"DIAMOND" vs. "NEUTRAL" Audio-GD DACs - who has COMPARED? Or are DSP1 - REVISIONS more crucial? - Page 3

500 hours! does it take that long to convince yourself that this DAC is actually not that bad and was worth the wait...I thought Audio-GD test and burn their equipments before shipping??

Something that doesn't sound great the first time is not going to transform itself into something wonderful x hours later. Burn-in in electronic and audio equipments is extremely subtle at best.

But again this site is full of grandiose claims and overstatements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynobot 

I urge you wait until it is truly burned in [after 500hrs] before you really make an assessment or comparison to other Dacs that are known to be broken in.   Mine just now has over 500hrs on it, and yes, YES clarity, focus, depth, control, soundstage all come into a homogeneous state of musical perfection.  Before this you 'may' get instances of things not sounding quite right or overly lush etc.  But rest assured it is neutral and it does pull out a lot of information from your music.  I also recommend that you look into ways to improve your source as much as possible, it pays dividends in spades.

 

zenpunk be glad you don't have one...I'd hate for you to suffer from listening to this dac.

It's wintertime, if your audio gear is in a small room leave them on 24/7 to keep warm .

Imo, dac's $200+ can all do macrodetail, what separates them is mainly microdetail, and that gets fleshed out over a long time with larger audio-gd dac's.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt 

It's wintertime, if your audio gear is in a small room leave them on 24/7 to keep warm .

 

Imo, dac's $200+ can all do macrodetail, what separates them is mainly microdetail, and that gets fleshed out over a long time with larger audio-gd dac's.

Agree on both counts.

Can't say I paid much attention to burn-in or noticed any differences with the HD650/K701 calibre of phones, but since moving over to the LCD2 and HD800...I noticed the Muse mini dac sounded much more defined and smoother after a few hours.  I also recently built a Jaycar headamp kit and the first thing I noticed when I powered it up for use was a strong "electronic" smell that went away after a few hours...and the sound improved.  So I guess I believe in burn-in of electronic components.

Should I build this balanced to single ended converter to burn in all four channels instead of just two?  Because I only have single ended at the moment.

Like I always say....Like everything audio YMMV, this includes burn-in.

But rest assured some things need break in and others don't, a prostitute for example needs no break-in while a virgin....well....

Anyways, back to the Scheduled Program...comparing the Diamond vs. Neutral Dacs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynobot 

But rest assured some things need break in and others don't, a prostitute for example needs no break-in while a virgin....well....

Then my Ref-7 is a dirty slut who really gets off on foreplay.  She benefits greatly from warm-up but I never heard any difference with break-in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by haloxt 

SP Wild, Kingwa himself says that the ref 7 single-ended and ref 8 single-ended are slightly better than ref 9 (single-ended only). I have compared dac19mk3 pmd100 with dac9mk3 pmd100 single-ended, and I think dac9mk3 single-ended has slight advantage in microdetail control and retrieval, but dac19mk3 has a slightly more listenable macrodetail.

 

I like both SE and balanced, they present music differently, it's like looking at the same song from different angles, although you can say one angle is clearer or more objective, you can't really say one angle is better than the other.

I didn't know you had the PMD100 dac9 ,  did you ever have a chance to compare it to the DSP-1 models?  From what I am hearing with the 3 Audio-Gd's DAC's is that the filter may be as big a influence on the sound as the "neutral" vs "musical" analog stage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IPodPJ 

Then my Ref-7 is a dirty slut who really gets off on foreplay.  She benefits greatly from warm-up but I never heard any difference with break-in.

Then it appears Kingwa had his way with your Ref 7 thoroughly before he shipped her to you...no doubt she is a dirty little slut.  I bet she brings you hours of joy

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal 

I didn't know you had the PMD100 dac9 ,  did you ever have a chance to compare it to the DSP-1 models?  From what I am hearing with the 3 Audio-Gd's DAC's is that the filter may be as big a influence on the sound as the "neutral" vs "musical" analog stage.

I recently ordered the dsp-1 board to put in my dac9, I don't know when it'll come. Will let you know how they compare though. I know digital filter can change sound quite a bit when comparing pmd-100 vs. df1704. Hopefully what I hear matches when slim.a says dsp-1 is like the best of those two filters .

Well it looks like it won't matter much because the Diamond series is being discontinued.

I thought I said the the Diamond Differential series is going to be discontinued, the Ref 8 is not a DD Dac is it???

But information concerning what I am talking about can be found at the AGD web site.  I have no idea about the Ref 8 so I cant comment on that...

Quote:

Originally Posted by ursdiego 

Hi there, Dynobot 

 

Thank you for that information! Where does this information come from? And can you tell us the reason for that?

 

The Re 8 is considered the "Flagship" by almost everybody here, so why should it be discontinued...?

 

Thanks 4 more clarifications about that! Urs