[madwolf]

So the MAX9485 is the PLL that they have added before the 7022 chip 
 
Nice piggyback and they must have very good soldering skill to pull that off with a wire to a pin. 

 

[krumme]

Yeaa, well done. All the mod is handmade and seems very solid. Notice the pll is after the TE reciewer. All decoupling (smd +  capacitor) is as recommended close to the chips/clock, so no probs here.

 

[krumme]

Here is some preliminary impressions from USB from both AKG K701 and Orion speakers. The benchmark is reality.
 
I couldnt here it needed any break in. Basicly i hear the sound as described from Kingwa
 

• What strikes me is first and foremost, the excellent ability to drive the AKG K701 (as of now i prefer low setting).
• Then, and this is very important, there is no fatigue listening with the eqipment i use. No unrealistic hard edges or weird distortion. From my experience it sounds as if the Jitter is very much under control.
• The unit is very revealing to the extreme, it sound like its simply not there. I can hear that because there is a larger difference between the recordings than i am used to (on very high-end gear). Its very monitor like. Combined with the lack of fatigue, i think that is a very seldom quality. Notice its so revealing you not only hear the recording as it is, but to the extreme, you get solid insight into how the recording engineer is thinking.
• Then there is tons of details, and you hear things you have not done before. For 25 years, i have heard that endlessly, but for this unit its more through than ever. There is so many details you have to get used to it.
• On this unit there is as you could guess a big difference between low res material and high res, but what strikes me is the importance of the recording. Not only the technical side is revealed, but very much the artistic intention of the recording is shown. A good recording have always been the most important, and this unit just understates that. The sideeffect is, a bad recording irritates you more with this unit, and you will get irritated on the recording engineer
• I have no trouble listening to low res music on it also because it shows tons of details and resolutions you would never think could be in that bad internet radio . As stated above what is most important is the quality of the recording. Less mixed recordings is by far best.

 
Build quality on the cabinet is sub standard in many ways, but it looks better i reality than on the pictures. And it looks better and better   - but dont we want them to save the right places?
 
- this was mostly a positive feedback, but i will be back with some criticism, but i will have to have a pair of musicians to review this unit before making some of those statements.
 
This unit might not have the gigantic transformers and capacitors of the rest of the equipment i have used (its like 1/60 the weight of the stuff it replaces ), and its the cheapest hifi i have ever had. But judging both from the objective facts inside and the sound, i have no problem using this with equipment from another price league. If there is a good place to save you money this might be it, and save for better speaker, e-phones and good recordings.
 
Network capability wantet for future products and thereby eliminating the jitter problem completely, hopefully with the same small footprint.
 
Way to go Kingwa and audio-gd team!

 

[les_garten]

Quote:

Here is some preliminary impressions from USB from both AKG K701 and Orion speakers. The benchmark is reality.
 
I couldnt here it needed any break in. Basicly i hear the sound as described from Kingwa
 

• What strikes me is first and foremost, the excellent ability to drive the AKG K701 (as of now i prefer low setting).
• Then, and this is very important, there is no fatigue listening with the eqipment i use. No unrealistic hard edges or weird distortion. From my experience it sounds as if the Jitter is very much under control.
• The unit is very revealing to the extreme, it sound like its simply not there. I can hear that because there is a larger difference between the recordings than i am used to (on very high-end gear). Its very monitor like. Combined with the lack of fatigue, i think that is a very seldom quality. Notice its so revealing you not only hear the recording as it is, but to the extreme, you get solid insight into how the recording engineer is thinking.
• Then there is tons of details, and you hear things you have not done before. For 25 years, i have heard that endlessly, but for this unit its more through than ever. There is so many details you have to get used to it.
• On this unit there is as you could guess a big difference between low res material and high res, but what strikes me is the importance of the recording. Not only the technical side is revealed, but very much the artistic intention of the recording is shown. A good recording have always been the most important, and this unit just understates that. The sideeffect is, a bad recording irritates you more with this unit, and you will get irritated on the recording engineer
• I have no trouble listening to low res music on it also because it shows tons of details and resolutions you would never think could be in that bad internet radio . As stated above what is most important is the quality of the recording. Less mixed recordings is by far best.

