[muad]

Yeah, mines exactly the same. I've got an adapter but the pins of the opa earth dont fully seat in the adapter. So now I'm not really sure what to do.

As for an impression, Im gonna let the Fun and opa burn in some more. So far the difference is a very defined sound stage compared to the d1, and the d1 was already a huge step up from the sound cards i've heard. Also the clarity is absolutely amazing. Very detailed! With the opa earth in the fun it's perfect, the sound is quite balanced, flat and uncoloured. The opa moon is similar to the maverick except clearer highs lows and soundstage. The base and treble are nicely defined with a slight loss of the midrange. I guess a slight v on the eq is the way to describe it. It's better at hiding the low quality recordings and mp3s in my collection.

I would definitely say the D1 had some merits though. With acoustic songs the maverick really shines. It colours the sound of an acoustic guitar perfectly. Probably the result of the tube out. The one thing about the maverick that show up now that I have the fun is the popping sound. With the maverick and optical in I kept getting a popping sound from my speakers when switching tracks or scanning tracks. This was also more evident when using wasapi. It was pretty irritating. The Audio-gd fun has no such problem.

My impressions of the maverick and Fun are done with powered speakers. So Im not sure how the headphone sections differ. The maverick also sounds very different stock. My maverick was using a LME49720HA, and Imo was the best sounding opamp for the maverick. Everything else was too noisy, unbalanced and/or coloured.

 

[muad]

One more thing in case anyone missed the post about jumper settings. Instead of using the soft1 2 3 settings to get rid of some of the harshness, change the jumper on the AD1852. There are two possible jumper spots on the module. The one closer to the front is to set it to 192khz upsampling (stock setting) while the pins near the rear are 96khz upsampling. The 96khz is perfect and gets rid of any harshness. Also this way you're not applying any kind of "soft" filtering to your music.

This was posted before but it was kinda confusing to understand what was being said.

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by muad /img/forum/go_quote.gif One more thing in case anyone missed the post about jumper settings. Instead of using the soft1 2 3 settings to get rid of some of the harshness, change the jumper on the AD1852. There are two possible jumper spots on the module. The one closer to the front is to set it to 192khz upsampling (stock setting) while the pins near the rear are 96khz upsampling. The 96khz is perfect and gets rid of any harshness. Also this way you're not applying any kind of "soft" filtering to your music. This was posted before but it was kinda confusing to understand what was being said.

Hi Muad,

Glad to see you are happy with you FUN

There is just one thing I should correct: There are indeed 2 jumper positions on the AD1852 with 2 flavors. But there is no upsmapling to 96 or 192. The difference (if you read the data sheet) is in the oversampling factor (x2 on one setting and x4 on the other one).
So just to avoid confusion, the FUN is not an upsampling DAC. The 2 jumpers you mentioned let you choose between 2 digital filters.

I hope the explanation is not confusing. But even if some people do not understand the tech talk, what is important to understand is that there are 2 jumper settings on the AD1852 module. And each jumper position gives you a different flavor.

 

[muad]

Oops sorry!

Sometimes I read things too fast

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinner6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The pins on mine are perfectly straight, there simply is not enough clearance between the capacitor on the outside left of the Earth and and the adjacent cap on the FUN. I ended up just lifting the HDAM up so that it is not fully seated,but it still works and there is no tension on any parts. Now I wonder if a part like this would be what I want: 8 PIN SOLDER TAIL DIP SOCKET - 08-3518-10 Right now the thing is about 1mm up from seated.

Hey,
I have an older Earth made by Burson that does not have that white cap. I see what ya mean. Doesn't look like there is enough room because of the other module to push the cap over a little either.

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by muad /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oops sorry! Lol yeah, the stock is way too bright. For me anyways. When I looked at the data sheet I thought it said something about upsampling... my mistake. What it does say is 96khz or 192khz sample frequency. What does that mean exactly?

The data sheet implies that in one of the jumper settings, the maximum data input will be 24/96 and on the other one it will be 24/192.
However, Kingwa mentioned to me a few weeks ago in an email that in his testing he found out that both modes worked up to 24/192.
Anyway, I didn't try to investigate much longer as the DIR9001 (the stock digital receiver) is limited to 24/96. And the optional CS8416 which allows 24/192 is not nearly as good as the DIR9001.

By the way, many respected audio engineers (such as Dan Lavry) seem to think that anything beyond 24/96 is just marketing BS. So my recommendation for FUN owners is to not worry about the 24/96 limitation of the DIR9001 because in the real word, a 24/96 file played through the DIR9001 will probably sound much better than the 24/192 played through CS8416.

 

[sfrancis]

muad: thanks for posting your initial impressions. once you get it burned in and have a chance to try the headphone output, please let us know.

 

[Pacha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by muad /img/forum/go_quote.gif One question though, other than sinner6 has anyone else had to forcibly install the opa earth in the fun?

I don't have to force to plug the Earth, mine fits in perfectly. The two capacitor besides the Earth are just away and lower enough for me so that they don't bother installing it.

 

[Pacha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif The data sheet implies that in one of the jumper settings, the maximum data input will be 24/96 and on the other one it will be 24/192. However, Kingwa mentioned to me a few weeks ago in an email that in his testing he found out that both modes worked up to 24/192. Anyway, I didn't try to investigate much longer as the DIR9001 (the stock digital receiver) is limited to 24/96. And the optional CS8416 which allows 24/192 is not nearly as good as the DIR9001. By the way, many respected audio engineers (such as Dan Lavry) seem to think that anything beyond 24/96 is just marketing BS. So my recommendation for FUN owners is to not worry about the 24/96 limitation of the DIR9001 because in the real word, a 24/96 file played through the DIR9001 will probably sound much better than the 24/192 played through CS8416.

I tried both jumpers settings and prefer the default one (closest to the front). The second has a larger soundstage but miss a few treble details compared to the first for me, they are here but just less pushed forward to be more precise.

I still have a bit of harshness in the treble, which was much more emphasized with the Earth than the OPA2134, due to DA1852 I guess. Maybe it will go away after more burn-in (less than 100 hours at the moment) like it did for you.
The Earth is more detailed than the OPA2134, and is significantly better though at first it was a bit harsher than now and so not as pleasant to listen to.
I still have to try the LME49720HA to compare as soon as I receive it.

 

[Currawong]

The harshness definitely goes away with time. When mine first arrived, I tried it with my brightest headphones and it was unpleasant. After leaving it on for a couple of weeks (not even playing music), it has become quite smooth-sounding.

 

[Pacha]

Ok, it is nice to know. Thank you for that confirmation.

 

[sinner6]

Not to stray too far from the topic, I was wondering if anyone might be able to tell me where I can acquire an OPA 2134 in 8 pin dip packaging? The only ones I have been able to find are SOIC, and I simply don't have the skills to mount one on an adapter.

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sinner6 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Not to stray too far from the topic, I was wondering if anyone might be able to tell me where I can acquire an OPA 2134 in 8 pin dip packaging? The only ones I have been able to find are SOIC, and I simply don't have the skills to mount one on an adapter.

I got one off ebay!

 

[muad]

I have a question for you slim.

How does the opa earth and LME49710 compare?

 

[Currawong]

For the 2134, try ordering samples from Texas Instruments directly. Other than that, Mouser or Digikey should have them.

Quote:

How does the opa earth and LME49710 compare?

I found them (2x LME49710) to be tonally very similar, with the Earth slightly more detailed to my ears when I compared them in the Compass. I'll have to do so again in the Fun though.