[echo1]

Well I paid for this DAC from Eddie. Its amp will be a Darkvoice.Now I need a USB or pcma with digital out.

 

[Towert7]

I'de be interested to hear if this unit has any problems with the auto muting circuit or any problems with loosing the signal (or pops and clicks).

 

[tianguis]

Tower:

Only one sample, but no problems with losing lock, ever. Also, the 7.2 doesn't have the turn-on pop of my Zhaolu 2.0. Switching between coax and optical inputs or upsampling is dead silent, also. I've only been feeding it 44.1 so I don't know about use with a computer.

Larry

 

[echo1]

I will be using this with a laptop. I can infrom you all if there is any problems. I will probably buy a M-Audio transit since there is not many options for a laptop.Unless I can find a old comp. cheap to use as a music server.

 

[echo1]

.

 

[pojen_h@hotmail.]

Quote:

Originally Posted by echo1 Well I bought a EPoX EP-EX5330N mini PC to use as a music server.It says it doesnt have to have windows booted to play music from the hard drive,usb,or cd-rom. I put a 3100+ AMD Sempron in it, along with 512 ram and a 200 gig hard drive. It also comes with a remote control and a small screen on the front of the case for visual display without windows beeing booted up.It has a built in SPDIF coaxil and optical output.It has a pci slot available if I dont like the built in sound. It all sounds good on paper.Hope it works as stated.

Although it is very convenient these days for one to organize his music collection on a PC, properly transfer data from hard drive to DAC is always been a myth to me. Since my PC is 25ft away from my steoreo system, direct connection is not the smartest choice. I am considering using Airport Express base station as my music server, but I don't know how good its digital out is.

However at US100, it isn't the cheapest choice. I am going to experiment it when my new headphone and DAC arrives. (BTW, if you have better suggetions please post it here.)

 

[HumanMedia]

Introductory price is over.

Now its USD$372 inc shipping (USD$313 + $59)

Starting to think I should bypass this and try/buy a CIAudio VDA.2...

 

[tianguis]

Yesterday, I took my 7.2x to a friend's for a shootout with his Meitner Bidat (stock) being fed by a CEC belt-drive transport. Other equipment included passive pre, Komura 845 PP monoblocks driving Duevel Bella Luna speaks, top-shelf cabling. We played a few tracks of his choosing to warm things up and acclimate, then put in the 7.2x. On the spot, he decided to sell the Meitner and get a Citypulse.
The 7.2 had better resolution, less grain, tighter bass, more texture, blacker background. We tried it with oversampling both on and off and he, a fan of non-oversampling, preferred the oversampling.
We then listened through a pair of Kronzilla monoblocs, which had lovely tube bloom but weren't my cup of tea. I'll be ordering three more from Eddie.

Regards,
Larry Welsh

 

[zozo]

Just received mines yesterday (paid for it on Aug 20th). Gotta say, build quality is VERY nice, but that remote takes it to a whole new level, considering the price! Have had less than 5 minutes of listening w/ it because I have a 2 quirks with the machine. The first, although negligible, is that the R and L marking designations are switched. The color coding is correct though.

For the second quirk, I realised that this DAC does not have a perfectly black background. I paused the CD player, increased the vol on the GS-1 amp to max and I heard hissing through the GS1000's. I've never heard any hissing at all before w/ my Denon. Thinking it might be a ground issue, tried replacing the power cords, interconnect, and digital cables, but to no avail. I have all the gear connected to a Monster HTS 2000 MKII. Switching from optical to coax decreases the hissing. The loudness is not as profound as, say, an ipod connected via its line-out to the GS-1. Increasing the sampling frequency to 2x introduces a loud hum that gets fairy annoying on the optical selection ( I used a Dayton glass optical cable and an el cheapo optical cable). I've never used any outboard DAC's before, so it's possible that this is common among DAC's.?.

Again, this is with the GS-1 cranked up to max volume (and no music playing), but no sane person listens at these volumes. At normal listening volumes, the hiss and hum are barely noticeable though. For the brief minutes that I listened to the 7.2x, I noticed it had less grain than my denon and with tighter bass. More comments later.

Pics:

Front, w/ GS-1. Must say, they go together very nicely

Back

Remote, cut from a billet of aluminum!

Notice that the RCA L and R markings are wrong, the color coding is right though...

As soon as I can find an Allen wrench, I'll open it up to take pics of the insides.

-Z

 

[bizkid]

Thanks for the pics

So how is the builtin amp compared to that nice GS-1?

Oh and Is there a way to remove or hide that hideous volume control?

 

[Sean H]

Thanks for the pics! Those are Cardas caps or the like on your RCA's right? Surely someone is going to be confused there.

Wish I could get a handle on this unit's signature and how musical it is. Sometimes "more resolution" can be indicative of some negative attributes while exciting at first but fatiguing in time. In depth comparison to something like a Zhaolu 2.0 with bypassed caps would be nice indeed.

 

[Towert7]

Thanks for the nice pictures and initial impressions. That's strange how they reversed the L and R RCA jacks.

A little hiss I can see, but Hum is one of those things I wouldn't expect from an external dac (more like something from a computer sound card).

The remote does look impressive. Is it pretty much just a solid block of metal? If so, that would be impressive.

@bizkid: Yea, that volume knob does look a little bad.

 

[Sean H]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Towert7 The remote does look impressive. Is it pretty much just a solid block of metal? If so, that would be impressive. @bizkid: Yea, that volume knob does look a little bad.

Agreed on both!

 

[echo1]

You may have a ground loop happening causing the hum.If it is here is a article discussing how to remidy it.
http://www.blueguitar.org/new/articl...round_loop.pdf

 

[Sean H]

If it is a ground loop then the level of the hum will remain consistent as you turn the volume up and down. If this noise is only heard when you crank the volume then it is not a ground loop.