[FredA]

Got my firmware upgrade this morning and listened to well known recordings for about 2 hours.

How do i think the Master 7 2016 firmware sounds?

In a word: clean.

On possible downside for those who like a warm signature, the balance is now more towards that of a sabre DAC. That said, it remains as liquid sounding as an R2R DAC can be, and timbres have not lost their special touch.

It is a tad more laid back (not sure), it provides a better sense of depth, it is more neutral, accurate and clean.

If you like having your private jazz concert as i do, you will find yourself closer to the actual experience. The sound is less colored which makes it more real. The piano attacks are now sharper and the bass, firmer. Piano sounds excellent overall, one of the very best rendition i have ever heard of this instrument. You can now hear the highest notes resonate in their typical ringy way.

Note that all my auditioning was done with the default setting, except pll was off, and through the rj45 i2s input (intona to schiit wyrd to singxer f-1).

I think that in terms of resolution, there is a clear increase, and it is not by overemphasing the highs. It's by removing some fuzziness that was there in the first place. I think it is now top notch.

Listening to Bebo Valdes live at Village Vanguard, i really enjoyed the sharper piano playing. The occasional back vocals were better located in depth, clearly behind the rest. Those voices are so well detached from each other now than i think you could count how many back vocalists there are.

How much improvment is there? For those who have a transparent setup like i do, it's like a big ddc upgrade, or like a quite significant dac upgrade.

For me, the lost of warmth is welcome because i have warmer amplifiers - newly acquired. Still it is there but an interconnect swap surely could help since it is not a night and day difference. The balance of my system is very precisely tuned to my likings and i am very fussy about it. So now it is close to perfection with this regard.

As far as i can tell in such a short period of time, this upgrade is welcome and significant. Music sounds more real than ever. Thank you Kingwa, i think you have a great contender against the Yggdrasil. But that said, i way prefer how the M7 is built compared to the Schiit. It is a no compromise approach, a tank. It is built to last and perfect in its own way. And beautiful inside (i had the occasion to contemplate again last night).

 

[PeterCraig]

I'm still waiting for my eBay blaster to arrive from Hong Kong.  I think I ordered it 6 weeks ago so I'm pretty sure it is now time to go an alternate route.  I discovered an electronics supplier here in town that actually has an Altera clone so I will have to go get it this week if the eBay one is still a no-show.

 

[FredA]

I'm still waiting for my eBay blaster to arrive from Hong Kong.  I think I ordered it 6 weeks ago so I'm pretty sure it is now time to go an alternate route.  I discovered an electronics supplier here in town that actually has an Altera clone so I will have to go get it this week if the eBay one is still a no-show.

I could mail you mine if you are desperate.

 

[PeterCraig]

I could mail you mine if you are desperate.

A true audiophile buddy. Thanks Fred I'll keep that as a backup plan. Thanks!

 

[FredA]

A true audiophile buddy. Thanks Fred I'll keep that as a backup plan. Thanks!

No problem.

 

[riffer]

I'm still waiting for my eBay blaster to arrive from Hong Kong.  I think I ordered it 6 weeks ago so I'm pretty sure it is now time to go an alternate route.  I discovered an electronics supplier here in town that actually has an Altera clone so I will have to go get it this week if the eBay one is still a no-show.

Me too. Got a refund. I'll have to look around for something local as well if it doesn't show soon.

 

[PeterCraig]

Me too. Got a refund. I'll have to look around for something local as well if it doesn't show soon.

Smart guy. I didn't even consider the refund option.

 

[gk2013]

   
All the jumpers is on except for DITH. 
 
It plays very well with the jumper on DITH too

 
This is 1x Oversampling setting which seems to have channel imbalance issue (voices are shifted to left). The new DSP is perfect, this has been fixed. 
But hey, if this does the job for you - perfect! Enjoy the music!!

 

[riffer]

Smart guy. I didn't even consider the refund option.

I'm starting to hold these guys to their delivery schedule. $4 is $4. That's 1/2 a beer in the pub (without tip)

 

[tbend]

   
This is 1x Oversampling setting which seems to have channel imbalance issue (voices are shifted to left). The new DSP is perfect, this has been fixed. 
But hey, if this does the job for you - perfect! Enjoy the music!!

On some jumper settings i agree there is som shifting to the left that have almost driven me crazy because i thought it was speaker imbalance (dying diskant).
But not with this setting i mentioned over here. The vocal and everything is dead center. 
Remember to have a jumper on bypass aswell. 
 
As we experience here now, we have alle different perception of whats "corrent" sound, we have different taste and different.

 

[tbend]

  Hi All,
 
My DAC is an early Ref 7.1 without Amanero (DigiHub USB)
 
My opinions of the upgrade are as follows:
1) Bass - TOO MUCH bass and now booming. Feels fatiguing after about 40mins. Like a subwoofere level too high.
2) As a result of the bass, lower mids seems to be hidden. Middle mids (ie. vocals) seems very forward and narrow soundstage.
3) Treble - very sharp (and piercing when listening to opera)
 
Seems DAC is now equalised to a "W" which represent the 3 peaks with very deep valleys where sound is lost.
 
NOS mode (ie. both jumpers on) gets confused in complex music. E.g. Paul Anka & Celine Dion voice is inseparable in parts when both singing in "It's Hard to Say Goodbye".
 
I much preferred the prev firmware. Switching A/B with Gustard X20 reveal much more micro detail and a more balanced soundstage.
 
In one sentence, this firmware makes my system sound like a Bose Home Theatre demo at the shops.

