Initial impressions (because I know people are waiting for them):
The box, with all available modules arrived and surprisingly was only 5kg in weight. This lack of weight I discovered was a result of the new style box, which I honestly think looks more professional than the pleasantly solid, but aluminium overkill on the Compass. Some people will disagree, but that's fair enough.
Two boxes full of modules were slotted neatly the side sections of foam that hold the main box. The modules themselves were, as with the FUN itself, over-packed, which is good on the one hand, but makes unpacking a bit scary. I think Kingwa will have to be introduced to Scotch Magic Tape or that string tape they use when packing commercial devices such as printers that hold everything from moving, yet can be removed and re-used cleanly without leaving residue. So, the packing has improved, but could be improved yet further if Kingwa considers the customer's experience when un-packing.
Mine arrived missing the OPA2134 in the DAC, not a problem for me, as I have plenty of OPAMPs to consider, but I thought it might be good to re-consider the differences between it and the HDAMs and other OPAMPs. Kingwa sent me an email to apologise for the mistake too. I noticed the screws on the modules seemed to be glued in place. However, a quick check revealed this to be some kind of easily removable glue that was put in place obviously to stop the modules coming loose. If one is just buying the unit and never intends to open it to change anything, then it will be good. This is also handy as one can push the screws onto the tip of one's screwdriver when replacing them and they'll stick there, making it easier. The ground point screw for HDAM use is also raised up I imagine to stop accidental damage of the surrounding circuits, which is a clever idea.
Plugging everything and putting on some music resulted in no sound. Pushing the various front-panel buttons revealed that a couple of their settings were counter-intuitive of what I'd expected them to do. You push the gain button in to lower the gain. To get music to come out the headphone socket, you push in the Line Out button. The Line In button, however, pushed in cuts out the DAC and enables the line in.
The modules had the usual "price tag" sticky labels on them. Why the silk screen print on the boards doesn't include their names I don't know, because they should, along with where they slot. However, it only takes a couple of minutes and a look at the FUN web page to remember what is what and where it goes.
It's too early for sound impressions, but my early experimentation suggests that, like the Compass, it's going to fare better with low-impedance headphones such as Grados and Denons than high-impedance headphones such as those from Sennheiser. Not to say that it is bad with any headphones but that I'd try and get at least a C2C if I had HD-600s or 650s for example as with, say, live music with a large soundstage sounded collapsed with the Compass and HD-600s.
By the way, if you want a cheap upgrade to the OPA2134 but don't want to spring for an Earth HDAM, get an LME49720 OPAMP instead. It's not as nice as the Earth (and for some reason marginally worse than two single-channel LME49710s on a Browndog adaptor) but is a big improvement.
