cost doesn't mean anything. You could take a lot of things out of China and depending on who you buy it from, the cost is radically different. I've seen the same Porsche headers with different names on them go from $1200 to $600 to $350 depending on who you buy them from. Same headers made in the same factory in China. If you have some proof he is not using Burson, please present it. The thread here from the guys who have handles a lot of these units suggest it is Burson, if that really makes a difference in the scheme of things. If the Audio-gd ones are about the same and cheaper, just seems like one Chinese company ripping off another one to me!! What goes around comes around!

I agree everything what ScottieB has said, and since I havent brought from Lawrence, I cannot prove its specifically Burson HDAM or not, maybe you can do that, keeping in mind that Burson HDAM is registered product and it costs twice as much as AudioGD Earth HDAM.
And in any case, I had very courteously asked him if it was Earth or Sun Module, he could have just said Earth, because No matter what anyone says, I do not think he uses Burson HDAM perse, it just would not make business sence..

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by sandchak

I agree everything what ScottieB has said, and since I havent brought from Lawrence, I cannot prove its specifically Burson HDAM or not, maybe you can do that, keeping in mind that Burson HDAM is registered product and it costs twice as much as AudioGD Earth HDAM.
And in any case, I had very courteously asked him if it was Earth or Sun Module, he could have just said Earth, because No matter what anyone says, I do not think he uses Burson HDAM perse, it just would not make business sence..

This is a strange conversation, because you have NO idea what he pays for anything!

[ScottieB]

Originally Posted by sandchak

I agree everything what ScottieB has said, and since I havent brought from Lawrence, I cannot prove its specifically Burson HDAM or not, maybe you can do that, keeping in mind that Burson HDAM is registered product and it costs twice as much as AudioGD Earth HDAM.
And in any case, I had very courteously asked him if it was Earth or Sun Module, he could have just said Earth, because No matter what anyone says, I do not think he uses Burson HDAM perse, it just would not make business sence..

Well maybe - my assumption (and it is just that) was that he could only GET the burson ones, since they are sold 3rd party? Perhaps Audio-GD know's he'd be a reseller and doesn't want to go that route anymore? Or maybe they know that he also sells to the Head-Fi crowd so they don't want the competition for this relatively niche market? Now that I type that it doesn't make much sense but that was my assumption. At any rate, the higher cost is likely due to the middleman (and now you could see Lawrence as another middle man). The Burson is probably just easier for him to acquire.

[Penchum]

Originally Posted by sandchak

Naa, its not the same, I think Burson HDAMs costs twice if not more than the Earth HDAM it uses, it might sound the same, but its not the same.. and then if you see the courteous mail I had written to him, I had asked him if it was Earth or Sun.. Anyway, I just found his reply not truthful and I pulled back from dealing with him..

Originally Posted by ScottieB

You're right about the cost, but I think he's right about it being the Earth. The way I understand it is Audio-GD makes them, but didn't always sell them. They were sold by 3rd parties (like Burson). Then Audio-GD improved the HDAMs and started selling them directly - effectively cutting out the middleman and lowering the cost. It has been stated here several times that the Burson HDAM IS, in fact, the 1st-gen Earth module.

Hi Guys!

Yes, it is true. The first model HDAM is the same HDAM audiogd was making for Burson. They also sold these to other audio shops and did indeed call it the "earth" HDAM. This is the model Lawrence has been using in his upgrades.

When I got my first HDAM from Lawrence, and got my first "earth V1" directly from audiogd, I matured them for over 300 hours and did a comparison. This was with a stock Zero, with LT1364's in the headphone amp. I was unable to hear a difference between the two HDAMs. I haven't tried the "earth V2" yet, so maybe I'll get the chance to purchase one later on.

I can tell you for sure, both the HDAM "earth" and the HDAM "earth V1" work extremely well in my Zero, AND my FrankenZero. I haven't had time to do a comparison of the two earths using my FrankenZero, but it is on my list of things to do. I have a feeling that the FrankenZero will be able to reveal the difference, if there is any. Time will tell.

There is also the issue of doing the Burson HDAM cap mod. I have it done to the original HDAM "earth" with excellent results, but I haven't had time yet to do it to the "earth V1". This is on the top of my list, and then comes the long burn in due to the cap. Once that is done, I'll be able to give impressions and a comparison between the two HDAMs. If anyone else has done any of this, please chime in and let us know the results.

Due to ongoing medical issues, I've been seriously delayed in getting some of these things completed. I apologize if anyone was waiting for further word from me, on these comparisons or other reviews. I'll do my best to catch up, as soon as I can.

[sandchak]

Originally Posted by les_garten

This is a strange conversation, because you have NO idea what he pays for anything!

No maybe I dont, all I know and I have seen is quite a number of folks in the forum and in his Ebay feedback complaining about his service, and I wish he was as good to everyone as he was good to you..

[ScottieB]

Get better, Pench (assuming it is you you're talking about)! We'll help hold down the fort in the meantime..

[les_garten]

Originally Posted by Penchum

Hi Guys!

Yes, it is true. The first model HDAM is the same HDAM audiogd was making for Burson. They also sold these to other audio shops and did indeed call it the "earth" HDAM. This is the model Lawrence has been using in his upgrades.

When I got my first HDAM from Lawrence, and got my first "earth V1" directly from audiogd, I matured them for over 300 hours and did a comparison. This was with a stock Zero, with LT1364's in the headphone amp. I was unable to hear a difference between the two HDAMs. I haven't tried the "earth V2" yet, so maybe I'll get the chance to purchase one later on.

Hi,
Thanx for the, Ahhh, clarification! Hope your issues get resolved to your satisfaction. Miss your input to this thread!