But he didn't say send it back and were send replacement or make a refund.
Just he's busy and contact AK.
I did contact someone at AK about this on Saturday and they said nothing they can do and to contact the store, which is correct as my sales contract is with the store.
I sent pictures to him of the fault so he can see what I was talking about.
As I paid via PayPal I've made a complaint as I want a full refund!
But he didn't say send it back and were send replacement or make a refund.
Just he's busy and contact AK.
I did contact someone at AK about this on Saturday and they said nothing they can do and to contact the store, which is correct as my sales contract is with the store.
I sent pictures to him of the fault so he can see what I was talking about.
As I paid via PayPal I've made a complaint as I want a full refund!
helpful note: i bought my AK 320, AK 380 and Finally AK380cu from "redfli"(jared), all with a 30 day money back guaranteed, an exchange or a full store credit whichever you choose with ZERO static or issues! paypal is my best friend from year 2000(started on ebay). all i can say that they have NEVER failed me in a full refund issue plus shipping cost to and from. i got a $200.00 off with my redfli bucks credit towards my next purchase of my AK 380cu amp(only $800.00) plus free express shipping. i auditioned the AK320 for 30 days then returned for an upgrade(paid the upgrade balance) to the AK380 regular & auditioned for another 30 days then returned for an upgrade(paid the difference) finally to my current AK380cu all with no problems, grips, moans or concerns from redfli(jared). if you do as i did, please notify the sales rep of your final purchase(whichever you choose) and ask for your redfli bucks for next purchase to be added to your redfli account. i am here only to try and souley help my fellow "HEAD-FIER'S" with any issues or experience that i can help with.
if you need a: Uto HP or elea HP i can get it at a well discounted price if you like once available(august). paypal only payments. security for buyer and seller.
Are you using the 380's in-built file copy or is the 380 connected to a computer, ambrose? Whenever I tried any file operations with the in-built 380 software it usually took forever and then had errors. I only ever use a computer now.
Hey guys. One question. What is your opinion on the AK 380 amp? is the sound-quality better with the amp or basically the same (balanced)with a low-impedance iem?
I never tested this, but a friend has the AK380 cu + cu amp and swears that also with IEMs this combination is better than the AK380 cu alone. With full-size headphones like HD800S, HE-1000 etc. the amp is mandatory.
I wanted to take a few minutes and post some quick impressions of the AK380. I' am not a reviewer and I don't pretend to but seeing I had this opportunity, I wanted to share my impressions. Since its launch, I always wanted to get an opportunity to listen to the AK380 and since were i live there are no retailers, shows, or even meets. it was great when a friend of mine was kind enough and offered to let me use it for the weekend. a couple of weeks ago he had stopped by my placed and I had a listen to my then AK100 MKII, now sold, I know own the AK300. He loved the DAP and a few days later he bought a copper AK380, WOW surprise!
Holding it for the first time my immediate reaction was damn it is heavy and damn its beautiful to look at, hold and admire. Next I checked and compared the GUI to my AK300, the speed and general operation is basically the same no changes other than more internal capacity. next…….. I loaded some tracks, let the players burn in for a half hour or so and played some familiar tracks to me for A/B.
Immediately apparent was how well the copper AK380 was at everything from detail retrieval imaging and fullness much thicker in the low frequency versus the AK300 standalone. The instrument separation was more accurate the imaging was better and the timbre was just overall generally more articulate. also was the fullness of the music it was just thicker everywhere.
It was no contest the AK300 is good but the AK380 was just on another level. its apparent that the dual DAC setup makes a good deal of difference.
Also the additional power output was also a welcomed addition, especially with the HE400i which likes power, I also listened through my HD800 and my Angie ii. I did not try the balanced didn't want to deal with the switching of cables, lazy.
So time to compare against the Mojo….. After a few hours of listening, I turned to my Mojo and plug my AK300 up as a transport, and used some familiar tracks for testing.
The Mojo is special and truly a technological marvel, I listened to "So What" by Miles Davis as a point of reference and the Mojo and AK300 stack was even better. The Ak380 was not able to reproduce the music to me as well as Mojo in overall performance, it was just a better musical experience to my ears.
