I don't want to casually throw potshots at Audio-GD, but to me there are just too many red flags:

1. Marketing saying feedback is evil
2. Marketing advertising lack of op amps used
3. Marketing regarding their "Audio-GD Current Signal System"
4. Discrete op amps sold (OPA-Earth, Sun, Moon) are relatively expensive yet have not that good performance (see here)
5. High pace of new product models developed (is it genius or lack of time spent prototyping and perfecting designs?)

 
In particular, saying X is bad (when X is something very commonplace and traditionally accepted by the usual engineering analysis) and selling products that don't do X without a solid explanation for why, seems fishy.  [on second thought, they have stated in some product pages that it sounds better that way, so do you believe that?]  Take it as you will.  Of course they're not the only ones holding those viewpoints or making similar claims.

bowei006 said:

I give you mad props for comming back and writing that on a phone. Im on a phone right now as well.
What makes you say snakeoil on their site?

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mikeaj nailed it.. in all honesty I have not looked into the nfb12 or audio hd's site in a while. If I was at home, I would have pulled specific example too tedious in my phone.

brooko said:

Chris - As you said you're entitiled to your opinion - but I'll state again - without listening to the NFB-12, and making sweeping suggestions based on your experience with their lowest end budget dac/amp - I still find your statements as potentially misleading as what you are arguing against.

My other comments were more to do with the fact that a combination of age and experience does give you a different perspective on life.  If you've already come to similar (or indeed different) conclusions - great.  But as you so correctly put, it doesn't really influence the current debate.  I find it weird though that you automatically thought I was having a crack at you because of it.  Let's leave this here though - you can continue via PM if you want to.

As you also stated - you are well educated (I went beyond college, but that's semantics) - and know exactly what snake-oil is.  As you're the one accusing Audio-gd, and you have the clear knowledge of why that accusation is valid - the onus is actually on you to state clearly what claims they have made, and why the snake-oil claim specifically applies to the NFB-12.  What does it deliver (against the website claims), and where does it fall down (where is the snake-oil).  Please go into it in detail.
Here's their page http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB12/NFB12EN.htm
And please note - the one flowery comment there is someone else's quote - not Audio-gd's claim.

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I never argued against the nfb, I argued against the whole darn company. I know you like their product, and that's totally fine. I just don't like the way they do stuff and would not personally do business with them. I felt I should at least chime in and let the op know.

As far as me thinking you were having a crack at me.. I just get irritated when people look down upon others based on a lack of age or (presumed) experience. As a gifted child, I got shushed a lot, when I should have been listened to (among lots of other issues that would explain why I'm touchy). I just got defensive. I have no personal qualms with you, I think you are nice guy and that you are making an honest to goodness suggestion on a product you really like. I know I have sold and bought things from you before and they were great experiences

I dropped out or switched colleges 4 times for various reasons. I have the intelligence, just got other things blocking my progress (mainly money and health issues). However, I feel competent when it comes to audio gear, at least headphones.. I am self educating on other aspects of the hobby, as I can.

Yea, you are correct about the burden of proof being on me. As previously mentioned, I would have been all over it if I was at home with my computer. I haven't poked around their website in a long while.

Basically, my goal was to give a word of caution when it comes to audio GD. That is all. I recognize plenty of people like the nfb 12, plenty of people liked the sparrow too, and I got seriously burnt on that one.

mikeaj said:

I don't want to casually throw potshots at Audio-GD, but to me there are just too many red flags:

• Marketing saying feedback is evil
• Marketing advertising lack of op amps used
• Marketing regarding their "Audio-GD Current Signal System"
• Discrete op amps sold (OPA-Earth, Sun, Moon) are relatively expensive yet have not that good performance (see here)
• High pace of new product models developed (is it genius or lack of time spent prototyping and perfecting designs?)

In particular, saying X is bad (when X is something very commonplace and traditionally accepted by the usual engineering analysis) and selling products that don't do X without a solid explanation for why, seems fishy.  [on second thought, they have stated in some product pages that it sounds better that way, so do you believe that?]  Take it as you will.  Of course they're not the only ones holding those viewpoints or making similar claims.

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Mike pretty much hit all the points I would have. Thanks Mike.

