Me: I am a 21 year old student living in a small town in India. I would like to call myself a music enthusiast, rather than an audiophile. I was inspired by music since childhood, and as the time passed, the passion of music grew in me, and that subsequently led me to join Head-Fi. Eventually, I found the pleasure of listening to music mainly by the HD600 and recently, by the seductive LCD2 headphones, and realized the true components of recorded music. I usually like to listen to Indian Classical Music along with Bollywood songs. My main listening genres include classical, vocal, instrumental, jazz and sometimes pop. With time, my sonic preferences have very much grown. I avidly admire transparency, accuracy along with neutrality, I mostly listen to full sized open back headphones and my all-time favorite headphones are Sennheiser HD800 & AKG K812, which I run from solid state amplifiers. I prefer & admire transparent solid state headphone amplifiers simply because they provide best possible accuracy, transparency & reliability.
I am an average consumer & a humble enthusiast, I pen down my thoughts, & I love to express my feelings. I do not receive for any sort financial benefits through this review. My articles are a purely honest writeup aimed for fellow enthusiasts here at Head-Fi community. My profound thanks to Yulong Audio for arranging a sample unit of U200 for my evaluation.
Intro: Founded in 2009, ShenZhen YuLong Electronics Co., Ltd, (better known as Yulong Audio) is a company specializes in designing and manufacturing High-end headphone amplifiers & DAC’s. The R&D of the company consists of senior audiophiles and a team with proven experience of electronic product development for more than a decade. YuLong is devoted to produce components that are not only sonically superior to the ear, but also economically affordable on the wallet.
Yulong Audio is a well respected brand specializing in the area of high end solid stage Amplifiers & DAC’s. Even though a relatively newer establishment in the field, Yulong Audio managed to capture attention of the world by their attractive offerings. Yulong Audio made well performing devices to be available in a very competitive price, and by retaining a world class technology & superior quality. This made them a well known name across the Audiophile World.
Yulong Audio’s U200 is a high performance USB DAC and headphone amplifier which is designed for dedicated high end audio. It supports PCM formats up to 32Bit/384KHz and DSD.
The U200 utilizes SaviAudio SA9227 for its USB audio interface solution. AKM 4495, the flagship DAC chip of the Premium Audio series from AKM internal hook ups and filters optimized for actual listening experience rather than measurement. Such details distinguish this chip from other solutions, which are mostly optimized for measurement performance, and make it a DAC chip with music sense in its nature. The power supply in U200 is AC internal regulation which is a step up from the external DC supply on its predecessor U100. The headphone amplifier is fully discrete, class-A construction and paired with a dedicated analogue input, so the U200 can be used as a pure headphone amplifier if desired.
Technical specifications of U200:
USB input supports PCM 16-32 Bit: 44.1KHz, 48KHz, 88.2KHz, 96KHz, 176.4KHz, 192KHz, 352.8KHz, 384KHz, and DSD64 and DSD128
USB supports Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows XP to Windows 8, 32 bit or 64 bit system (driver required).
Signal to Noise Ratio: 120dB
Dynamic range: >115dB
Distortion: 0.0016%
Frequency response: -0.2dB @ 20Hz and 20KHz
Crosstalk: -110dB
Maximum line output: 2V RMS
Power consumption: <15W
Headphone output power: 500mW @ 32Ω, 280mW @ 250Ω, 150mW @ 300Ω,60mW @ 600Ω,
Packaging & Accessories: The U200 comes packed in Yulong Audio’s standard white coloured cardboard box having a graphical illustration, there are ample amount of accessories included in the package
Included Accessories:
User manual: Contains instruction about operating U200, aswell as warranty information.
USB Cable: Good quality USB A-B cable to connect U200 to computer.
Power Cable: Plug as specified US/UK/AU/EU
WiFi Module: Which includes a separate DC power cable& an antenna
Rubber feets: 3M branded rubber feets to attach the WiFi module to main body.
Design and Build: The U200 excellent top-notch overall build quality with perfect finishing.
The outer case is made up of aluminium, and is polished & brush finished. Excellently finished surfaces with utmost precision. The U200 is fairly compact in size. Weighs about two kilograms. On the front side, we have Volume control knob, headphone jack is present in 6.5mm format along with a power switch. On the rear side, we have USB input port, power ports a switch for input swapping along with analogue Input & output ports. Power button is very rugged & tough, Volume knob operates in a very smooth & steady fashion. RCA jacks are gold plated, feels good quality platings. Headphone socket is ball bearing type & goes easy on the headphone jack, does not cause scratches on the surface.
