FYI, i'm dealing with family emergency related events, and have not had enough time to really listen to the intona. Intial impressions are positive, but to what extent? Nothing that less than 30minutes could give any definitive review or reply. First Impression, Noise floor sounds excellent, Possibly to the point that my system won't have audible improvements beyond a certain point. albeit It already was excellent. I did however also receive my HEX back from Hifiman today. a total new pair was sent and perfectly in tip top working order and no cosmetic issues whatsoever. I will listen for a while with the intona and then switch back after a week to see what's missing, if anything. Or if it will be a repeat of the Uptone Regen and find out it made my system sound worse. Stay tuned... overall, I can honestly say....no change is dramatic...if any. first impression is.... not a good upgrade for the money. Also tried a jitterbug, that did absolutely nothing as well.with or without. I'd hope these work for others, but i'm not one to make things up in my mind if there are audible improvements or not. I need more time with this intona to be sure. At this moment and time, I'm sure enough that I could live without it.
I'm not going to do the a/b back forth every 5min crap. I'm going to listen for hours/days or a week, and then switch back to no intona. I'm also have a jitterbug i'm going to throw into the mix.
initial installation was a breeze. NO issues whatsoever. plugged in, and everything works perfectly.
I'm going to take this to a local meet on the 30th and sure to find a person who's system will benefit from this much more than my system would. I'm finding that my system is already sounding so damn good and has such clean power all around...there isn't much that can be improved on. So that means end game for me.
But I have all these wonderful DDC's to listen to and choose my final flavor of sound presentation.
I'm confident I will be installing NDK's on the Audio-GD DIU8, and have the solder reflow process figured out and confident it will go smoothly.
I have 2 pairs of 957's, will still attempt another xmos board for the DIU8 with 957's
and the Breeze will get it's 957's, which truly is the most simple swap of all the DDC's. I figure that will be a 20-30min job tops.
The PRO3A likely will sit as is, and get some super clean Teddy Pardo Power.
Acko dac AKR75 regulator will go into the U12, and Belleson Superpower MK2 regulator...which will sound best? not sure, but i'm told the AKR75 should technically be best for the U12 due to it's larger bandwidth and ideal use for digital gear...we shall hear and find out. Tommorrow i'm going to work on the U12 since i'm still awaiting some key components for the other builds. including still waiting for the breeze to even show up...slowest damn shipping in the world. couple weeks now...
overall, the good thing is I don't seem to hear a decrease in sound quality. that's better to say than my experience with the Schiit Wyrd, and Uptone Regen. which were more of anti progress for stepping my system up a notch. As I said, I need more time. More testing. Sometimes I think I hear something, but want to be sure nothing is being made up. I surely want to hear a change, but honestly can't say I do. I tested a full range of different resolution songs. many 24/192 tracks and pushing bandwidth. Seems like no loss of quality with or without intona. For a moment I thought I was hearing subtle change in sound stage. I will do more testing with the HD800 and HEX and see which might revel more. They both are quite transparent and revealing imho. I don't care what others are saying at the HEX. they are simply fantastic with my system.The HD800's are with the Sonarworks plugin. But will do some mods to them to further improve them...draug2 is on the way for hd800 first. and many mods for the HD800 are in line and ready to install when my time opens up after some projects finish. HEX am waiting for funds to purchase Draug2 and grey wire to do a grey/black wire braid. Grey is on backorder til end of feb.
CUT TO THE CHASE...
ok... save your money. the Intona may or may not work. at this point...hold on to your benjamins. I will test it further on laptops, low grade pcs and crapple computers to see what results I get. Honestly, my system just doesn't seem to care if the intona is a part of the family of musical madness.
Some other computers usb may welcome the Intona and likely would make dramatic differences. As the usb regen...I sold and the buyer said "what is this? sorcery! it's dramatically improved! i'm so happy for him, truly am. I wish I could say that it would of helped me, but it didn't. It's likely the intona will be attempted to be returned, or will sell it for a small loss on Headfi and use the funds towards something like the draug2 for my HEX. I know that will be an upgrade. I will update after the 30th with my final statement about the Intona. I want to be fair and give it a chance in different conditions.