 
Build quality on the cabinet is sub standard in many ways, but it looks better i reality than on the pictures. And it looks better and better   - but dont we want them to save the right places?
 
- this was mostly a positive feedback, but i will be back with some criticism, but i will have to have a pair of musicians to review this unit before making some of those statements.
 
This unit might not have the gigantic transformers and capacitors of the rest of the equipment i have used (its like 1/60 the weight of the stuff it replaces ), and its the cheapest hifi i have ever had. But judging both from the objective facts inside and the sound, i have no problem using this with equipment from another price league. If there is a good place to save you money this might be it, and save for better speaker, e-phones and good recordings.
 
Network capability wantet for future products and thereby eliminating the jitter problem completely, hopefully with the same small footprint.
 
Way to go Kingwa and audio-gd team!

Switches and connectors when they are cheap cause lots of problems down the road.
 
Casework doesn't matter much, and is cosmetic of course.

 

[krumme]

There is nothing wrong with the switches. The switches seem very solid. The most important part here is the pot; I cant hear any channel difference now btw.

 

[Slaughter]

The biggest concern is probably the jack since that jack is meant to be fixed to the front of a case, so repeated use might weaken the solder joints.

 

[krumme]

Quote:

So the MAX9485 is the PLL that they have added before the 7022 chip 
 

Its not like the Max9485 is one of the wonders of this world. Its a silicon based pll (no external filter), and its hard to argue the effectiveness of it as a pll and not as as a reclocking tool. Dont take the 21ps for anything, its just marketing bs. 
 
Kingwa might say something about it. I dont think the intrinsic jitter / phase noise of the max chip is a problem, its so high freq, the ess will take care of it, besides its not random in nature. But for low freq its jitter attenuation is barely existing. I dont know, it just sounds as if its working as a system. I am using like 4 meters of usb, and i could here the slightest difference from the usb cables to another. The days of big drives, slaving from the dac, with exotic balanced spdif cable solutions is over for me. Now its USB with huge amounts of jitter, and if a 0.5 usd pll can soften some of it, fine for me. 

 

[MarjorieO]

Is the NFB-11 capable of driving the HE5LE?

 

[Zynaps]

Max9485 - Similar generators very much criticize for quality of a step. With level "jitter" they have, of course, joked. 21ps is for 70MHz, so  if frequency is less - jitter  is more. BUT! Kingwa spoke about a problem on high frequencies so I think he's right, if he use the max9485.
 

 

[krumme]

Quote:

Max9485 - Similar generators very much criticize for quality of a step. With level "jitter" they have, of course, joked. 21ps is for 70MHz, so  if frequency is less - jitter  is more. BUT! Kingwa spoke about a problem on high frequencies so I think he's right, if he use the max9485.
 

Just to make it clear, its the frequency of the jitter not the music signal , where did Kingwa speak about high-freq probs?

 

[Zynaps]

Quote:

Just to make it clear, its the frequency of the jitter not the music signal , where did Kingwa speak about high-freq probs?

 
Kingwa, from 10/11/2010 in letter to me:
In PCM mode , the ES9018 is grindingly request from the I2S input signal and difficult to exact re-clock the master clock.
I had communicate with ESS company engineer , he admit because the ES9018 applied a very hige frequency clock (80MHz) so can't easy to recovery the master clock .

 

 

[miyinan]

Nice impression, krumme. Looking forward to your criticism as well.

 

[krumme]

Quote:

Nice impression, krumme. Looking forward to your criticism as well.

Thanx. I dont practice as a musician any more, and my visits to unamplified concerts is very seldom, so its difficult to make some serious judgement, but i will have some with the right benchmark to do it.
 

 

[movi]

Quote:

The biggest concern is probably the jack since that jack is meant to be fixed to the front of a case, so repeated use might weaken the solder joints.

i still might ask Kingwa to quote with a Neutrik locking jack when i order mine

 

[dinkoy]

Audio-GD hasn't been replying to emails. Anybody got the same experience?