[bimmer100]

Oh, and USB cables are silly. Just get a quality one like the supra and call it a day. By far the best USB cable for the money. Spending more only wastes money. You won't get much better beyond a supra. Seriously

 

[RAZRr1275]

Oh, and USB cables are silly. Just get a quality one like the supra and call it a day. By far the best USB cable for the money. Spending more only wastes money. You won't get much better beyond a supra. Seriously

Thing is there's nothing that leads me very far down that road. Way I see it is that now the M11 may or may not be my endgame. If it is, I have no reason to throw more money at it. If it isn't, then I have every reason to not throw more money at it, abandon ship, and try new gear. I'm using BJC cables and can be humored to the extent of considering getting a different power cable like the Pangea for $50 and an Intona. I also will certainly get all of my  headphones converted to balanced because it does appear that the single ended out is somewhat gimped and when I do buy the cables, I'll throw down just over $100 for something nice made with Nucleotide wire but that's where I draw the line.

 

[johnzz4]

RAZR - There is a big difference in sound between the single-ended and balanced out on the M11.  I find the balanced out is more dynamic and lively (or aggressive as you put it) and may give you what you're missing.  I feel like the single-ended out is more relaxed.  I've been reading your posts a little bit at a time, so sorry if I got your situation wrong.  I upgraded the power cable and did the ifi iUSBpower 3.0, and I hear small differences - definitely nothing earth shattering.

 

[bimmer100]

RAZR - There is a big difference in sound between the single-ended and balanced out on the M11.  I find the balanced out is more dynamic and lively (or aggressive as you put it) and may give you what you're missing.  I feel like the single-ended out is more relaxed.  I've been reading your posts a little bit at a time, so sorry if I got your situation wrong.  I upgraded the power cable and did the ifi iUSBpower 3.0, and I hear small differences - definitely nothing earth shattering.

I have noticed that it takes a whole lot of little upgrades to squeeze enough performance to be more than subtle or as you put it, earth shattering.
So my p300 balanced ac regenerator was big, having power cables to match were more noticeable with this, USB cable not so much, USB 3.0 PPA 3 card with Hynes sr3 psu was noticeable. Even an audio horizons fuse was a noticeable upgrade for my p300. I was sceptacle. I tried 4 fuses in fact, stock, hifi tuning fuse, amr gold, and audio horizon. The hifi tuning supreme was a subtle upgrade from stock and amr. But the ah fuse was actually quite dramatic and I'm positive I could tell it apart from the rest. I still don't believe it but somehow...
By far the best power cable I've tested to date was the graphene extreme "power conditioner" from curious cables.
The best outlet I've tried so far is the maestro outlet... I have tried R1, SR teslaplex, gaofei red copper/rhodium played, vanguard 24kt gold plated red copper and cryo'd. The most dramatic outlets was the maestro for sound stage and bass control, best balanced sound. And SR teslaplex for high micro detail and best matched for tube gear imho. For m11, definitely maestro outlet or the gaofei if on budget.
The intona is best USB device I have tried... Had wyrd, jitterbug, Uptone regen Amber, intona.
Anyhow, I can go on and on. Why do I do this? So I can report to others my findings. The m11 sounds great with nothing, but I'm out to squeeze everything I can out of it. And I have!

I was once in the position of saying "I would never do that!" And directed towards fancy USB/power/headphone cables. I thought my Asia rampage IV black edition motherboard with mil spec components and "high grade" audio caps would be more than enough to get excellent results. I got one of the best smps out there, the ax1200 with around 8-10mV of noise on the 5v USB line... But that sucks! And most people are around 20mV and wondering why they don't hear differences in cables. If your "stock" than you are very likely to have dirty power, I simply don't believe you will get any results from upgrades until you fix the lifeblood of the audio system... What is that? It's the power implementation! If you have ultra clean power than you will start to realize how good a system can actually sound, and things like power cables are much much easier to hear the difference. USB cables still not as much, but even less when you fix the issue of using USB power from the motherboard. Once you go down to Microvolt noise levels than you will really hear details that you never thought possible. My wife thought I was a little crazy when doing the mods until I had her do some blind tests and even she was completely won over and realized that I was far from crazy. She had even better hearing than I do. Well, I believe after many of my mods I've easily achieved about 10-12% better sound quality than a bone stock m11 plugged into the wall with standard balanced stock xlr 4pin cable, basic Amanero combo 384 etc. I have gutted my mods and recently tested the m11 in bone stock mode , minus the emi/rf film from 3m due to not wanting to hassle the removal. Anyhow, the results were quite obvious. Less dynamic and higher noise floor, more tonal issues up in the higher freq spectrum. Not as smooth, albeit very good. Just not mind blowing from what I've been used to with all the mods/cables/power implementations/DDC etc etc.

