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Official Audio-gd Sparrow thread
Jul 14, 2010 at 8:27 PM Post #391 of 727
My Sparrow A arrived and I've had a bit of a play.  Nice and clear-sounding out of the box. Having just compared the old and new USB inputs on the Fun, the Tenor chip seems to make a small improvement, resulting in a slightly smoother, less harsh sound.  It's not unpleasant driving my HD-800s either, though is a little fatiguing. Also too, the soundstage etc. isn't anywhere near as good as a mid-range dedicated amp and it wont do justice to say, Shpongle or anything complex.  I understand why other manufacturers use the WM8740 in low-end gear, as the slight treble roll-off masks the lack of linearity in the treble and makes listening less fatiguing.   Overall though, it's closer to what I originally intended in concept, if not entirely in spec, when I asked Audio-gd to make an entry-level piece of gear.
 
Jul 14, 2010 at 9:08 PM Post #392 of 727


Quote:
currawong said:
My Sparrow A arrived and I've had a bit of a play.  Nice and clear-sounding out of the box. Having just compared the old and new USB inputs on the Fun, the Tenor chip seems to make a small improvement, resulting in a slightly smoother, less harsh sound.  It's not unpleasant driving my HD-800s either, though is a little fatiguing. Also too, the soundstage etc. isn't anywhere near as good as a mid-range dedicated amp and it wont do justice to say, Shpongle or anything complex.  I understand why other manufacturers use the WM8740 in low-end gear, as the slight treble roll-off masks the lack of linearity in the treble and makes listening less fatiguing.   Overall though, it's closer to what I originally intended in concept, if not entirely in spec, when I asked Audio-gd to make an entry-level piece of gear.
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Ditto.  He definitely nailed it with the Sparrow.
 
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 10:00 AM Post #393 of 727
Don't have a decent connection, so I'll have to ignore any catching up on posts for the moment. I'm waiting for a unit to be dispatched but have been asked whether I want to upgrade to ALPS27 for $10 (+ currency conversion + paypal). Is it worth it on a basic version?
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 10:15 AM Post #394 of 727
The Alps 27 is not a bad POT.  I don't know the brand of those Black ones he also uses.  If it were me, I would upgrade it.  He uses his POTs in a shunt configuration usually, so it is "OK" maybe to use a cheaper POT.
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 1:09 PM Post #395 of 727
HEAD-FI SNAKE OIL WARNING!!!
 
Do not buy the Sparrow.  It will not sound any different than your ipod.
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 3:18 PM Post #396 of 727


Quote:
anoobis said:
Don't have a decent connection, so I'll have to ignore any catching up on posts for the moment. I'm waiting for a unit to be dispatched but have been asked whether I want to upgrade to ALPS27 for $10 (+ currency conversion + paypal). Is it worth it on a basic version?
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the answer is yes.  especially if your headphones are not high impedance. 
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 3:30 PM Post #397 of 727
Quote:
crazy*carl said:
HEAD-FI SNAKE OIL WARNING!!!
 
Do not buy the Sparrow.  It will not sound any different than your ipod.
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CARL!  STOP!  C'mon, the amp is not "snake oil".  It's a very decent dac / amp that will not necessarily sound noticably better than your soundcard if your soundcard is good and capable of driving your headphones adequately.  
 
I actually found a post the other day that I wanted to sent to you - I just can't find it now, but it totally epitomized everything you've been saying (much of which I actually agree with) - and I wanted you to see it.
 
Basically, it was a discussion of an S/PDIF converter, which is something that only makes a tiny difference and even then only if you have very high end hear - i.e., $1000 amp + $1000 dac, etc. (supposedly).  Anyway, in the middle of this discussion, someone - I think he was from Empiricial Audio, but maybe he was just some poor shmo who had bought their snakeoil and wanted to justify his poor judgment to others - said something to the effect of:
 
The cheapest S/PDIF cable you can expect decent quality from is $500/m.  
 
I was just blown away by the utter insanity of the comment, and went to look up the company, and indeed, a 3m length will set you back $800 plus tax and shipping.
 
For one RCA cable.  
 
http://www.empiricalaudio.com/cables/digital-interconnects
 
pretty amazing given that you can now buy a bit-perfect stereo field recorder with amazing AD-DA conversion and much else for around that much!
 
But seriously, there is so much potential 'snakeoil' all over head-fi to warn people about, why on earth bother with anything that costs less than $200?  You've got hundreds of people buying TWAG cables for IEMs that are the price of the IEMs themselves.  You've got people saying that TOSLINK sounds like "utter rubbish" compared to RCA, which itself sounds "bad" compared to BNC - all of which is quite likely about 100x greater BS than anything ever claimed about the Sparrow or any other Audio-gd product.  
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 3:39 PM Post #398 of 727


Quote:
crazy*carl said:
HEAD-FI SNAKE OIL WARNING!!!
 
Do not buy the Sparrow.  It will not sound any different than your ipod.
Click to expand...


Looks like the Circus is back in Town!
 
The Clown show looks to be awesome...
 
Jul 17, 2010 at 4:55 PM Post #399 of 727
Also, just to put another word in the "Audio-Gd is not selling snakeoil" category, I was about to buy Qinghua's new DSP-3 Digital Connector for $150.  I probably would have gotten it, paired it with the Sparrow, thought it wasn't as much an improvement as I had hoped, but not wanted to spend the money and effort to ship all the way back to china or put up for sale and just kept it, probably growing to like it over time due to placebo.  
 
Qinghua specifically told me that it wasn't a good pairing with the Sparrow, because the sparrow wasn't high-end gear, and that it would be nearly impossible to hear any improvement.  So far from just trying to sell anyone anything, he specifically unsold me on something I was already about to buy and lost $150 in the process.  That's an honest dealer in my book.
 
Jul 18, 2010 at 8:56 AM Post #402 of 727
He's a funny guy.  The question is, which iPod?  All my iPods sound slightly different, at least tonally.
 
Anyway, a more interesting thing is, while I've been waiting for some drivers from a certain Canadian, I've had a friend's pair of HF-1s here. I found them a surprisingly good match with the Sparrow.  Slightly annoyingly, I often have to restart iTunes every time I switch to and from the Sparrow's TE7022 USB input, as it doesn't play as nicely with Mac OS X as the regular TI chips do.
 
Jul 18, 2010 at 1:13 PM Post #404 of 727
You're funny because you speak like you're absolutely correct when actually people with your perspective are in a very small minority. Consider, all those semiconductor companies making new audio chips all the time  have been wasting their time, all those mp3 player makers choosing new components to improve sound quality when they already had the best right under their nose. I mean, everything sounds the same! My father also sounds like my mother I can't tell the difference when blindfolded. I can't even tell if they are in front of me or behind me it is all the same.
 
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