My FP has arrived, I'll share some impressions. It arrived in a plain box, together with a photo-copied sheet of paper which is the manual. In the box there were an USB-cable, powercord and headphones adapter (to 3,5).
The unit looks and feels well made, weighs exactly 670 grams, its LED's are blue and it's about the size af two packs of cigarettes, installation on Windows XP was plug and play, and it makes a 'tick'-sound when you switch it on.
I'm testing it with the equipment I mentioned in an earlier post. All sorts of music, from Sonic Youth to Bowie to Kraftwerk to Tom Waits. First something about the headphones amp. It appears to sound a little more precise then then when I'm using the Technics as amp, but maybe a little thinner. Although with tiny adjustments using foobars equalizer it gets better, but at this moment I don't know yet which I prefer, both are sounding great.
Compared to the CD-player, this DAC clearly wins. Although the CD-player doesn't produce a bad sound, especially in the higher frequencies it sounds 'harsher' then the DAC, not to be confused with a more 'clear' sound, because the DAC sounds very clear indeed.
However, for all I know every modern DAC sounds this way. Basically all I can definitely report for sure is that it outshines an old CD-player. And that it does. It turns my computer in a giant CD-player of, in my view, very good quality. That is exactly what I wanted. Much happier now with my new headphones too, the Senn 558 turnes out to be pretty good.
Can I recommend it Fire Phoenix? That depends, again, I cannot compare it to other DAC's, and If something similar can be bought for the same price in your neighborhood, then that would be better of course. Can I recommend it for what it is as a machine? Yes, I can, it does what it is supposed to do, and does this very well.
To be honest, I didn't have to pay extra taxes, something which probably has something to do with the fact that the seller marked the box as containing an 'ÚSB-soundcard', value 20 US dolars, and that it was a gift.
So all in all I got it for a little less then 90 euro. Considering its, in my small opinion, excellent sound quality, that was a very good investment. I would have bought a similar DAC much earlier if I had known they existed.
Final thoughts: As mentioned earlier by someone else, the volume knob also affects the DAC's output, which is something to think about if you switch headphones alot, my 'tests' were alle being done via USB (I'll make sure that my next computer has an optical output), and finally, the problem someone reported, being that the DAC overheated due to a poor USB cable (the one they supply), I cannot reproduce. Even after hours it doesn't get hot, not even warm, ok, maybe a slight touch, but that would be caused by the built-in power transformer (I think).
Anyway, overall pretty happy with this device. I've seen DAC's of over 5000 euro, and they MUST be alot better, but how they can ever be 5000 euro better then this little device, no idea, not a clue.
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I also have 2 questions, the first one is @kiteki: The replacement chips you mentioned earlier, what do they improve, the DAC-part or the headphones amp-part, or both?
Second question is if it would serve any use, on a machine with a Realtek HD audiochip (on Windows XP), to install ASIO-drivers as some recommend?
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