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See I've been measuring the NFB12 as a standalone DAC and its distortion is relatively high, not bad but surprisingly higher than even a decent tube dac. But the key unique feature/design of this nfb12 is the inegration to the headphone amp and the complete absense of typical color adding negative feedback. In other words after I was measuring the dac output I also measured the headphone out and the distortion spectra/level was the same, even as the volume knob (power out) was turned up !
This is the beauty of Kingwas's analog design in that the entire system is scaled as the volume knob is turned, so that up to a point a change in volume does not equal a change the sound quality. Thats one of the dirty secrets about most any gear you buy, the dac output is attenuated then the amp with its fixed gain amplifying an attenuated signal has increasing distortion with input level. Ever notice how most separate amplifiers sound "different" with a slight turn of the volume knob? And many times you fight it trying to find that sweet spot where everything sounds good at the right volume?
You can clearly hear the distortion when I run a simple 40Hz tone into my NFB-12. There is pronounced distortion, at a level which I've never heard in other gear. I haven't put it on a distortion meter, I don't have access to a quality device, but the distortion should not be audible like it was on my unit. I use it in the office where I don't pay deep attention to sound, and it's certainly OK for the $, but I have to say I was disappointed to hear that kind of issue in a discrete device with value-audiophile aspirations...
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