[Levanter]

Would $550 for a used(demo set) NFB-28 (2015) version with all upgrades TXCO + Amanero USB considered a good deal?

 

[tumble]

Would $550 for a used(demo set) NFB-28 (2015) version with all upgrades TXCO + Amanero USB considered a good deal?

Here are some other prices that people have been asking for. You can use the tabs at the top to see both current sales and past sales.

https://www.hifishark.com/search?q=Audio-GD+NFB+28

 

[pixelcity]

So any luck here? Hoping so.

Actually, I am using China Post's tracking for my EMS package. Kingwa confirmed that he did not receive the package yesterday. It shouldn't take longer than seven days for an EMS package to be delivered. Also, USPS does offer a money back policy for EMS packages if it wasn't delivered by the guarantee delivery date (which for this package was 05/16/17).

I will be angry if China Post lost an EMS package. That means almost $900 down the drain and I don't think Kingwa will offer any refund if it happens.

 

[Uri Cohen]

So any luck here? Hoping so.

Not really, bad developments today. The package got confiscated by China Post Customs indefinitely. My claim with USPS was ended today with no reason. When I called USPS today, they told me the following above, including a phone number to the customs office that Kingwa must call.

I just send him an email regarding everything and their phone number. I swear, if he starts anything to the point if not able to get the package, then I will have to file a PayPal claim. I shipped the package per his instructions and I was clear in my communication.

 

[bayareabiker]

Not really, bad developments today. The package got confiscated by China Post Customs indefinitely. My claim with USPS was ended today with no reason. When I called USPS today, they told me the following above, including a phone number to the customs office that Kingwa must call.

I just send him an email regarding everything and their phone number. I swear, if he starts anything to the point if not able to get the package, then I will have to file a PayPal claim. I shipped the package per his instructions and I was clear in my communication.

Once again, very sorry to hear about your troubles. I think the right thing would be for Kingwa to either refund or purchase or ship you a new unit, while he works with China Post.

Your experience is not encouraging at all. My unit is working flawlessly with 44.1 files and has issues only with certain files with higher sampling rates. So, guess I'll just keep it for now, rather than risk the experience you are going through. The benefits of higher sampling rates are controversial anyway . But, it'll hurt the resale value though .

 

[Kingwa]

Not really, bad developments today. The package got confiscated by China Post Customs indefinitely. My claim with USPS was ended today with no reason. When I called USPS today, they told me the following above, including a phone number to the customs office that Kingwa must call.

I just send him an email regarding everything and their phone number. I swear, if he starts anything to the point if not able to get the package, then I will have to file a PayPal claim. I shipped the package per his instructions and I was clear in my communication.

I test the unit, I am consider it is the back stage noise.
You may can not hear from the NFB15 but the NFb15 is not analyze but just releax sound for smooth some details and roll off on frequency band.
The small noise is always happen in same time in same track, if the unit had issue, it must random appear .

I like to upload A track for other users test but I don't know how to upload it.

 

[Uri Cohen]

I test the unit, I am consider it is the back stage noise.
You may can not hear from the NFB15 but the NFb15 is not analyze but just releax sound for smooth some details and roll off on frequency band.
The small noise is always happen in same time in same track, if the unit had issue, it must random appear .

I like to upload A track for other users test but I don't know how to upload it.

Hello Kingwa. I just want to thank you for working with me on this. I just send you an email back asking for a refund. I can upload the tracks no problem, however, since you are in China, you might not be able to assess the site.

Let me say that Kingwa is good people. This was not my first Audio-GD order, while my other two orders were just fine. He was clear with his communication regarding the warranty policy.

Edit: Received my refund from Kingwa. He refunded me $870 for the shipping cost and the item. While this was not the resolution I was hoping for, he made up for it.

 

[bayareabiker]

I test the unit, I am consider it is the back stage noise.
You may can not hear from the NFB15 but the NFb15 is not analyze but just releax sound for smooth some details and roll off on frequency band.
The small noise is always happen in same time in same track, if the unit had issue, it must random appear .

I like to upload A track for other users test but I don't know how to upload it.

Hi Kingwa,

Which unit did you test and with which file?

This is what I am experiencing:

Please look the files in: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5IvZY8X3uTkY09RbDg0bHEwcjQ . (Kingwa, I am not sure if Google Drive is available or blocked in China - if you cannot access it, let me know another way of providing these files to you).

1. test.flac : this is a sample of a very high quality classical recording in 24/88.2 (originally released on SACD). There is no way any music label would release a recording with obvious extraneous noise.
2. NFB 28.38 Noise.m4a : is is an audio recording on my iPhone mic in front of the speaker while playing test.flac via NFB-28.38 (USB input). You can clearly hear the "tick" sounds which are not part of the music.
3. GoodDAC.m4a : is is an audio recording on my iPhone mic in front of the speaker while playing test.flac via my Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2v2 (USB input). NO "tick" noises. You can only hear the low level background noises of the orchestra and the hall.

The noise problem occurs only while using any digital input on the NFB-28.38. It goes away if I use it purely as a headphone amp or preamp fed by my W4S DAC. Also there is no noise when there is nothing playing. So, clearly this is not a traditional analog noise problem. I suspect it is erroneous digital artifacts (aliasing?) caused by the DAC section. Note that such sounds will NOT be random, but perfectly CORRELATED with the music!

