Astell&Kern AK380

[Gosod]

simple chatter, I have seen a detailed review about 370!

 

[AnakChan]

So last week I bought and DIY balanced a cable for my HD800S with a Nakamura NP-254 plug.
 

 
I also have the Tralucent 1Plus2.2 balanced :-
 

 
I wanted to hear the distortion that @shigzeo talked about in his post #1757. The distortion was confirmed by @Currawong with my ex-demo AK380 which I had passed to him. For both my above balanced setups, I couldn't hear the distortion that they had heard - and this was trying both with the external piggyback amp and with the AK380 unit itself.

In further discussions with @Currawong, the distortion had since disappeared for him too with that demo AK380 unit. The only change we can think of is that the distortion was prevalent with earlier firmware versions of the AK380 (the demo unit had v1.18 when I passed to Currawong but he had subsequently upgraded to 1.23).

I'm curious for those who did experience the issue, if it has disappeared in subsequent firmware upgrades?

 

[Gosod]

  So last week I bought and DIY balanced a cable for my HD800S with a Nakamura NP-254 plug.
 

 
I also have the Tralucent 1Plus2.2 balanced :-
 

 
I wanted to hear the distortion that @shigzeo talked about in his post #1757. The distortion was confirmed by @Currawong with my ex-demo AK380 which I had passed to him. For both my above balanced setups, I couldn't hear the distortion that they had heard - and this was trying both with the external piggyback amp and with the AK380 unit itself.

In further discussions with @Currawong, the distortion had since disappeared for him too with that demo AK380 unit. The only change we can think of is that the distortion was prevalent with earlier firmware versions of the AK380 (the demo unit had v1.18 when I passed to Currawong but he had subsequently upgraded to 1.23).

I'm curious for those who did experience the issue, if it has disappeared in subsequent firmware upgrades?

what kind of headphones in the second photo?

 

[AnakChan]

  [snip!]
 
I also have the Tralucent 1Plus2.2 balanced :-
 

 
[snip!]

 
Originally Posted by Gosod /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
what kind of headphones in the second photo?

 

[Kiats]

anakchan FW is a plausible explanation. I'd bypassed v1.18 when I first picked up the 380Cu and I have never encountered the alleged distortion on balances output despite the fact that practically all my usage has been on balanced.

 

[Gosod]

 

they are too expensive!

 

[b0ssMax]

So last week I bought and DIY balanced a cable for my HD800S with a Nakamura NP-254 plug.




I also have the Tralucent 1Plus2.2 balanced :-




I wanted to hear the distortion that @shigzeo
 talked about in his post #1757. The distortion was confirmed by @Currawong
 with my ex-demo AK380 which I had passed to him. For both my above balanced setups, I couldn't hear the distortion that they had heard - and this was trying both with the external piggyback amp and with the AK380 unit itself.


In further discussions with @Currawong
, the distortion had since disappeared for him too with that demo AK380 unit. The only change we can think of is that the distortion was prevalent with earlier firmware versions of the AK380 (the demo unit had v1.18 when I passed to Currawong but he had subsequently upgraded to 1.23).


I'm curious for those who did experience the issue, if it has disappeared in subsequent firmware upgrades?

I wanted to dump my layla's (i tjought it was the layla's that were the problem) as the fw between 1.09 to 1.23 was a progression of awful audio updates, with 1.18 being the worst using balanced.

I A/b with a demo on 1.18 vs my upgraded 1.23, using layla, 64 u12's. It was Confirmed by another guy that mine was better. I didn't upgrade to 1.24 for fear of losing what 1.23 had... Sorry, didn't do a double blind test. This was a few days after 1.23 was released.

I didn't remember hearing distortion, all i remember was i just wanted to throw the damn thing away.
I'm glad you noticed the change, confirms i wasn't going crazy then.

 

[Rei87]

I wanted to dump my layla's (i tjought it was the layla's that were the problem) as the fw between 1.09 to 1.23 was a progression of awful audio updates, with 1.18 being the worst using balanced.

I A/b with a demo on 1.18 vs my upgraded 1.23, using layla, 64 u12's. It was Confirmed by another guy that mine was better. I didn't upgrade to 1.24 for fear of losing what 1.23 had... Sorry, didn't do a double blind test. This was a few days after 1.23 was released.

I didn't remember hearing distortion, all i remember was i just wanted to throw the damn thing away.
I'm glad you noticed the change, confirms i wasn't going crazy then.

I'm starting to think if there is a way to revert to 1.23...
I'm on 1.24, and the balanced isnt as satisfying as the SE is.....

 

[raypin]

Mmm....firmware updates cannot be undone. No one here has managed to do a rollback.

 

[AnakChan]

Mmm....firmware updates cannot be undone. No one here has managed to do a rollback.

Pssst ... I beg to differ. If you have the older firmware file it works...or at least with me I could go back from 1.24 down to 1.23.

 

[Gosod]

 

[CuriousRabbit]

.

 

[Gosod]

 
Yes we are.

What is this cable?

 

[raypin]

Pssst ... I beg to differ. If you have the older firmware file it works...or at least with me I could go back from 1.24 down to 1.23.

mmm....lol! Now we know who to go to.

 

[Sound Eq]

well i am so eager to go back to firmware 1.23 and my local dealer does not know when I tell him I want to downgrade what i mean by this.
 
how can i get hold of the firmware 1.23 I would be so thankful