You forgot : Using the acronym "NFB", a commonly used acronym in engineering books that means "Negative Feed-Back", as a trade mark for "Non-Feed-Back".
 
This always seemed like a fail to me. I guess it just goes to prove that the guys at Audio-gd didn't read many engineering books. 

mikeaj said:

I don't want to casually throw potshots at Audio-GD, but to me there are just too many red flags:

• Marketing saying feedback is evil
• Marketing advertising lack of op amps used
• Marketing regarding their "Audio-GD Current Signal System"
• Discrete op amps sold (OPA-Earth, Sun, Moon) are relatively expensive yet have not that good performance (see here)
• High pace of new product models developed (is it genius or lack of time spent prototyping and perfecting designs?)

In particular, saying X is bad (when X is something very commonplace and traditionally accepted by the usual engineering analysis) and selling products that don't do X without a solid explanation for why, seems fishy.  [on second thought, they have stated in some product pages that it sounds better that way, so do you believe that?]  Take it as you will.  Of course they're not the only ones holding those viewpoints or making similar claims.

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The vast majority of companies take liberties in their marketing claims because most of it is subjective and opinion to start with - you can't make a clearly false statement, but it's all about positioning your product in the most positive light so people will want to buy it. If you take exception to over zealous marketing and see red flags on Audio GD's site, take a look around and you'll see red flags everywhere. Virtually every advertisement from a for-profit company uses marketing this way. You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.

kimlaroux said:

You forgot : Using the acronym "NFB", a commonly used acronym in engineering books that means "Negative Feed-Back", as a trade mark for "Non-Feed-Back".

This always seemed like a fail to me. I guess it just goes to prove that the guys at Audio-gd didn't read many engineering books. 

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As far as I know, the engineer behind the Audio-GD products (Kingwa), is actually really knowledgeable. Their website says they design by ear, which is weird, because the opposite seemed true when I was talking to him about the NFB-12. Kingwa does have the proper credentials, and is actually quite intelligent as far as I know, but he lacks skills in the English language and does support some unconventional audiophile myths (like using a discrete signal path). But then again, the Beta22 also uses a discrete class A topology, and that particular amp is one of the best measuring devices out there in the consumer market.
The largest criticism you could have on Audio-GD is that they keep R&D costs too low; they keep on producing new stuff almost monthly. As a result, some of their products are good, others are not. But on the other hand, products like the NFB-12 offer solid build quality and a range of features unavailable in other similarly priced products. I think that's definitely worth mentioning too.

In the end, the O2+ODAC will probably offer higher performance. But is that really important? The NFB-12 has a black background -- I can't hear any background noise even when turning volume all the way up. Additionally it has been measured to have a flat frequency response in the audible bandwidth. Distortion is also below 0.1% over the audible band, IIRC. According to NwAvGuy, and according to my knowledge of pscychoacoustics, this should make it inaudibly different from the O2+ODAC. So why bother spending more to get less features?

captouch said:

The vast majority of companies take liberties in their marketing claims because most of it is subjective and opinion to start with - you can't make a clearly false statement, but it's all about positioning your product in the most positive light so people will want to buy it. If you take exception to over zealous marketing and see red flags on Audio GD's site, take a look around and you'll see red flags everywhere. Virtually every advertisement from a for-profit company uses marketing this way. You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.

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This.

Ever looked at Schiit's website? That's far worse than Audio-GD. In my experience it seems as if there are no companies which do not us the kind of marketing described. Only difference with Audio-GD is that their English sucks.

Quote:

mikeaj said:

I don't want to casually throw potshots at Audio-GD, but to me there are just too many red flags:

1. Marketing saying feedback is evil
2. Marketing advertising lack of op amps used
3. Marketing regarding their "Audio-GD Current Signal System"
4. Discrete op amps sold (OPA-Earth, Sun, Moon) are relatively expensive yet have not that good performance (see here)
5. High pace of new product models developed (is it genius or lack of time spent prototyping and perfecting designs?)

 
In particular, saying X is bad (when X is something very commonplace and traditionally accepted by the usual engineering analysis) and selling products that don't do X without a solid explanation for why, seems fishy.  [on second thought, they have stated in some product pages that it sounds better that way, so do you believe that?]  Take it as you will.  Of course they're not the only ones holding those viewpoints or making similar claims.

