[BoyNamedSue]

how exciting. isao2k8, I am very much looking forward to your impressions. I can't wait to get mine...on a different note, I want to give a shout out to Edwin from audio-gd for his excellent customer service. He was really helpful and patient with my many questions about unit.

 

[krumme]

Have to agree. If this unit sound bad, I will buy a more expensive one from audio-gd. The service so far have been prompt and nice. They must be working day and night. There is this energy and crazy upgrade speed about the hole company, i only recall from when i started with this hobby 20 years ago. I think all the big trafos, shitloads of caps, and some of the tecnical solutions is just crazy, but who cares, audio-gd have got the real hifi spirit.
 
When i reciewe mine i will compare it to some older high-end gear (with even bigger trafos than the crazy stuff from audio-gd lol), but whatever the result, this is just the right experience. Way to go.
 


 
Quote:

how exciting. isao2k8, I am very much looking forward to your impressions. I can't wait to get mine...on a different note, I want to give a shout out to Edwin from audio-gd for his excellent customer service. He was really helpful and patient with my many questions about unit.

 

[BoyNamedSue]

Informative read on the sampling rate discussion. Milosz, your video resolution metaphor makes up-scaling process more comprehendible to me. Seeing the 32/192 advert with the Sabre dacs gave me the impression that content for this format would become more common place in near future, but it seems like this resolution is a farther ways away - hopefully in my lifetime though =)....I'll check to see if my mobo has a hidden spdif out but after reading the posts, I feel settled with using the optical interface or usb.

 

[GourouLubrik]

I ordered mine today; second batch expected on 10th november...
 
Can't wait to see review of the first batch here soon !
 
As for the small size, it was an important criteria for me: NFB-11 will have to fit my backpack everyday.
 
It will be used DAC + Headphone amp with USB on my laptop & work pc. Spdif with home rig (Essence STX)
It also could be used as a dac for my dvr/cd/dvd player.
 
Still need to order my ath-w1000x (Thanks @Currawong for ultra fast twitter advice

)
And still need to pray to get a great synergy with this dac & my future cans.

 

[navii]

My PS3 upscales my DVDs nicely, I can see a noticeable difference between an uncsaled and a scaled DVD

I prefer scaled to unscaled

there will probably be experts saying the opposite (i haven't researched), so different strokes for different folks

 

[Epoch]

Oversampling with a DAC is very different from upscaling on a video device.  Oversampling is for filtering purposes, and you can go without it but it can make the job more difficult.
 
Video on the other hand, if you truly disable upscaling, a 1920x1080 TV being fed a 720x480 source (dvd) will only show up on a small portion of the screen.  It will be distorted too as DVD sources require stretching/scaling to display properly anyways.
 
An example of the difference would be the post by navii about his PS3 and its upscaling capabilty.  If it is turned off on the PS3 the TV uses its own scaling hardware/algorithm instead of what the PS3 is using.  That is a case of preferring one implementation over the other.
That is more akin to comparing different oversampling techniques for a DAC instead of comparing OS/NOS.
 
A proper analogy with oversampling (44.1KHz to 88.2KHz) would be color correction and image processing inside a TV, which is done at a higher bit depth to prevent artifacts from the process from being displayed.
Upsampling (44.1KHz to 96KHz) would be more like frame rate creation, some people like it, some people hate it, and some are morally opposed to it.

 

[isao2k8]

A simple review of NFB-11

I compared NFB-11 with modded ZeroDAC (with OPA-Earth) and C-2C. Headphones are K701 and DT990PRO.

NFB-11 as a dedicated DAC:

More analytical than I expected. Accurate, neutral and dry.
More detailed and refined than modded ZeroDAC.
Slightly brighter than modded ZeroDAC.
Soundstage is slightly smaller than modded ZeroDAC.

About his internal headphone amp:

Soundstage is much smaller than C-2C.
Bass is slightly less deep than C-2C.
Other sound characters are similar to C-2C. Neutral.

Conclusion:
Good DAC + Decent HP amp. Good value for the price. Soundstage is his weak point.

 

[cheaphifi]

Quote:

A simple review of NFB-11

I compared NFB-11 with modded ZeroDAC (with OPA-Earth) and C-2C. Headphones are K701 and DT990PRO.

NFB-11 as a dedicated DAC:

More analytical than I expected. Accurate, neutral and dry.
More detailed and refined than modded ZeroDAC.
Slightly brighter than modded ZeroDAC.
Soundstage is slightly smaller than modded ZeroDAC.

About his internal headphone amp:

Soundstage is much smaller than C-2C.
Bass is slightly less deep than C-2C.
Other sound characters are similar to C-2C.

Conclusion:
Good DAC + Decent HP amp. Good value for the price. Soundstage is his weak point.

You compared the internal headphone amp of the NFB-11 to an C-2C which is a dedicated device, and in my opinion a "slightly smaller Soundstage" against the Earth OPA in the modded ZeroDAC is not bad at all.
 
Sound is detailed, refined, accurate and dry, for me it's a good point, it will have a good synergy with the most of "not so expensive" headphones, which often have too much Bass an lacks in the highs... it should be perfect with an AKG K-142 HD for example.
 
 

 

[htluc808]

Isao2K8,
 
Thank you very much for sharing your observation thus far.  Please continue to provide updated impressions of this new unit as it burns in.  It should still have ways to go and hopefully, some of the dryness described can be reduced as well as the openning up of the soundstage.  I am impressed thus far even as is but optimistic that the final sonic signature will "mature" a bit once warmed up.
 
Best regards,
 
Kenobi

 

[isao2k8]

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by cheaphifi /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
You compared the internal headphone amp of the NFB-11 to an C-2C which is a dedicated device

 
Yeah $260 DAC+HPA vs $335 dedicated HPA is not fair, but C-2C is the only amp I have atm and they both are applied ACSS so I tried to compare them.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by htluc808 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Please continue to provide updated impressions of this new unit as it burns in.

Sure

 

[vrln]

Sounds good to me. I wasn´t really expecting a revolution, a dedicated NFB2/3 + C2 should be better and it looks like it clearly is. The real question is how well it compares against the previous Sparrow (240 dollars), NuForce HDP and other similar contenders. I´m guessing it´s that category where the NFB-11 will dominate.

 

[GourouLubrik]

Analytical, bass light, bright, not-so-wide soundstage ... I fear I could not like it very much !
 
Is it so analytical that it lean on the lifeless side or is it still musical and enjoyable ?

 

[borrego]

My experience with the NFB-1 is the "dryness" will be gone after about 1 hour of usage/warm-up. I don't know if it would also apply to the NFB-11.
 
To me, the NFB-1 is musical enough after 1 hour of warm up.

 

[pzm9pzm9]

Quote:

My experience with the NFB-1 is the "dryness" will be gone after about 1 hour of usage/warm-up. I don't know if it would also apply to the NFB-11.
 
To me, the NFB-1 is musical enough after 1 hour of warm up.

Do you mean you need 1 hour of warm up every time you listen to NFB-1?

 
That's awful a lot of time to spend just for the warm up...

 

[borrego]

Quote:

Do you mean you need 1 hour of warm up every time you listen to NFB-1?

 
That's awful a lot of time to spend just for the warm up...

So far I have used my NFB-1 for less than 20 hours. I think the warm up time required should not be that long after more usage.