In every case the difference was clear not by a lot but very noticeable. I tried all kinds of genres and to me the music sounded better through the Mojo, again not by a lot, but enough, and if I was going to critically listen, it would be stacked with a Mojo. In each case regardless of the headphone I used, HE400I, Senn HD800 and JH Audio Angie II the results were the same. I like the AK380 Copper a lot and if I could have the unit for half the price, I would gladly sell my stack, but at 4K I just can’t justify and don't mind stacking, but Id love to own one someday.
@Dionysus, thanks for the thoughts. Yes, I like the stack too but I like my 380cu stacks with Hugo even better. But for most traveling, the 380cu is the best companion. You should try to take the case off and see if you can hear any difference. Good luck.
For those of you that tried the balance out, do you hear much difference between the SE and Balance out? I frankly have a hard time telling the difference. May be I should ask Vinnie this question as he works on upgrading both the SE and Bal mod.
Do you mind to elaborate the nature of the difference? The common improvements for balance usually are more quiet background, bigger sound stage and increase dynamics.
Wouldn't the phones used matter? i.e. to me with IEMs differences between SE & balanced is slight, but for headphones, more apparent. So maybe we should account the phones of choice into the context when comparing?
For those of you that tried the balance out, do you hear much difference between the SE and Balance out? I frankly have a hard time telling the difference. May be I should ask Vinnie this question as he works on upgrading both the SE and Bal mod.
If you are referring to the AK380 alone, then yes there is a rather noticeable difference - the SE better in articulation, note weight, timbre and transient for BA based iems, while the balance out is better in soundstage, bass slam and a noticeably cleaner background for dynamic based iems, hybrids and headphones. Other unnamed qualities are similar if not more or less the same. For instance my MH335DWSR sounds much better on SE with the AK380 alone while it sounds phenomenal in balanced mode with the AK380 AMP module. I think one of the biggest plus of the AMP is to implement a truly universally usable balanced output - some of my BA iems are simply unlistenable with standalone AK380's balanced output - empty sounding without soul and substance.
By contrast, the SE and balanced out on my Venturecraft Valoq are much more similar.
Calling all users who have previous reported that their AK380 has been stuck in balanced mode. My AK380 got stuck in balanced mode again yesterday after being fine for two months, I have sent an email to AK staff, and will include it below so others can know the details and previous developments of this issue. If you have suffered / are suffering from this problem, I urge you to voice out to AK so they would be more inclined to fix this, if more customers voice out to them.
"To whom it may concern,
My AK380 on firmware 1.24 was stuck in balanced mode in April, in which I have emailed AK support and Kai told me to RMA my AK380 to him for repair. The shop I bought the AK380 from fixed the problem by inserting both 3.5mm and 2.5mm male jacks into the player and unplugging both at the same time, making the 'BAL' on the status bar go away and I can use the 3.5mm output again. Since yesterday, my AK380 has been stuck in balanced mode again after inserting Layla's 2.5mm jack. I now can't listen to any music with the 3.5mm jack.
This is a well known problem and many users on the Head Fi AK380 thread have reported it, with AK offering no solution except RMA, for 3 months.
Please note that RMA is undesirable because:
1) ECT, the distributor for AK products in Hong Kong, is only opened on Monday to Friday during normal working hours;
2) It takes an extremely long time to RMA the unit back to AK in Korea, and my shop fixing it by the method mentioned above proved that this is not a hardware problem and can be fixed by firmware update.
It is unreasonable that since the problem has been persisting for 3 months, with AK's knowledge of both the problem and solutions that have worked, that AK has still not addressed the problem by a simple OTA firmware update, instead requiring users to take leave off work and give up their player for weeks for something that does not require a repair on hardware. This robs us of our ownership of a USD $3700 device and wastes our warranty period for a RMA that is not required in the first place.
I was a previous owner of the AK120II, and I know that the 2nd generation of AK players had a settings option of switching between balanced and unbalanced mode manually. If you are unable to fix the auto detection of balanced / unbalanced on the AK380, please bring back this setting via firmware update so at least a very basic functionality of the player is not disabled.
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