 

[borrego]

Have you tried it against he Regen?

Nope. But by evaluating the designs of the two devices, I believe Regen will be more effective if the bottleneck is on the DAC USB interface, Intona will be more effective if the bottleneck is on the computer.

In my case, the bottleneck is definitely on the computer. And I know the audio-gd Amanero implementation is already very good.

I also don't like my 4 years old computer to manage another USB Hub device and allocate addition processor cycle, memory resource to it. The computer sees the Intona just as an ordinary USB cable, where it sees the Regen as an USB hub requiring addition device driver installed.

 

[RAZRr1275]

Nope. But by evaluating the designs of the two devices, I believe Regen will be more effective if the bottleneck is on the DAC USB interface, Intona will be more effective if the bottleneck is on the computer.

In my case, the bottleneck is definitely on the computer. And I know the audio-gd Amanero implementation is already very good.

I also don't like my 4 years old computer to manage another USB Hub device and allocate addition processor cycle, memory resource to it. The computer sees the Intona just as an ordinary USB cable, where it sees the Regen as an USB hub requiring addition device driver installed.

Thank you for the explanation. I'll give it a go should I decide to stick with the M11.

 

[Ivan303]

But I did get s noticeable improvement of eliminating 8khz packet noise. It was subtle on my system since I have some many high performance upgrades. But when using the intona on other machines like dirty power laptops, it was quite dramatic!

.

 



Which mod or external device fixed the "8KHz packet noise"?

 

[Ivan303]

But I did get s noticeable improvement of eliminating 8khz packet noise. It was subtle on my system since I have some many high performance upgrades. But when using the intona on other machines like dirty power laptops, it was quite dramatic!

.

 



Which mod or external device fixed the "8KHz packet noise"?

 

[Ivan303]

Even the most expensive gear has room for improvement. Almost no company gives you good cables ever!!! I have yet to see it... Always generic! Why? Because they know most users will have their own preference on high performance cables.

I find a headphone cable a better investment than a power cable. No question there. Oddly I found a good gain from changing my outlet! My AC regenerator was my best upgrade imho. The intona is good if you don't want to do all the power upgrades. It only outputs 60uV of noise and doesn't have all the jitter people say... Adding a regen or wyrd after it didn't help for my situation. But I did get s noticeable improvement of eliminating 8khz packet noise. It was subtle on my system since I have some many high performance upgrades. But when using the intona on other machines like dirty power laptops, it was quite dramatic!

Forgive me for being truly passionate about music, I tend to go all out with my gear. I love to tweak and get ever last bit of performance to be had. Even the 3M AB5050s emi/rf film was really good for my m11. I will be upgrading the wire to the 4pin xlr too. Oddly the 3Pin XLR's should be better than the 4pin. Just look at the way it was wired. Sadly, at least my m11, is only getting some tiny gauge occ copper wire jumped off the 3pin XLR's. Yet the 3pin XLR's appear to have larger gauge canare cable with shielding and everything. I may gut that cable and wire in some good beefy silvergarde S with metal shielding and ground leads to match the level of the canare yet increase the potential performance.

The lease I'm doing is adding 4cores of occ silver therium wire per terminal from the xlr 3pin to the 4pin connector. I will report back with my results.



I never believed in cables until I met Trevor @norne cables. After hearing a draug2 on hd800's I was a believer. It was so dramatic. Clearly better in every way.

And some of our local guys are hardcore modders and know power cables. We have done blind a/b/x testing of many power cables and have the whole process down really well. Cables do matter.

All these upgrades matter, and with any fancy high end gear there will be room for improvement.

The master11 is a perfect, I'll say it again... PERFECT!!! Dac/amp to begin with and mod up from there. It's an insanely good performance level for the price. You can get even more out of it, if you want.

I just do it over time. I was the second person to ever order the m11 from kingwa. I have had it long enough to know I have no plans to ever upgrade. It's my end game, and especially after all my mods.

