Just purchased this device (NFB-11.32 used, device is from somwhere around 2012-2013), and must say I am really, really disappointed. People have hyped this thing to be something ascended from the heavens, and after some guy on Reddit (Diablo or whatever his name was) recommended me to pair with the Monoprice Monolith M1060, which I also purchased new, I decided to go for it. My upgrade was from the Fidelio X2 with O2+ODAC/Fiio E09K + E17.
Tbh, I am not even sure if I installed the drivers correctly. Pressing the “Setup” button in the file would not work, as I constantly got errors, so I just found the “Vista” folder in Device Manager and got these numbers on the Firmware tool:
http://i.imgur.com/aw8nYdw.png
Anyways…after putting my M1060 on with the NFB 11.32, and connecting it to my PC through USB, I was really disappointed at the sound output. I may have felt a bit more detail, but the bass felt completely gone. Listening to any songs with any amount of bass was out of the question, as it simply did not exist when connected to the NFB-11. All rock music fell flat. For comparison, I tried the M1060 with the O2+ODAC, and the clearity was more or less just as good. The bass however was noticeably better here. What was even more strange was the fact that I could get to much higher volume levels on the O2+ODAC, which for me doesn’t make any sense.
I constantly tried both devices with the M1060 back and forth, and came to the conclusion that the M1060 didn’t really provide any strong differences in detail level – at least in Spotify – for me. The O2+ODAC, was detailed enough and at least didn’t ruin the bass.
I’m looking forward to trying the M1060 with the Fiio E09K + E17 which I will receive back from the repair center next week. But my initial impression with the NFB 11, or at least 11.32, is that it’s nowhere near as good as people make it to be. I’ve never really been a big fan of the O2+ODAC, and absolutely hated using it with the Fidelio X2 compared to the E09K + E17. But now I don’t really see the point of the NFB-11.
Maybe I got a faulty device. Maybe I didn’t install the drivers correctly. Maybe the newer NFB-11 versions are better. I honestly don’t know. But I’m seriously considering either just selling it off and sticking with the O2+ODAC, or selling it off and buy a newer NFB-11 and hope for improvement (if there even is one).