New ESS Sabre32 (ES9018) based DAC from Audio-gd....the NFB-1 - Page 6

i have an oppo83se which is ESS9018 based and if what he means by sounding 'younger' is that the vocal have more midrange snap to the sound.  I am using the Oppo and DAC3SE as comparisons and feel that the 1704 based chip sounds better to my ears.  The ESS is much more 'cleaner and clearer' sounding, but with my fullrange speaker's, vocals have that midrange 'glare' and is more forward sounding than the dac based on the 1704 chip.  YMMV

Quote:

Originally Posted by volume 

I would recommend waiting for some test users before purtchasing it,I read some posts that Kingwa mentioned

 

Originally Posted by tim3320070 

 

Another thing- I asked Kingwa about why he is using this chip. He stated that the 1704 chip is slowing in production with long lead times and the price went up significantly. That and many have suggested he try the Sabre32 chip as it does 192kHz. He says they are very close in sound but that female vocals sound "younger" with the Sabre32 chip- interpret that how you want.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shogo33 

i have an oppo83se which is ESS9018 based and if what he means by sounding 'younger' is that the vocal have more midrange snap to the sound.  I am using the Oppo and DAC3SE as comparisons and feel that the 1704 based chip sounds better to my ears.  The ESS is much more 'cleaner and clearer' sounding, but with my fullrange speaker's, vocals have that midrange 'glare' and is more forward sounding than the dac based on the 1704 chip.  YMMV

Might make sense to wait for reviews first. There will be the inevitable comparisons with the Ref 5.  The 10% preorder discounts amount to about $80 or so. Not that much in the scheme of these things.

But midrange snap mightn't be bad for some people. :-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by tim3320070 

Be our guest- I only know English and a handful of German.

This to me would be the best way to understand what the differences would be as I don't feel there are going to be more than a couple of people that will have both versions on hand to do side-by-side comparisons so the developer/designer would be the most knowledgeable.

Kingwa just replied to me about the difference between the NBF1 and RE5.

To him both of them are pretty equal in terms of sound quality, the amount of details are pretty much the same, but he seems to prefer the RE5 (he said it's better actually).

With the RE5, the tone is slightly different, a bit warmer than the NFB1, it does not have the stress (stress is not very accurate, he means something like 'a slight touch') in the higher spectrum part like NFB1, which makes the NFB1 not very balanced (to him).

For example, when listening to vocal, the NFB1 sounds younger (yeah, it literally means younger), but not much difference, the NFB1 sounds as if it puts a heavier (sorry, my english vocabulary is limited) makeup on people's voice, while the other sounds more "mature"

There're several metaphors in this mail that I dont know how to smoothly put it in english, but generally both of them are neutral dac's, just one is more neutral than the other.

A skilled designer as a kitchener.

Kitchener can cooking the foods slight mild, or dense. There hadn't a rule must cooking the fish to only  flavor. Just different amount sugars and salts.

If people think the Reference 5 flavor is better, the designer can easy adjust the NFB-1 to quite near flavor.

My English still hadn't improve.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tranhieu 

Kingwa just replied to me about the difference between the NBF1 and RE5.

 

To him both of them are pretty equal in terms of sound quality, the amount of details are pretty much the same, but he seems to prefer the RE5 (he said it's better actually).

With the RE5, the tone is slightly different, a bit warmer than the NFB1, it does not have the stress (stress is not very accurate, he means something like 'a slight touch') in the higher spectrum part like NFB1, which makes the NFB1 not very balanced (to him).

For example, when listening to vocal, the NFB1 sounds younger (yeah, it literally means younger), but not much difference, the NFB1 sounds as if it puts a heavier (sorry, my english vocabulary is limited) makeup on people's voice, while the other sounds more "mature"

 

There're several metaphors in this mail that I dont know how to smoothly put it in english, but generally both of them are neutral dac's, just one is more neutral than the other.

I think you had mistake of my Chinese words. I interpret our Email to English as follow:

The NFB1 sound quality is quite near or maybe equal to RE5, But I don't think the NFB1 can over the RE5.
Both have pretty equal in the soundstage and detail.
But slight different on the sound flavor.
The tone color on RE5 is slight on warmer side than NFB1 , but I don't think the NFB1 had emphasize on high frequency . RE5 and NFB1 both  frequency bands quite balance.
For example , (I used the simply way to explain the different) , the NFB1  playing the female voice is SLIGHT YOUNGER than RE5 but only slight.

oh my bad~ thanks for the correction.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shogo33 

i have an oppo83se which is ESS9018 based and if what he means by sounding 'younger' is that the vocal have more midrange snap to the sound.  I am using the Oppo and DAC3SE as comparisons and feel that the 1704 based chip sounds better to my ears.  The ESS is much more 'cleaner and clearer' sounding, but with my fullrange speaker's, vocals have that midrange 'glare' and is more forward sounding than the dac based on the 1704 chip.  YMMV

Doesn't the oppo83se have the ess9016? http://www.oppodigital.com/blu-ray-bdp-83SE/

In that case, the 9016 is not as good as the 9018. No matter how much you mod the oppo, it's still a cheaper dac (though the difference may be minimal)

Personally, i really like the price of the nfb-1.. 850 is still quite less than the ref5 dsp. Also, it's 32 bit, so we computer user could also use digital effects with less loss.

Yes indeed it is..my bad typo!..

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynobot 

A total of 6 PSU groups are used to purify the power supply. To achieve Silent operation, the control circuit is powered with separate regulator.

 

I asked him about it and he said it is 5 parallel and 1 nonparallel psu. Misleading, but since I've been harassing Kingwa too much about the nfb-1 I'll not bother him to fix it.

Just checked the Audio-GD website: there are two new DAC´s out! (yes, again)

Their names are NFB-2 and NFB-3, using dual Wolfson high end chips. Kingwa never sleeps :D

Quote:

Originally Posted by vrln 

Just checked the Audio-GD website: there are two new DAC´s out! (yes, again)

 

Their names are NFB-2 and NFB-3, using dual Wolfson high end chips. Kingwa never sleeps :D

And I wont be sleeping either trying to research which DAC to buy!

- Kam
 

Yeah, it´s very hard :) I´m trying to decide between a Reference 5 DSP and an NFB-1... It seems like a good time to be out for a DAC though, so many good options!

The NFB-2 and 3 look a little lackluster compared to the NFB-1...

Quote:

Originally Posted by vrln 

Yeah, it´s very hard :) I´m trying to decide between a Reference 5 DSP and an NFB-1... It seems like a good time to be out for a DAC though, so many good options!

It seems that many of us (including myself) are being confronted with this dilemma. I feel that part of the increased cost of the ref5 can be somewhat explained by the presence of the dsp-1, acss ouput, and usb input. I personally didn't need the usb input or the acss output. As for the absence of the dsp-1 chip, I guess the ess sabre32 chips are jitter-resistent enough to not need it.

After saying all this, I feel like I could almost flip a coin to decide which product I purchase.

Originally Posted by sokolov91 

The NFB-2 and 3 look a little lackluster compared to the NFB-1...

Aha. Like SE DacMagic on steroids (and his cheaper brother for east-european markets).