I'm basically ruined and have yet to hear another setup that sounds better. IMHO of course

 


Which mod fixed the 8KHz packet noise?

 

[Ivan303]

Even the most expensive gear has room for improvement. Almost no company gives you good cables ever!!! I have yet to see it... Always generic! Why? Because they know most users will have their own preference on high performance cables.

I find a headphone cable a better investment than a power cable. No question there. Oddly I found a good gain from changing my outlet! My AC regenerator was my best upgrade imho. The intona is good if you don't want to do all the power upgrades. It only outputs 60uV of noise and doesn't have all the jitter people say... Adding a regen or wyrd after it didn't help for my situation. But I did get s noticeable improvement of eliminating 8khz packet noise. It was subtle on my system since I have some many high performance upgrades. But when using the intona on other machines like dirty power laptops, it was quite dramatic!

Forgive me for being truly passionate about music, I tend to go all out with my gear. I love to tweak and get ever last bit of performance to be had. Even the 3M AB5050s emi/rf film was really good for my m11. I will be upgrading the wire to the 4pin xlr too. Oddly the 3Pin XLR's should be better than the 4pin. Just look at the way it was wired. Sadly, at least my m11, is only getting some tiny gauge occ copper wire jumped off the 3pin XLR's. Yet the 3pin XLR's appear to have larger gauge canare cable with shielding and everything. I may gut that cable and wire in some good beefy silvergarde S with metal shielding and ground leads to match the level of the canare yet increase the potential performance.

The lease I'm doing is adding 4cores of occ silver therium wire per terminal from the xlr 3pin to the 4pin connector. I will report back with my results.



I never believed in cables until I met Trevor @norne cables. After hearing a draug2 on hd800's I was a believer. It was so dramatic. Clearly better in every way.

And some of our local guys are hardcore modders and know power cables. We have done blind a/b/x testing of many power cables and have the whole process down really well. Cables do matter.

All these upgrades matter, and with any fancy high end gear there will be room for improvement.

The master11 is a perfect, I'll say it again... PERFECT!!! Dac/amp to begin with and mod up from there. It's an insanely good performance level for the price. You can get even more out of it, if you want.

I just do it over time. I was the second person to ever order the m11 from kingwa. I have had it long enough to know I have no plans to ever upgrade. It's my end game, and especially after all my mods.

I'm basically ruined and have yet to hear another setup that sounds better. IMHO of course

 



Which device or mod fixed the 8KHz packet noise?

 

[Luckbad]

I can hardly believe it, but I'm going to try to sell the Master-11 for real now. I would be surprised if I didn't have one again by the end of the year, but financial considerations and a slew of unexpected expenses have made me decide to downgrade my setup at home, if only temporarily.

 

[bimmer100]

I can hardly believe it, but I'm going to try to sell the Master-11 for real now. I would be surprised if I didn't have one again by the end of the year, but financial considerations and a slew of unexpected expenses have made me decide to downgrade my setup at home, if only temporarily.

Message Bobfiggins as he may want to purchase it! He has wanted to order it but maybe you can strike him a deal.

 

[marcan]

  I can hardly believe it, but I'm going to try to sell the Master-11 for real now. I would be surprised if I didn't have one again by the end of the year, but financial considerations and a slew of unexpected expenses have made me decide to downgrade my setup at home, if only temporarily.

You'd be in Europe I'd be interested (taxes...).

 

[RAZRr1275]

Got my HD800s in today and I have to say that the M11 and HD800 pairing is a very very good one. Can't say that I find the HD800s bright at all with the M11

 

[Luckbad]

Sad to say my Master-11 went to a new home today.

The reasons for selling, for future thread readers:

- I've spent a lot on audio gear. Too much. Selling it and downgrading means I can recover some cash into the bank. The wife didn't ask me to sell it, but she's happy I did.
- I only listen to music for 1-2 hours a night at home at most. Having a $2000 TOTL unit is hardly necessary when...
- I listen to music at work for 6-12 hours a day. The M11 is too big to use there. Selling the Master-11 meant I could upgrade my work setup.

Do I miss it? Yeah, I already do. No dac/amp combo has ever sounded so liquid, organic, authoritative, and dynamic to me.

Will I get one again?

Probably. Perhaps in a year or so when it sees a successor I'll get the new one, or perhaps someone will sell me theirs later on.

If you're looking at the Master-11 and can afford it, get it. It is indeed incredible.