He's not confident with his English is my understanding of why he doesn't post.
Anyway, while I was doing the washing, I thought of a bunch of stuff I wanted to write so you can understand why I'm posting.
The Hiface has clearly become one of the latest FOTMs on Head-fi. I don't think this is a bad thing, as people are always seeking system upgrades that make a worthy improvement for the money. The trouble that has come along with it is a lot of discussion about digital interfaces and whatnot, much of it vague, and much of it based on things other people have written, which may or may not have been based on other things found online, but without any actual solid understanding behind it. In other words, people are talking out of their arses, bigtime. And it's confusing people. I just saw a post in another thread where someone said he wasn't going to consider a particular DAC because he'd picked up the idea that it was no good without a Hiface as well, which went over his budget. Also, someone was asking about a cheap DAC/amp, whether they should spend almost as much as the device on a Hiface to go with it. What the ****? Seriously. But it gives you an idea just how stupid this has started to become. Actually, I tell a lie, it has been stupid for a long while now, to the point that people who had no idea what they were talking about, tried to tell Dan Lavry about digital.
That is hilariously bad.
Now that leads us to the subject of this very topic. Kingwa, I believe, is an honest and straight-up guy who, from all my correspondence with him, seems to know his stuff. That doesn't mean, of course, his gear can't be criticised (his original case-work, for example, was not so great, but that's another matter), but he is, as should be obvious, is open to feedback. He does tend to build stuff based on that, and at speeds which, considering the technology he uses, does seem rather amazing. I asked him about balanced headphone amps once. Just a casual enquiry. Next thing we knew, a month or two later, he announced a balanced amp. Anyway, seems people have asked him about all sorts of gear, including a digital interface, as we are now talking about one. He's very keen on getting feedback, so he tends to send stuff out for free for people to try. He doesn't want to build crap (it took 2 years after our first request for him to build a good, entry-level DAC/amp below $250 for this very reason) and he refused outright to put an optical input in my Reference 1, which at the time was his best DAC, because he didn't want to add anything that would negatively impact on the sound. His measurements of the various inputs put BNC and RCA at the lowest jitter levels compared to AES and optical, so that's what he designed in. He has relented now (see the Reference 7), but the point is, he doesn't do things without a reason. You need to ask him directly his reasons though. I've been surprised to find he has reasons for even the simplest things he does which didn't seem good to me.
So what we have, ultimately, is, on the one hand, experienced and qualified MOTs on one side (I'm thinking of quite a few people here when I write this) and a bunch of forum idiots (me included to some degree, i admit it) talking their arses on the other side, and influencing other members with BS on the other. Sometimes the things the qualified MOTs say causes confusion (especially if, as with one MOT, they are obsessed with jitter) as digital audio is incredibly complex.
Now, jkeny, don't take this the wrong way, but as an observation (maybe I should be PM'ing you this not posting it here): I've noticed you've been banned from one forum already, and I can see from the way you post, why. Already a thread you've contributed to heated debate in on here has been closed and you're close to, if not actually breaking the rules with the posts you're making in this thread (and, now I think of it, your signature DOES break the forum rules -- you do need your proper MOT tag). What I do see is, while on the one hand, your contribution to Hiface mod discussion is great (this kind of thing is one of the great aspects of Head-fi, that people will show others how to improve the sound of their gear cheaply) on the other hand, I see you talking out your arse about digital things based on info from others and you're going around trashing discussion, whether you're aware of it or not. Honestly, who gives a toss about whether a connector is exactly 75 Ohms? The point of one of my previous posts, where I asked you if you'd measured the jitter difference (I know you can not, reliably, without spending a large amount of money) was to point out that, really, the whole discussion of it is BS, as, surely, unless we're talking about $10k DACs and similar very high-end set-ups, where even there it's debatable whether it will audibly affect anything, it's not going to matter significantly enough. It's certainly not worth all this stupid argument when we're talking about cheap gear people are buying for mid-to-high end DACs to improve the digital input.*
But now, you guys have made a big deal of the socket, so now Kingwa will go to a lot of trouble to investigate it. But, from what I know of him, he'll be straight about what he finds, good or bad. Again though, if the connector he is using, or the one on the Hiface isn't perfect in some way, will it really matter that much?
Do you understand what I'm saying?
*Now if it did turn out the connector makes a huge difference, I'd want to know about it, but I'm honestly dubious. Hell, I'm using an RCA cable one of my digital connections. What a sinner I am not using BNC though I have it available! I will be upgrading the internal digital wiring to 75 Ohms in the future, as it's dead cheap to do so, but I don't consider it such a huge deal. All these incremental improvements to my rig I've been doing have added up quite nicely and it's interesting to experiment.
) But I'm not the one making any claims about another's products, Kingwa is so I believe your comment should be directed at him or those who are apparently reporting his statements. I think this should be put to rest now & clarified - it's not my place to do so!