Fellow NFB-28.38 users: I would appreciate it if you could try playing the test.flac on the NFB-28.38 and other DACs and letting us know what you find. Be sure that your computer is directly passing 24/88.2 to the NFB without resampling of any kind.

Thanks!

 

[ZenErik]

Hello. I think I initially reported that I didn't hear the issue. But I was also at work and not playing the file loudly enough to hear much.

I can 100% verify that I hear the issue you mentioned with the test.flac via the NFB-28.38. It crackles A LOT. I compared that to the output through my MacBook Pro. While the MBP might not have an amazing DAC, I can confirm that there was no crackling. Have you found any consistency in which recordings have the issue? Do they all have that 88.2 Hz sample rate? Personally I listen to mostly lossy music and haven't heard that issue. I've heard little ticks in games but nothing that I was sure wasn't already there before I switched to the NFB-28.38.

Edit: I can also verify that crackling was still present after converting the file to ALAC, MP3, and AAC. But I believe when using MP3 and AAC the crackling changed. When using ALAC, as expected, the same crackling was retained.

 

[john57]

I am unable to playback the test.flac on two of my IFI Audio DAC's and my Audio-gd NFB-29 using Jriver. I have no problem playing back my own FLAC or PCM files that I have at 88.2 24 bit. Do you have the native file from the SACD? It should be a DSD file. There is no such thing as a FLAC file on a SACD disk. I also have no problems playing back my DSD or DSF files natively. I think that your Test.flac is bad.

 

[bayareabiker]

I am unable to playback the test.flac on two of my IFI Audio DAC's and my Audio-gd NFB-29 using Jriver. I have no problem playing back my own FLAC or PCM files that I have at 88.2 24 bit. Do you have the native file from the SACD? It should be a DSD file. There is no such thing as a FLAC file on a SACD disk. I also have no problems playing back my DSD or DSF files natively. I think that your Test.flac is bad.

jonh57, sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean to say the file was ripped from an SACD. It was originally released on SACD (https://tinyurl.com/y8nfkly7)
which is a good indication that lot of care went into it. I've been afflicted with this audiophile madness long enough to know the difference between DSD and PCM

My file is a 24/88.2 FLAC download that I bought on HDTracks.com. I used Audacity to cut a ~30sec snippet for you guys to try out. john57, what error do you get? Does your player report an error or is it just that you get no sound?

ZenErik has confirmed that his NFB-28.38 indeed shows this problem with the file under question, while playing the same file on the other DACs such as the MacBook's internal DAC there is no issue (its possible the . HyperDuel has reported that he gets crackling noise on all PCM tracks he/she tried (albeit with the single ended NFB-29.38 model).

BTW, the crackling sound is not subtle. It might not be noticeable in your typical rock or heavily compressed recording, but it is very noticeable during soft passages of well recorded classical music. I suspect is it some kind of frequency dependent artifact. I noticed the problem almost exclusively with classical recordings. Is it possible that the NFB is generating artifacts out of sustained massed strings?

Like I said, so far I found the problem mostly on 88.2 and higher classical files. If I downsample to 24/44.1, the problem seems to either go away or get reduced to a much lower level. I will try to find other samples from my library that expose this problem and post snippets for you guys to try out. I'd also encourage you guys to try out high-res classical recordings in your collection.

Remember, the files that the NFB is having a problem with play perfectly elsewhere, including on my Wyred 4 Sound DAC-2v2SE, which BTW has the same 9038PRO chip.

Thanks for reading!

 

[ZenErik]

Feel free to point me in the direction of what files might have issues. I don't maintain a lossless collection anymore. HDTracks is quite expensive. I downloaded a single 24/192 song for $3, and it sounds great. No crackling. So I'm curious if we can somehow pinpoint the cause.

Edit: Also purchased a 24/88 track and cranked it up louder than I'd normally prefer. No crackling.

 

[john57]

I download the test.flac file and Jriver will not play it, just stops. The ASIO and the WASAPI drivers for both IFI and audio GD DAC's will not play that file. I can playback the file on the web just fine but that does not tell me everything using direct sound in that case which is not 88.2k 24bit. Sounds like a Mahler piece. My opinion is that the file in question is corrupted.

 

[bayareabiker]

I download the test.flac file and Jriver will not play it, just stops. The ASIO and the WASAPI drivers for both IFI and audio GD DAC's will not play that file. I can playback the file on the web just fine but that does not tell me everything using direct sound in that case which is not 88.2k 24bit. Sounds like a Mahler piece. My opinion is that the file in question is corrupted.

I don't understand why it won't play in Jriver. I downloaded the file from google drive, it is identical to my copy and plays fine through on my Mac using direct mode in Audirvana Plus. I also ran it through the "flac -t" command which told me the file was fine. Anyway, I uploaded a WAV version of the same file into the same location https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5IvZY8X3uTkY09RbDg0bHEwcjQ . Maybe that'll work?

 

[ZenErik]

I don't understand why it won't play in Jriver. I downloaded the file from google drive, it is identical to my copy and plays fine through on my Mac using direct mode in Audirvana Plus. I also ran it through the "flac -t" command which told me the file was fine. Anyway, I uploaded a WAV version of the same file into the same location https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B5IvZY8X3uTkY09RbDg0bHEwcjQ . Maybe that'll work?

Can you point me in the direction of where to find more recordings with these issues? I would love to check them out from the source rather than a flac/wav clip. Thanks.