Review: ZERO 24 BIT/192KHz DAC/Headphone Amp/Pre-Amp - Page 52

may anyone tell me where may I buy one Zero?

Good to hear, he has not fallen of the edge of the world or something.

So the reason for not answering my mails is that Hi's tired of my spam.

email Chan Lawrence who sell them, thats where most of us got them. Heres his email:

lawrencechanbig@msn.com

ha ha, i kept pestering him with emails asking where my item may be. I don't think he immediately responded to them either. I guess it must be annoying as he will get loads. Are you trying to track an item?

I haven't received an tracking number yet
Or .. Have received an tracking nr which i believed where my Zero, but i was the opamps. (So combined shipping actually means split shipping for the cost of one.)

Well when i bought mine he had them in stock but didn't send them out for a few days. When he managed to send them out, he issued me with a number for tracking. There may be just a delay in sending them out? I hope it works out for you.

thanks! e-mail sent!

I've just sent a email aswell about ordering one.

I asked,

1. If he had any in stock
2. Estimated shipping time
3. Total cost including delivery

I got a short response saying cost is $180, no mention of my other questions. He also sent a paypal invoice.

Going off the other info in here I took the chance and paid the invoice, hope fully i'll now receive some more details. If not I can claim back through paypal, hopefully all is well though.

well i think i'm correct in saying thats the exact way we all payed on here through Lawrence and paypal. It should work out fine for you.

So I got mine today and it is running for something like 30 mins now.

The one thin I find interesting is that I can not remember anyone else mentioning that it stinks!

I know the odor will dissipate hopefully soon, but still, the Yulong (link in signature) that I got a few days ago did not have this problem.

But on to the bit that interests us all, the sound:
Yes, it does not sound its best, but still, right out of the gate I like it.
Bass feels boomy and maybe the highs can do with a bit of taming, but the soundstage is nice and it sounds involving, I feel myself drawn into the music.

Thanks again to Penchum for bringing the Zero to our attention!

Hey Fault, glad to see your zero came in. looking forward to hearing how it sounds with your Green.

Did some listening yesterday/here's some first impressions..

To be perfectly honest (and this seems to go against what most are saying on here..) I didn't like the stock sound very much at all.. maybe it's that I'm playing into Grados (RS1), unlike I think many on here who have Sennheisers (HD650)?

Couldn't help myself and started swapping opamps (sorry penchum, I know you say this isn't recommended but surely I can let it burn in with some better opamps? +does it really make that much of a difference?? )

Tried a bunch of combinations, but haven't found one yet that beats my Headroom Total Bithead (tell the truth, I've found some new respect for it after comparing with the stock Zero and some of the less-good opamp combos..), however LM4562 in the mainboard and LME49720 in the headamp makes it sing quite nicely for my taste and comes pretty close - this amount of difference, I could believe will improve with burn in.... (might leave it like this for a bit now/not sure yet..)


Some notes on some of the combos I tried (remember this is without burn in and it's playing into Grado RS1 which are quite bright revealing phones compared to Sennheiser HD600 for example.. though not sure how they might compare to HD650?)

(notes kept short, so prob. a bit exagerated/might sound a bit harsh!)

Stock amp in headamp, changed main to DY2000: more musical, but still didn't like the sound much...

Changed to LT1364 in the headamp

stock amp in main: muddy overall, raspy/sandpaper-y highs
changed to DY2000 in main: still a bit raspy, but more open and more musical
changed to LM4562 in main: "aha! hello, this is a bit better..." better clarity, much better 'pace', still a bit raspy
Changed back to stock amp in headamp (keeping LM4562 in the main): still muddy overall but some of the better clarity definitely remained compared to stock, upper mid + v. low bass now very recessed, pace ok - better than stock, but worse than with the LT1364 in the headamp

Changed to LME49720 in headamp (still the LM4562 in main): "oh wow, now it sings nice!" Bithead prob. still sounds a little better, but I'm listening through entire tracks now, not skipping around straining to hear differences/things I know should be there/switching between sources all the time.

Oh, at some point in the proceedings I tried LT1028 in the headamp - they didn't work; just got really hot and the sound came out of only the right channel at low volume, + turning the volume control knob had no effect on the volume level even down at zero!

Was a bit worried, but swapping to something else sorted the problem.. (they were the right way round and pretty sure they were seated in the socket ok..). Sure I was being a complete idiot in one way or another doing that - does anyone know what the actual issue was there? From the rest of the thread, have I inferred correctly that you can put a dual in a single socket and it'll work as a single? (or was that the problem?)


Might try swapping the mainboard amp around a bit tonight, maybe see how I get on with the DY2000 as comparing back to back with the Bithead it's this/'musical' quality that's what's slightly lacking with my current amp combo, though they're now on par in terms of pace and detail...

(By the way/for reference, I was using just about the most challenging music I have - it's banging hard house, but different to the usual/what you might expect, in that the guys who made it use a lot of real/live instruments (full drum kit/trombone/electric guitars) and they're classically trained musicians so you get an awful lot of nuance/subtlety/structure in there.. (not just fast synths over the top of BANG BANG BANG BANG ). I've listened to it a lot/know the material well, so I hear immediately if something's missing and it's also a great test of this 'pace' thing I keep referring to... anyway, thought I should mention as I'm sure the type of music makes a difference with this sort of thing.../i.e. some of the combos I listed as didn't-like-it might well be awesome for less detail+pace-orientated music..)

Cheers, im letting the zero dac and head amp burn in then i'll begin comparing the two. I may change the op amps in my zero first though. So far i really like the zero.

Well, the LT1028 is a single opamp and so you need the two you have on an adapter to replace any one of the opamps used in the zero.
So you would need 4 and two adapters for the headphone amp.


On a different note, I just switched the Zero to pure DAC duty and right now I am seriously underwhelmed!!

Strange ....

Please bear in mind, unit is just two hours running...

I will investigate further and keep you posted.