[phthora]

I hear a lot of people say the Audio-gd sabre dacs are very polite for a sabre, which is to say they aren't bright like these chips stereotypically are. I found the 28 to be very neutral and the NOS 11 maybe a little too laid back in comparison (with my already warm LCD3).

If you know what flavor you like and might want an early 9038 unit you're doing the right thing buying the stack. I don't think there is any real improvement in sound quality going from a single box to a stack, audio-gd has great power supply regulation and anytime you can use less interconnects that can't be a bad thing. If a person really wanted that extra quality they would be much better off getting a used master 11, a small price bump (vs stack) for a product that is truly on another level.

 
That is good to know about the sound signature. "Laid back," "relaxed," "polite," tend to be dealbreaker words for me. But, if people just mean that the DAC isn't peaky and harsh, I can't get behind that. My current set-up runs on a 'polite' ES9018K2M and it's a little... dull to me. Of course, there is a lot more to the DAC than the chip, but my experience has made me a little wary. Thanks for the input.
 
The DAC runs about 700 with the options I want and shipping, so I'm leaning towards the Gustard X20 Pro now. But, the idea of a monolithic Audio-gd stack is sooooo tempting.
 
EDIT: Does this DAC/amp give a very detailed sound? How does it handle transients? There are so few reviews for this thing, it's hard to figure out its sound profile.

 

[CarlosUnchained]

Now you can order in silver.
 

 

[MadSounds]

its like black Schiit, surely this madness wont last! if you want get while you can

 

[ruinevil]

Is there a way to deactivate the Pure DAC mode? Going from Preamp to Headphone is painful.

 

[windowman]

Is there a way to deactivate the Pure DAC mode? Going from Preamp to Headphone is painful.

By "pure dac" do you mean fixed output? That can be changed to variable by removing an internal jumper. See this post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/676930/audio-gd-nfb-28/1530#post_12780080

 

[ruinevil]

its like black Schiit, surely this madness wont last! if you want get while you can

Black Schiit is are silver ones that have some small superficial defect, so they cover it in PVD and sell it.

 

[ruinevil]

By "pure dac" do you mean fixed output? That can be changed to variable by removing an internal jumper. See this post: http://www.head-fi.org/t/676930/audio-gd-nfb-28/1530#post_12780080

For DAC/HP toggle, it goes(H)eadphones, (P)re-amp (variable), and (d) which sounds like line level out from DAC. Does removing that jumper remove the (d) from my DAC/HP toggle?

 

[WhiskeyJacks]

Has anyone had the issue where nfb28 will just stop playing music or any audio then when you bring up windows playback and right click test nothing happens, but b when I go into properties and right clicky on one of the supported frequency like 96khz and test that it goes back to playing audio. Or if I unplug it and plug busby in it continues I have windows 10

 

[MadSounds]

Has anyone had the issue where nfb28 will just stop playing music or any audio then when you bring up windows playback and right click test nothing happens, but b when I go into properties and right clicky on one of the supported frequency like 96khz and test that it goes back to playing audio. Or if I unplug it and plug busby in it continues I have windows 10

your going to need to be more clear. what USB does your device have? let me some up the problem as i read it, let me know if anything isn't correct.

1) So you have audio playing and everything is good. (from what application? if foobar what output)
2) then for no reason it stop, you weren't changing between foobar and youtube or anything like that.
3) you start trouble shooting. you bring up playback devices from the tray menu, Identify your 28 on the list (at this point does it have a green check like its the selected device?) you right click on it and test, but nothing happens.
4) from the same right click menu you found test you go to properties, from the 'supported formats' of 'advanced' you click test and it suddenly starts working again.
5) You can also get it to start working by unplugging and re-plugging (busby???), when you did this did you also cycle power on the 28. you shouldn't up-plug anything with the power on. probably not that bad, but bad practice. USB not bad, power very very bad, just an FYI.

There are 2 things I can think of that might be happening, first and most likely another device is trying to override the 28 in windows, maybe something trying to connect via bluetooth. It takes a sec to switch too the audio-gd drivers, so when i went to play the test sound the first time the sound might have ended before it 'switched back' to the nfb-28.

Otherwise it could be an issue where different programs are trying to talk with the audio-Gd drivers at the same time. My old 28 could never work with a full screen game and Pandora going, sound would just stop. I think it's the drivers not playing nice with windows mixer (which coordinates and balanced the various sounds from different programs. I asked about it back then and the response i got was pretty much 'ya what do you expect' with a side of 'windows mixer sucks, you Don't want to use it anyway'. this was on windows 7, with windows 10 I've had isolated instances of minor artifacts when playing sounds from multiple programs, but never a failure.

I'm no expert, just a professional trouble-shooter. If anyone else has any ideas please chime in. You can try e-mailing audio-gd, but this is the kind of problem where language might really get in the way.

 

[Level5]

I heard the latest nfb28 (2016) already has the TCXO built in and an upgraded dac chip? Just wanted to confirm before I order.

 

[MadSounds]

I heard the latest nfb28 (2016) already has the TCXO built in and an upgraded dac chip? Just wanted to confirm before I order.

The current version comes with the 'upgraded' clocks built in. Im not aware of any upgrades available for the dac chip. right now its using a Sabre es9018, which has set a high standard for delta/sigma dacs for years now. there is a new 9038 chip out but im not aware of products currently using it. I would expect Audio-gd to relaunch the're sabre line in the next 4-12 months with the newest dac chips, but that's purely speculation on my part.

wouldn't hurt to try asking what kind of timeframe

 

[marcussmj]

Will using the NFB-1AMP with another DAC such as the Aune X1s be good enough? Cause the Aune seems to be a very good DAC on its own and its much cheaper than the NFB-28, at least in my country or will I need to get a balanced DAC to fully benefit from the setup?

 

[Pumba101]

For anyone who wants to know - I was considering buy one of these however I found out from Kingwa via email that they'll be releasing a version with the ES9038PRO chip in the next 1-2 months for an extra $200 USD.

 

[CarlosUnchained]

  For anyone who wants to know - I was considering buy one of these however I found out from Kingwa via email that they'll be releasing a version with the ES9038PRO chip in the next 1-2 months for an extra $200 USD.

 
What is that chip? What other products use it? and why is an $200 USD upgrade just for a chip?

 

[Pumba101]

   
What is that chip? What other products use it? and why is an $200 USD upgrade just for a chip?

Honestly, I've not done enough research on it yet to know the fine details. The ES9038PRO is the new flagship ESS Sabre DAC - http://www.esstech.com/index.php?cID=360
 
I've read bits and bobs on a few sites that people are referring to it as the next coming of Christ.
 
The new Oppo Sonica DAC uses it - that DAC alone costs $799.
 
I'm hoping someone super knowledgeable jumps in and explains all the differences...