[dlyz]

Quote:

the power supply in a dedicated dac alone will give an improvement over the pc power supply that powering the stx. I went from st to nfb3, and imo the most improved things are the noiseless background.
 
however since im not familiar with your amp and speaker its hard to say how much an improvement it will be. you might hear better improvement by upgrading amp or speaker.
 
my suggestion would be go for the amp/dac combo like nfb12, nfb5 or nfb10se if that speaker is active speaker and can be connected by rca.

 
Thanks for you comments.
 
My amp is the NuForce IA-7 v3 and Speakers are Dynaudio Audience 122 and DM2/8. My speakers are quite good if you familiar with the brand. I am the type that upgrade backwards, Dac being the last.
 
Any reason to get dac/amp? I dont own any headphones currently except KSC75 (use on the go on my HTC)
 
Quote:

Not going to even bother explaining, the NFB-3/2 is a huge step above sound cards.  Its not even that whole small % difference its extremely noticeable.
 
Its like a veil on sound that you neber thought existed till you go back to it after using an outboard dac for a while.

Actually i already have an idea, just that was hoping to get forumer opinion and to tell/console myself im not blowing of my hard earned moolah.. haha.. i tend to ask questions like this before a big purchase. However, thanks for you reply. The "extremely noticable" part is what i needed to hear.
 
Moving on to the other part of my question. Would it be better to get balanced Dac even if i am using unbalanced RCA? I prefer using rca over xlr due to taste preference.
 

 

[IndieScent]

Quote:

 
Thanks for you comments.
 
My amp is the NuForce IA-7 v3 and Speakers are Dynaudio Audience 122 and DM2/8. My speakers are quite good if you familiar with the brand. I am the type that upgrade backwards, Dac being the last.
 
Any reason to get dac/amp? I dont own any headphones currently except KSC75 (use on the go on my HTC)
 
Moving on to the other part of my question. Would it be better to get balanced Dac even if i am using unbalanced RCA? I prefer using rca over xlr due to taste preference.
 

If you already satisfied with your current amp, I guess theres no reason to get amp/dac. 1 benefit amp/dac is that you doesnt really need to think how the dac will march to your amp or not. because most time audio world is mostly trial and error due to the nature of it.
 
also if you dont plan to upgrade your amp in near future to balanced amp, I would suggest not to buy a balanced amp. see (hear) 1st if a dac will improve your system or not before you spend extra amount of money on balanced stuff.
 

 

[dlyz]

Quote:

If you already satisfied with your current amp, I guess theres no reason to get amp/dac. 1 benefit amp/dac is that you doesnt really need to think how the dac will march to your amp or not. because most time audio world is mostly trial and error due to the nature of it.
 
also if you dont plan to upgrade your amp in near future to balanced amp, I would suggest not to buy a balanced amp. see (hear) 1st if a dac will improve your system or not before you spend extra amount of money on balanced stuff.
 

i see where ur coming from, yea, dac/amp eliminates the need to match 2 seperates and reduce the use of 1 interconnect.
 
hmmm i guess you could be right, rca out from balanced dac might not be too far different from its unbalanced brethren. 
 
did you try audio-gd discreet opa on your st? a friend of mine just got the st and sun moon earth, and he says it a total different level from stock opa, but i guess the NFB would still pawn it. ironically the price he spent for the card and the opa is enough to buy NFB3.1
 

 

[IndieScent]

Quote:

i see where ur coming from, yea, dac/amp eliminates the need to match 2 seperates and reduce the use of 1 interconnect.
 
hmmm i guess you could be right, rca out from balanced dac might not be too far different from its unbalanced brethren. 
 
did you try audio-gd discreet opa on your st? a friend of mine just got the st and sun moon earth, and he says it a total different level from stock opa, but i guess the NFB would still pawn it. ironically the price he spent for the card and the opa is enough to buy NFB3.1
 

unfortunately i never tried their opamp, although i spend great deal opamp rolling on my st.
 
the stx/st is essentially a amp/dac without a power supply. and after i hear what an amp or dac can do when it use good design with its own power supply(or essentially what a good power supply can do for audio) i never go back to any sound card.  although stx/st can be very good digital transport due to its own asio driver
 

 

[dlyz]

Quote:

unfortunately i never tried their opamp, although i spend great deal opamp rolling on my st.
 
the stx/st is essentially a amp/dac without a power supply. and after i hear what an amp or dac can do when it use good design with its own power supply(or essentially what a good power supply can do for audio) i never go back to any sound card.  although stx/st can be very good digital transport due to its own asio driver
 

 
i have yet to experience what power supply can do. i will be using my stx optical out to whichever dac i will be getting i will be encouraging my friend to diy a seperated power supply for his ST.
 
anyway, i have been reading about reference 7.1, its too much for my budget but now im wondering about reference 5.... =.=" but somehow i have convinced myself to stick to my initial budget... 

 

[IndieScent]

Quote:

 
i have yet to experience what power supply can do. i will be using my stx optical out to whichever dac i will be getting i will be encouraging my friend to diy a seperated power supply for his ST.
 
anyway, i have been reading about reference 7.1, its too much for my budget but now im wondering about reference 5.... =.=" but somehow i have convinced myself to stick to my initial budget... 

unless you got your source all HD i suggest stay away from their upper range dac. iirc some user here that own them say that they are very revealing.
 
also do share us your impression if you decided to order nfb2/3 when you received it.