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Hi Mike
 
Thanks for your thoughts - I'll comment on a couple of them if I may.
 

• Nowhere on the site that I can find does "Marketing say feedback is evil".  They do say that devices with feedback measure better, and also state that devices with non-feedback "can sound better for the humans ears".
  This isn't an outright claim to me.  It's carefully worded, and I think you'll get opinions both for and against it.  Not snake-oil.  He doesn't say it will sound better, rather it CAN sound better.  Depends on the listener I guess.  Subjective yes, snake-oil - no.
• As far as the info on OP amps and ACSS technology goes - I'm not an EE so I can't begin to say whether it's marketing speak or not.  What I do note is that they do make an attempt to explain why they think it's better.  They don't make outright claims (otherwise they'd have to back them up) - but they do include diagrams etc on why they believe it's better.  To be honest - I have no idea if the technology works or not.  I know the NFB-12 sounds great to these old ears - especially for the price.
• As far as the OPA-Earth Sun Moon goes - I couldn't find that in the NFB-12 section, so not sure what to say.
• Why is a high pace of outputting new products considered to be snake-oil?  If you have a market that will pay for it, then why not.  Could also be that they are keen to improve their products as new design options are discovered.

 
I think the biggest thing I object to is the automatic write-off of the NFB-12 as being a viable option, and the automatic suggestion that the O2/ODAC must be better - when it's more expensive, has less features, aesthetically doesn't look as pleasing, and nobody so far can tell me if it sounds better or not (granted - that will be subjective).  I also argue with the snake-oil designation when these guys seem pretty serious about what they are doing, have no problems publishing specs and circuit designs on their website, and are quite happy to discuss why they think their designs are better.  No false claims - they really care about their products.
 
If people really have issues with them - and think it's snake-oil - at least have the decency to approach the actual company and ask them.  King-Wa is very approachable, and would likely be very happy to discuss some of the reasons behind their designs.  If it was a snake-oil salesman, do you think that sort of information would be given?
 
Finally I'll reiterate again - for the device the OP was looking for - I still think the NFB-12 both qualifies as an option, and also represents tremendous value for the features given, an the overall design.  Just my 2c.

@ Chris
We'll agree to disagree I think.  Life is too short.  Good luck with the health my friend.

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captouch said:

The vast majority of companies take liberties in their marketing claims because most of it is subjective and opinion to start with - you can't make a clearly false statement, but it's all about positioning your product in the most positive light so people will want to buy it. If you take exception to over zealous marketing and see red flags on Audio GD's site, take a look around and you'll see red flags everywhere. Virtually every advertisement from a for-profit company uses marketing this way. You don't have to like it, but that's the way it is.

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(More expensive) consumer audio tends to be worse than a lot of other fields though, in terms of marketing.  Like I said, there are similar practices elsewhere and similar statements being made to sell audio products, and some are much worse.  Of course everybody wants to be loose with claims of sounding better, but it would be in a little better taste to leave out the technobabble if they're not going to be straight with it.  It's pretty common practice to throw out a couple of technical terms or some facts to make laypersons feel like their out of their league, and then follow up with some opinions they hope the audience will also take as facts.  Obviously that's the way that marketing's going to be.
 
 
Some statements are debatable, particularly if you take non-intuitive definitions for a lot of the terminology used (e.g. neutral).  But some go quite beyond that.
 
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/Sparrow/SparrowEN.htm

[size=small]The Sparrow will come in a 100-127V version and a 220-240 version, depending on the geographical location and customer's choice. The reason we don't make it with a selectable voltage is that 1: We are afraid if customers choose the wrong voltage, they will wreck their unit, and 2: While in low quality audio equipment, you can't hear the effect on the sound quality of using a selectable voltage switch, in high quality gear, which includes the Sparrow, the deterimental effects of using a voltage selection switch will be audible, not to mention the positive effects of a better power cable. [/size][boldface added]

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But anyway, it's just marketing, so who really cares?  We're interested in the actual products.  Some words of a webpage have little to do with whether or not the NFB-12 is good or not.  IMHO the marketing just gives you an educated guess as to what's going on.
 
