Audio-gd Reference 1 DAC (56 K warning) - Page 59

Hi,
I gave A-GD a walk on mine when it happened. But I'm a trend kind of guy. One data point can be an anomaly, two data points are at least the start of a trend. So here's mu story, at least one of them...

I opened my REF1. As soon as I touched the front panel, it felt so loose I was amazed it was still attached. It was rattling! There was not mistaking this if you handled it. You move it around by touching the sides of the face, so you see this immediately. I also am amazed it was put in the box that way.

I do not believe there is anyway that ALL four screws loosened themselves in transient, so don't start with that BS. I build a lot of race car engines, I understand how things loosen up and get away. If ALL four were tightened up, MAYBE once in a millennium, one should get away.

I went to tighten mine up, and there were only three there, one was gone. I figured it was never there to begin with. Well after that, and because to get to these screws you have to pull the sides off and expose a lot of the case and PCBs. I found the errant screw. It was caught crawling under the circuit board with Mayhem in it's mind! I actually snapped a picture as it was wiggling under looking for a circuit to short.

And now to the moral of this story:

Kingwa and a lot of Chinese Companies in General still don't understand what we expect in the west as far as quality control is concerned. Here's a partial list of the things that are unacceptable and should not be tolerated by any of us.

Loose Screws
Paper, Sticky/Gooey labels
Typographic errors
Scratches, Buffs, gouges
Touch ups done with Sharpies
Fingerprints

These errors are 100% preventable and just cause people to say, "I'm not taking a chance on that Gear from CHINA".

Click on the Links, they're big and I didn't want to post them inline.

Which way did he Go! Which way did he Go!

Ohhh My, what an ambitious little Begger!!!!

Of course for an alternative viewpoint one can go to the Grado HF-2 thread and read Posts by all the Grado Apologists in that thread.

Customs probably did it, les garten just likes roleplaying consumer report.

I can post pix of scratches, buff marks, fingerprints, stripped bolt holes, you name it.

Customs doing this, Bull SCAT. I get gear sent on a Sunday, receive it on a Wednesday, and someone thinks customs went somewhere and found a 3mm Metric Allen wrench and disassembled these REF1s and I still received it in about 50 hours.? No way!

Why is anybody being an apologist for this BS! ServingEquador, I commend you for posting this. The only way to stop this is to expose it. This type of QC needs to be hammered. I gave him a walk on mine till I saw yours and see it's still going on.

I am mystified why such a nice piece of gear would be mishandled and the Vendor's reputation damaged by something so trivial to stop.

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No, sorry. No way. I don't agree with Les on certain things but this is one area we are in complete agreement on! There is no excuse, none at all. Don't apologize for it, make excuses for it, condone it, say you'll fix it yourself, etc.

Customs did not and would not open up a piece of gear which they could risk breaking knowing nothing about the electronics inside. I have never had a piece of electronic gear opened up by customs so the idea that this is happening, and in such a short time frame, is absurd. My Phoenix cleared customs in a matter of 20 minutes. I was tracking it as it happened.

This happened at the Audio-gd facility and unless it stops they are going to lose lots of business to customers outside of Asia. Kingwa always tells me he needs time to burn in and test the equipment. Is checking for loose screws somehow not included in this test? Should it even be an issue? Of course not!! It makes them look like an amateur operation with children at the helm.

I have already warned Kingwa that my unit is to be thoroughly checked before it ships out and that I better not receive it with a single screw out of place.

I don't care how relatively inexpensive his gear is compared to other gear. His website does not state that when we order his gear it may come with loose screws or stickers all over the components. Therefore it is unacceptable that it arrives to the customer in this condition. If he needs to start charging an extra $20 to spend the time to make sure these issues are nonexistent I'm sure everyone would be happy to pay the extra money.

I'll go online with another one in line with this. I have Bob's Phoenix and per Kingwa's request, I am checking it out. It works is the short story. So because I know Kingwa will have to sell it as Demo/B-Stock. I decided to look it over for flaw disclosure to see if it was scratched and what not. There are two screws in the center of the bottom of the PSU that are so loose they are trying to fall out. I suppose customs did that also!

I am always mystified when people try to apologize or Justify this nonsense.

The Phoenix is great gear at it's price point, but it is by no means Cheap. It is not unreasonable to demand some quality here. Every box that goes out like this should cost him rep points.

There is no doubt he supports his gear, he'll make you whole in the end. He's treated Bob like Gold in my opinion.

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To get to those screws the Top and the side panels have to come off. Unless you have some really fancy tools you can't get to the bottom ones without taking both side panels off as well. You'll notice Serving E has his side panels off as well in his pix.

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I just tried opening the REF1 from the sides, and I must admit that it is close to impossible to loosen the faceplate without opening the top cover.

So far everything is working perfectly! If the only issue was a quad of loose screws I will take them over something perfectly assembled that doesn't sound as good or cost more money. If all it takes is opening up a unit and tightening up four screws I'll gladly continue giving Audio-gd my business. That opinion will change if something arrives damaged due to an oversight.

Impressions to follow, but as of now the unit is still cold and too new to comment on apart from stating that it does sound quite good. I'll need to spend time building my system as I only have a single digital cable (Analysis Plus digital oval) and one decent power cable. Once I get some better power cables on the Wadia and amp, and find a synergistic digital cable, I'll better understand what the system is capable of doing with my music.

One other thing I can say is that running CAST inputs into the amp, and running a balanced headphone cable, has my lowering the volume down to between 9 and 15 or 99 steps on the volume control. I wish the gain was a bit lower, but at least channel imbalance isn't an issue!

Always good to have more than one way to approach a repair, especially if it looks like you might need to know how to do it!

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Hi Doug,
Glad your gear is powering up unscathed and sounding good!

But if your front plate had been not quite as loose, and you had not noticed a screw was shorting a circuit and then POOF!! Things could have been different. So it really wasn't just 4 loose screws in my opinion. That's my point, I wish A-GD would stop this. Additionally, a lot of folks don't want to work on their Gear right out of the box, or have to inspect it with a bright light to see if it's been assembled completely. I thought mine was an isolated anomaly, didn't say a word about it. But yours means it can happen to anybody and A-GD still has issues.

You're right, A-GD makes great gear. It's just that last 1% they need to tighten up on. A lot of companies won't do this without some motivation. Shining a Glaring light on it is a great way of motivating a company.

I am not "apologizing", I just don't think it's possible they went out of the factory with the screws like that. Have you tried asking Kingwa if his employees did it or if customs did it?