 

[dlyz]

Quote:

unless you got your source all HD i suggest stay away from their upper range dac. iirc some user here that own them say that they are very revealing.
 
also do share us your impression if you decided to order nfb2/3 when you received it.

Yea i think i shud stay away, even tho my files are lossless, non of them are HD stuff. Most HD stuff is not my musical taste as well.
 
Will do, i might have a road trip to my fren's home town after christmas, to have a listen to his setup. Then i will probably order the Dac right after that.
 

 

[tussi68]

Hello !
I'm new to this thread and I was wondering if anyone could help me with at question about the NFB 3.1
I've had this for one month, and I am very pleased with this DAC.
I'm going to bring it to some of my friends which have Audio Note dac's (heavilly upgraded 2.1) and see if it can compare to NOS DAC's.
 
My question is:
I ordered with [size=x-small]The S/PDIF interface  WM8805 and I read in this thread that most people says that DIR9001 is way better.[/size]
[size=x-small]I'm using a CD player as transport (I'm currently not using the USB interface) to feed SPDIF to the DAC, finally:[/size]
 
[size=x-small]Will there be any changes in sound using SPDIF in if I change the WM8805 to DIR9001 ?[/size]
[size=x-small]Or is this interface only for the USB signal ?[/size]
 
[size=x-small]BR[/size]
[size=x-small]Helge[/size]
[size=x-small]Norway[/size]

 

[attenuated 3db]

Quote:

[size=x-small]I'm using a CD player as transport (I'm currently not using the USB interface) to feed SPDIF to the DAC, finally:[/size]
 
[size=x-small]Will there be any changes in sound using SPDIF in if I change the WM8805 to DIR9001 ?[/size]
[size=x-small]Or is this interface only for the USB signal ?[/size]

The DIR9001 has better jitter rejection specifications than the WM8805, which Kingwa made the default receiver chip so he could say the DAC supported 192Khz sample-rate music.  But if you're using a CD player transport as your source, this is not even a consideration for you.  The DIR9001 will process input from either the USB or S/PDIF input; how audibly perceptible the improved jitter rejection will sound to your ears depends on your ears and how clean your CD player transport's S/PDIF output is.  Here is a link that might be informative:
 
http://victrolax.blogspot.com/2011/07/its-192k-degrees-in-here-recently-i-had.html

 

[nick77]

Quote:

Hello !
I'm new to this thread and I was wondering if anyone could help me with at question about the NFB 3.1
I've had this for one month, and I am very pleased with this DAC.
I'm going to bring it to some of my friends which have Audio Note dac's (heavilly upgraded 2.1) and see if it can compare to NOS DAC's.
 
My question is:
I ordered with [size=x-small]The S/PDIF interface  WM8805 and I read in this thread that most people says that DIR9001 is way better.[/size]
[size=x-small]I'm using a CD player as transport (I'm currently not using the USB interface) to feed SPDIF to the DAC, finally:[/size]
 
[size=x-small]Will there be any changes in sound using SPDIF in if I change the WM8805 to DIR9001 ?[/size]
[size=x-small]Or is this interface only for the USB signal ?[/size]
 
[size=x-small]BR[/size]
[size=x-small]Helge[/size]
[size=x-small]Norway[/size]

I can only speak for the NFB-2 and spdif output, the DIR9001 is a cut above in resolution and reccomended.
 

 

[Stealer]

can someone tell me about the  display on the NFB2.1 & 3.1 front panel.
what value is it displaying??? the sampling rate? or something else.. 
 
rgds

 

[jageur272]

About a third of the way down of this page it says:
http://audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB3-2011/NFB3.1EN.htm
 
The first thing is the filter, next is ACSS/RCA (1 for ACSS, 2 for RCA), then input (U for USB, C for coax, O for optical).
 
RTFM

 

[Stealer]

Quote:

About a third of the way down of this page it says:
http://audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB3-2011/NFB3.1EN.htm
 
The first thing is the filter, next is ACSS/RCA (1 for ACSS, 2 for RCA), then input (U for USB, C for coax, O for optical).
 
RTFM
 
 
thanks, wonder how I missed that...
 
sigh, was hoping the display would show the sampling rate rather than the input & filter setting...

 

 

[Sdmark]

First time poster here but I saw and read this entire thread before inquiring and ordering a NFB-2.1 on Dec 15 and paying for it via PayPal after getting a quote for 3 day turnaround time. 3 days later I did in fact get a DHL tracking number and today, Dec 27 it was delivered to me in California US. After reading some of the delays that some of you experienced I was shocked and surprised at the super fast shipping and that it cleared customs so quickly. Everything looks great, no damage to box etc. It came with power cord, USB and toslink cables in addition to the DIR9001 I also ordered.
 
I won't be able to hook it up for a month because I am in the middle of moving but I am really stoked about it and want to thank everyone for the thorough reviews that helped guide me to getting one. 

 

[Sdmark]

If King-Wa is reading I do have one suggestion the next time you order faceplates: Change "Flavor" button to read "Filter" or maybe "OS" for over sampling.