Did you change back to original firmware or did you keep the new one?

 

[gk2013]

Got my firmware upgrade this morning and listened to well known recordings for about 2 hours.

How do i think the Master 7 2016 firmware sounds?

In a word: clean.

On possible downside for those who like a warm signature, the balance is now more towards that of a sabre DAC. That said, it remains as liquid sounding as an R2R DAC can be, and timbres have not lost their special touch.

It is a tad more laid back (not sure), it provides a better sense of depth, it is more neutral, accurate and clean.

If you like having your private jazz concert as i do, you will find yourself closer to the actual experience. The sound is less colored which makes it more real. The piano attacks are now sharper and the bass, firmer. Piano sounds excellent overall, one of the very best rendition i have ever heard of this instrument. You can now hear the highest notes resonate in their typical ringy way.

Note that all my auditioning was done with the default setting, except pll was off, and through the rj45 i2s input (intona to schiit wyrd to singxer f-1).

I think that in terms of resolution, there is a clear increase, and it is not by overemphasing the highs. It's by removing some fuzziness that was there in the first place. I think it is now top notch.

Listening to Bebo Valdes live at Village Vanguard, i really enjoyed the sharper piano playing. The occasional back vocals were better located in depth, clearly behind the rest. Those voices are so well detached from each other now than i think you could count how many back vocalists there are.

How much improvment is there? For those who have a transparent setup like i do, it's like a big ddc upgrade, or like a quite significant dac upgrade.

For me, the lost of warmth is welcome because i have warmer amplifiers - newly acquired. Still it is there but an interconnect swap surely could help since it is not a night and day difference. The balance of my system is very precisely tuned to my likings and i am very fussy about it. So now it is close to perfection with this regard.

As far as i can tell in such a short period of time, this upgrade is welcome and significant. Music sounds more real than ever. Thank you Kingwa, i think you have a great contender against the Yggdrasil. But that said, i way prefer how the M7 is built compared to the Schiit. It is a no compromise approach, a tank. It is built to last and perfect in its own way. And beautiful inside (i had the occasion to contemplate again last night).

 
+1 = Thank you, I could not have described it better! 

 

[FredA]

+1 = Thank you, I could not have described it better! 

Thanks.

I would like to prove my point about a cable swap being sufficient. I found the medium to be a little dry with certain recordings with the new firmware. I experimented a lot with litz occ copper cable in the past and knew that cable built out of awg24 would have a richer medium. I got a Double Helix acss cable i had in a box and replaced the awg26 homemade cable i was using to connect to my master-1 pre and bingo! Overall, i have the exact same tonal balance as before, but still most of the improvments brought by the dac upgrade (the bass got a little rounder which i don't dislike). That is not to say the cable will stay in all year long, since in the summer time the medium gets thicker as the air becomes less dry. The point is whenever you change a component in a well tuned system, you have to make adjustments. That is why i like having cables with different flavor at my disposal. I have overall 2 acss and 3 xlr i consider worthy of my system i can play with. The Double Helix was around 300usd for 2 feet when i got it (i don't know how the latest version of it sounds however) and rest of my cables are made out of wire from Plusssound and cost around 75usb to make for the same length. The litz wire from Plussound require some preparation before soldering and is not very easy to work with. But it sounds very well.

With this fine-tuning having been done, i would now say the firmware upgrade is a total succes and a very nice gift to us from Kingwa. I foresee that i will keep my audio-gd gears for many many years. They are just unbelievable values. The master-1 is really a fantastic preamp as well.

I would like to mention that i now have Nord One Up monoblocks to drive my speakers. These monoblocks are fabulous, they are class-d with almost unlimited power and all the finesse of the best class A designs out there. Mind-blowing amps really.

 

[PeterCraig]

The point is whenever you change a component in a well tuned system, you have to make adjustments.

 
I previously had some "good" cables in my system but then started experimenting a year ago with some better ones. 
 
I had also made a system upgrade earlier that same year with a better digital converter in my system.  With A/B testing I knew that this new converter was technically better then what I was using before but I did not like how my system sounded.  The warmth and "musicality" that was there before was gone and some of the music sounded digital and forced to my ears.  I stayed with the new converter though because my gut told me I was going in the right direction.  Being able to A/B the new gear helped, otherwise I may have gone backwards that day.
 
Later when I finally put a much better second-hand XLR interconnect into my system is when my jaw dropped and I finally heard how good the M7 can be.  It was instant, and my days of ignoring the importance of all system components were over.  It can be painful when you just want to relax and enjoy music but worth it!

 

[FredA]

I previously had some "good" cables in my system but then started experimenting a year ago with some better ones. 

I had also made a system upgrade earlier that same year with a better digital converter in my system.  With A/B testing I knew that this new converter was technically better then what I was using before but I did not like how my system sounded.  The warmth and "musicality" that was there before was gone and some of the music sounded digital and forced to my ears.  I stayed with the new converter though because my gut told me I was going in the right direction.  Being able to A/B the new gear helped, otherwise I may have gone backwards that day.

Later when I finally put a much better second-hand XLR interconnect into my system is when my jaw dropped and I finally heard how good the M7 can be.  It was instant, and my days of ignoring the importance of all system components were over.  It can be painful when you just want to relax and enjoy music but worth it!

Yes and the point i was making is that it is not just a matter of quality but also of proper matching.

Cables can make a very clear difference when everything downstream is transparent. 26awg vs 24awg do not give the same balance. Occ wire on the other hand, for me, is a must.