Thinking to get this soon, based on some review of early batch China owner, initial impression seems to be greater in detail reproduction, more extension in both end,  more depth & width improvement in soundstage, way better and precise positioning, slightly dry favor, I guess it's at least 100...

Yup, their headamp is very interesting with attractive pricing.   Purepiper is going to release H-Series DAC soon, H-Series is a step higher than the A-Series. Below is the photo of the H-dac's board.     Heard that there are few digital processing to choose when operating, so you...

  bixby :   Wow, that's a great piece of review, indead I had help Purepiper translted them into Chinese for posting in their forum. Actually your DAC-A1 is factory upgraded, before this they offer upgrade pack for chinese users to DIY but unfortunately the significantly improved detail...

Hi Jkeny, still no news from your friend side?   Oh ya, for those who are interested, the Purepiper DAC A-1 just did a recent casing redesign and all comes with latest upgrade in sonic, it certainly a looker right now!

Thanks for the effort ... cant wait :D 

Curious to know further about impression too :D

Cant wait for the initial impression :D A little bit of burn-in is quite important to see the real potential of upgrade, I seen few Chinese user reported there are some sort of improvement after some burn-in

Quote:     Oh ya, the soundstage is getting wider and imaging is better too    Quote:     Welcome to the purepipper family, too bad right now they are focusing on the speaker setup, hopefully there's a headamp from them soon 

Hi Negakinu,   Even before the recent upgrade, I would say it's definitely an step up from your Nuforce uDAC, and with the recent upgrade, that's would be quite an no-brainer purchase at USD200 range.   From what I seen from their china forum, all upgraded users reported with positive...

Hi slim.a, Thanks for the review, that's really a great piece of review! I'm feeling good to found that DAC-A1 is quite on par with some of the hottest DAC in the market, hopefully there are more products coming from Purepiper! Heard that they are going to release a USD400 - 600 priced DAC...

Quote: Originally Posted by JulioCat Vlach Nop, we are not talking about a sense of better dynamics cause volumen mismatch, the DAC19MK3 produce a better sound than the DACMagic at every volume, for me these DAC's are in differents levels and the DA19MK3 is up in the list. Hi...

Quote: Originally Posted by slim.a Before upgrading to the DAC-19mk3, I had the Audio-gd DAC-100 (with the Earth hdam) which is basically the dac section of the Compass, and there is a huge improvement in bass impact with this upgrade. In fact, it is like adding a subwoofer to your...

Hi guys, I need your input here, currently owned a unit of COMPASS with EARTH as DAC, I'm looking upgrade to DAC19MKIII, personally looking for better bass impact from DAC19MKIII compare to COMPASS, the DF1704 struck me as being more analytical chip, scare the DAC19MKIII might ends up being less...

Quote: Originally Posted by les_garten How susceptible do you think electrons are to Vibration? . Emmm ... doesnt has a clue ... but I believe there must be some "effect" there ... as Kingwa mentioned before, you must do the practical part instead of blindly following the...

Emmm ... a lil bit of off topic, anyone one tried to place some Vibrapod isolator - The Vibrapod Company under their Compass? Quite alot of users from worldwide reporting audible improvement using them underneath CDP, DAC, AMP, Vinyl ... Most important is their price is kinda cheap, USD6 per...

Quote: Originally Posted by Patu I don't need USB input. "Less digital sound" sounds good though. DAC19Mk3 would use PCM1704UK which should be one of the best DAC chips out there (right?). Then again, the sound description says it's very neutral and monitor like sounding. I'm not...

Sorry to see all these craps happen, I could confidently say it wasn't Kingwa's fault, since I did help some guys here in Malaysia doing COMPASS bulk order with sea shipping which tend to be handle more rough than air shipping, yet all the units arrived safely in box with perfect cosmetic and...

Quote: Originally Posted by ScottieB Ha and then my emails all started being from "Cherry" - if Kingwa is Qinghua (westernized spelling??) then what is "Cherry" for real??? Cherry should be Kingwa's new customer service I think around 1 month ago he's start recruiting new...

Quote: Originally Posted by mbd2884 What? The DAC-19SE uses Dual PCM1704UK with CAST? Boogers, by the time I save, I'll bet the C2C will push a DAC-19SE/C2C combo to about over $900. Frick, frick, frick! Compass needs a hug, I won't be abandoning you for a long time. /pat...

Quote: Originally Posted by Currawong Ok, I spent a couple of hours at a friend's place comparing the Compass to the Benchmark DAC1 as promised. To compare, we used his electrostatic headphone set-up, which alone is probably worth more than all the other electronics we were using put...

Quote: Originally Posted by shampoosuicide Also, I hate to interrupt this wave of comments re. Peete's review, but what is the opinion on the DAC-19 SE? At 450 USD it fits nicely into my budget. DAC-19SE is a very good dac, based on what I read in audio-gd chinese forum, it's...

Quote: Originally Posted by mbd2884 Yeah that thread you posted there seems a bit meh to me. That and I think Cambridge Audio would be very surprised the Zero to be better than theirs, I'd be surprised if Compass DAC was better than the DacMagic. The only good thing I got out of that...

Quote: Originally Posted by mbd2884 I don't get it, it DacMagic seems to be a pure DAC to me...Its the Zero that would seem to be less than pure DAC if its coloring the music to be more musical...by that description. IMHO DAC doesnt mean to be analytical and accurate, even Kingwa...

For those who are looking for pure DAC, try to avoid DacMagic by Cambridge Audio, reason? Take a look at this Quote: Hmm, i'm not so good at describing sound but i'll try. I switched from my Zero DAC to the DacMagic and when paired with my Novo and K701, i immediately heard the...