 
 
Anyway, looking at what's written for the NFB-12, there's nothing untowards.  Earlier statements I made were about Audio-GD as a whole and maybe in the past?
 
@Brooko:
 
"Snake oil" wouldn't be the term I would use here.  Maybe I just came in at the wrong time in the discussion.  I was just pointing out aspects that make a bad impression on me, besides the Engrish, poor web design, and distribution / sales.  It's fine by me if they don't want to try to appeal to me though.
 
"Marketing says feedback is evil" is an embellishment by me, but I thought that the meaning was clear.  As pointed out above, actually most of my reservations are more general than with anything in particular about the NFB-12, which I really don't know much about.  I agree that features and aesthetics are important.  It's not just about performance and price.  But having some background, caring about products, or believing in what they're doing and saying—none of these conditions guarantee that there are no false claims being made.

So what Im getting from this whole read is that some say their spiddy senses are tingling?


I have yet to get accurate in my face down to earth evidense on the evilness of their site. Sure some quotes are a bit super bias audiophile but that doesnt add to snake oil evil. Can I get some real quotes from them or emails or something or analyzation of why they are evil snake oil? Because I seem to have not been getting that. You dont have to of course as typing those kind of stuff is long. But, i just still dont see it.

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Originally Posted by Brooko /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I also argue with the snake-oil designation when these guys seem pretty serious about what they are doing, have no problems publishing specs and circuit designs on their website

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There are not that many specs of the NFB-12.1 published that are audio quality related, the only ones I found are the 118 dB SNR (no information on what conditions it was measured under, or what it is referenced to), and 2 ohms output impedance. "[size=x-small]Frequency Breadth:[/size][size=x-small] [/size][size=x-small]20Hz - 20KHz[/size]" without dB tolerances and sample rate is a useless spec.

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Originally Posted by Brooko /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
4. Why is a high pace of outputting new products considered to be snake-oil?  If you have a market that will pay for it, then why not.  Could also be that they are keen to improve their products as new design options are discovered.

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Optimizing a design for the best possible performance takes a lot of time and effort (especially if it is made by a single person, and even more so if it is an exotic topology (ACSS) and is not based on standard off the shelf integrated components), the time it took for the O2 and ODAC to be completed, and the improvement in performance over that time (the ODAC went from only 98 dB dynamic range to 111 over several revisions) is an example of that. If products are rushed to the market quickly, and no detailed specs/measurements are made available, it raises the suspicion that they are not particularly well optimized.

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tilpo said:

Distortion is also below 0.1% over the audible band, IIRC.

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0.1% is not bad if it is measured with a realistic load. It should be noted, however, that a good headphone is capable of better than that at mid-range frequencies, and it also does not compare favorably to various cheaper alternatives.

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stv014 said:

Quote:
 
There are not that many specs of the NFB-12.1 published that are audio quality related, the only ones I found are the 118 dB SNR (no information on what conditions it was measured under, or what it is referenced to), and 2 ohms output impedance. "[size=x-small]Frequency Breadth:[/size][size=x-small] [/size][size=x-small]20Hz - 20KHz[/size]" without dB tolerances and sample rate is a useless spec.

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Well - let's compare to some other 'popular' choices .....
 
Fiio E17 - http://www.fiio.com.cn/product/index.aspx
Mav D1 - http://www.mav-audio.com/base/product/tube_magic_d1/dac_comparison1
Ulong D100 - http://www.shenzhenaudio.com/yulong-d100-p-126.html (has a little more info - but not much)
 
See what I mean?  Why are people singling out the Audio-gd NFB-12 as being snake-oil, yet everyone else can have similar standards - but their specs are OK?

A lot of audiophile products dont have specs and graphs one would expect after reading from nwavguy.

I literally do not see them often at all on sites.

Yes time does have an effect, but does all the time in the world make a good product?

stv014 said:

0.1% is not bad if it is measured with a realistic load. It should be noted, however, that a good headphone is capable of better than that at mid-range frequencies, and it also does not compare favorably to various cheaper alternatives.

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Sure. But 0.1% is not audible, so it doesn't matter.

I said lower than 0.1%, as I know that's not audible.
I don't remember the exact figure, but I do remember it was by any means inaudible.