Considering the Internal components, U200 has a double sided PCB with no manual wirings. All components used are carefully selected; including all dale resistors, Alps-16 series pot, premium caps. For D/A conversion, the U200 employs SaviAudio SA9227 for USB & 32 Bits/384 KHZ capable AKM Chip. There are no user replaceable/serviceable parts inside the U200. Board is well soldered and has a reliable workmanship. The U200 runs very cool, sometimes gets slightly warm due to being Class-A. It supports 32 bits 384 KHZ & DSD format. Driver installation is a must, & drivers can be downloaded easily on Yulong Audio’s website. It can also act as standalone headphone amplifier when fed with RCA inputs & standalone DAC when output utilized via RCA outputs sockets. DAC output is very powerful & sonically very well performing. When used in standalone amplifier mode fed with external DAC’s, the output power is still ample & plenty, and retains its transparency, with sound signature of the feeding source.
The U200 also contains optional WiFi module which can be connected to U200 main body & have wireless flow of input signals to U200. Smartphone users have to download an Yulong Audio app over Google Play, then can activate WiFi operation, hence avoid hassle of input USB cable. But this is not always useful since U200 is a desktop device & generally we all have PC right beside our amp/dac's.
Sound: The U200 provides a very neutral, detailed & vast, sound character with a touch of ‘naturalness’ in sonic presentation. Sound-stage width is superb & expansive. Overall an amazing performance. Lows are full bodied , very accurate and go very deep. Mids sound clear, slightly sound ‘sweet’ if I must say; U200 has a very slight ‘mellow & sweet’ flavour here in mids. Highs are very clean, airy, very detailed, but slightly smoother in presentation.
Soundstage in U200 is spatial & expansive. It has a fully circular 3D imaging. Detail retrieval, and dynamics are excellent, perhaps one of the best for an Amp/Dac under 500$ (along with HPA-3U). Overall the sonic presentation is very pleasing yet maintains high level of transparency and accuracy. Absolutely zero audible hiss/noise, and zero EMI pickup. But slight ‘pop’ is heard on headphones, when U200 is switched on/off.
Driving Power: The U200 is very powerful when it comes to driving headphones. Drove my AKG K702 (which is a demanding headphone when it comes to amplifiers) well with 25% volume pot utilized. Both AKG K812 & HD800 shined with U200. Also tried my trusty LCD-2’s, U200 drove them very well, but lacked synergy. It anything drives from IEM’s to planar magnetic with ease. Volume pot does a very good job here, volume increase very steady and in a smooth fashion. No channel imbalance, starts right away with both R & L equally.
Overall, the U200 impressed me in sound department, It provided a vast & relaxed listening experience to me for hours together.
Comparison: A very good competitor for U200 we have here is none other than the Matrix-M Stage HPA-3U, which is also similarly priced & has similar functions. Now we have a tough competition, both newly released amp/dac’s, are priced around very well @ 400$ & both perform really well.
The HPA-3U has user-changeable gain 5/10/20X settings, & 230V/110V AC voltage switch to use in various parts of world without any hassle. It also has an internally swappable op-amp for any such rolling. Another advantage the HPA posses over U200 is that the HPA-3U has Alps blue velvet pot, which is simply well ahead of Alps-16 used in the U200. The U200 offers WiFi module for an additional 100$, which I sometimes feel not very necessary.
Whereas the Yulong U200’s gain is fixed, but it drives all earphones & headphones well. AC voltage switch is not present, and can be a drawback for frequent international travellers. In terms of build quality & workmanship, the U200 clearly has an upper hand with superior build inside& out, HPA-3U follows very closely, with slightly inferior part quality & design in few areas. The U200 has a very neutral & expansive sound quality with a touch of naturalness: sweet mids, slightly smooth highs & full bodied bass. Soundstage is deeper & more expansive in U200. HPA-3U has stronger bass with a slight bump, clear & open mids along with clear, & revealing highs, and not exactly ‘natural’ if I must say. I would rather call HPA-3U more analytic & clinical that the U200, but only with a slight margin.
In end of the day, both HPA-3U and U200 have an excellent performance & high value aspect associated with the price paid. Here the decision makes up of preferences only & sound quality almost same on both the devices.
Conclusion: The Yulong Audio U200 is a very well performing USB DAC/Amp combo unit. It impressed me in sound presentation. I can recommend the U200 for any music enthusiast who would like a full size headphone amp/dac with excellent sonic qualities & performance aspect under a decent price tag. I feel the U200, is more suitable for musical pleasure, rather than critical listening. Its workmanship is of high standards, and thus very reliable & robust in operation. U200 also has very good synergy & pairing with world famous high end headphones like HD800 & K812. Sonic presentation was in a very relaxed, expansive and in a natural manner, but without losing out on transparency & details.
Though excellent performing , I will reduce half a star from five star rating, for excluding Alps blue velvet pot & 230/110 Voltage input switch.
Pros:
1) Design and Build: U200 has very well designed and implemented build. Both internal & external build quality is supreme with very good workmanship.
2) Sound quality: The sonic presentation on this little unit is very neutral & expansive but with a touch of”sweetness & naturalness” in presentation. Sonically, performs very well. Powerful enough to drive any dynamic headphones.
Cons: The U200 did not have employ blue velvet pot, which disappointed me slightly. It is well known fact that Blue velvet does indeed provide few considerable sonic improvement than rest of the volume pot’s.