[sokolov91]

Quote:

I'm tempted to grab one of those Reference 8s but I need more gear like I need a hole in the head.

SAME! hahaha... I was about to... but then decided I was a greedy little piggy and that I could not possibly use two dacs. Although having one as collateral would certainly be nice...but I need to eventually taper off my audio spending completely.

 

[Dynobot]

Quote:

...but I need to eventually taper off my audio spending completely.

x100!!!!!

 

[haloxt]

Regal, why so pessimistic about audio-gd? I think if you look at the cost of components and final cost, there's not much difference between the pcm1704 dac's and es9018 dac's. Kingwa has said he spent a year testing and designing for the es9018 before releasing it, so even if it is easy, audio-gd has tried to do a good job designing their es9018 dac's.

 

[Pacha]

 
Quote:

Regal, why so pessimistic about audio-gd? I think if you look at the cost of components and final cost, there's not much difference between the pcm1704 dac's and es9018 dac's. Kingwa has said he spent a year testing and designing for the es9018 before releasing it, so even if it is easy, audio-gd has tried to do a good job designing their es9018 dac's.

I agree.
 
Plus he may not rise his prices as his main positive and addictive advantage is to sell affordable very high-end gear. Even if some here could purchase $5000 DACs, I think the majority can't go way above the Audio-gd prices line-up. Going exclusive and luxury priced gear would mean less customers and I don't think the difference between less clients with higher prices and more clients with lower prices would be necessarily positive.

 

[Kenobi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dynobot I recently got an email from a AGD distributor, he says that the "Single Ended" ST-7 Preamp is "WAY BETTER" than the "ACSS/Balanced" C-39MK3 Preamp.   Any thoughts, any one?
 
1. said distributor likes hearing lots of distortion in his system as he uses tube gear at home with harsh speakers?
2. distributor has ST-7 stock he cant shift cause no one buys them?
3. distributor is worried no one will ever buy one now as this amp is  discontinued?

Same here.  This disty definitely has their preference/bias on this one.  They don't even rate the Ref 7 that high among their DACs when I last inquired.  I think I'll go direct instead.
 
Kenobi
 

 

[purrin]

     Quote:

Plus he may not rise his prices as his main positive and addictive advantage is to sell affordable very high-end gear...

I suspect that Audio-gd will not raise prices (or at least not significantly) on the PCM1704 units, but instead offer them on a limited availability basis dependent upon the ability to obtain those chips for reasonable prices.  It just doesn't fit Audio-gd's modus operandi nor it's value-oriented customers to "sell-out."  Most of Audio-gd's customers are in Asia or parts of Europe, who are less easily bamboozled by slick marketing than Americans in the USA.

 

[Dynobot]

In the Immortal words of IPodPJ,
"Speculation doesn't do anyone any good, so unless Kingwa told you the information first hand you shouldn't make assumptions"
 
So lets cut out all this guess work as to AGD's business.....

 

[les_garten]

A-GD isn't changing anything.
 
He became a member of this forum(MOT) because it was being brought up in the Forums that he should do so.
 
He really does try to make everyone happy.

 

[Dynobot]

Quote:

A-GD isn't changing anything.
 
He became a member of this forum(MOT) because it was being brought up in the Forums that he should do so.
 
He really does try to make everyone happy.

 
I agree, Kingwa is still at the helm and is still using his unique methods of making something good into something better.  At the same time offering a superior product at a superior value.  Above all AGD is doing what it does best making Audio product and making money doing it.  He is both an Audiophile and a Businessman, the businessman says follow the trend and capitalize esp if its a good product which the Sabre is..and the Audiophile says I can make it better, which he usually does.
 
At any rate, very few other Audio manufacturers can literally make people addicted to their gear.

 

[les_garten]

The only way to deal with that addiction is to set your Firewall to block his website!
 

 
 
Quote:

 
I agree, Kingwa is still at the helm and is still using his unique methods of making something good into something better.  At the same time offering a superior product at a superior value.  Above all AGD is doing what it does best making Audio product and making money doing it.  He is both an Audiophile and a Businessman, the businessman says follow the trend and capitalize esp if its a good product which the Sabre is..and the Audiophile says I can make it better, which he usually does.
 
At any rate, very few other Audio manufacturers can literally make people addicted to their gear.

 

[Pacha]

Quote:

A-GD isn't changing anything.
 
He became a member of this forum(MOT) because it was being brought up in the Forums that he should do so.
 
He really does try to make everyone happy.

Plus he has opportunity to take advantage of a lot of customers' reviews (long or short) here, and can use them to release better gear based on his customers' comments, or at least gear more suited to customers likings, which is I think, a very good thing.
 

 

[vrln]

I´m just hoping to see him post here more now... He says his english isn´t good, but I quite disagree with him. All emails I´ve gotten from him have been completely understandable. Would be great to have some real insider information on various things such as new potential products, changes etc.

 

[spyder187]

Man it's so tough when the Reference 7 may be in short supply soon. Part of me wants to go straight to the top but with my speaker system, it will be run single ended probably into my 300b SET amp.
 
If I get the DAC19-DSP with the C2 amp immediately, I can use the ACSS and hear what that is all about through my D2000 but then I'll always wonder what performance improvements there are to be had with the Reference 7. And then again with the Reference 7, I  can get the Phoenix and run balanced headphones as well as maybe in the future get one of Kingwa's amplifiers to run a full balanced speaker rig (maybe even get the CD7).

The question comes down to whether I can live with a less than flagship DAC in the DAC19 which I'm sure will sound really good already. I don't think anyone can help me with this decision but any thoughts would be great. I've been reading all the threads for audio-gd and the proof will end up when I choose one and listen to it. I got the u-dac2 recently and find that it finally makes the d2000s listenable which is what is causing me to just want to up the ante now cause I know there must be much better than the u-dac2.
 
I also understand that the power supply is a large part that makes up the audio component so Kingwa's designs makes sense to me in that sense. The Reference 7 looks extremely enticing based on that but again it's a large chunk of change to have tied up in audio. But then I read about the Wadias using the same pcm1704 x8 per channel and selling that for $26k or $36k and that makes the Ref-7 seem like an extremely good bargain... Decisions.. decisions...

 

[purrin]

Quote:

Man it's so tough when the Reference 7 may be in short supply soon. Part of me wants to go straight to the top but with my speaker system, it will be run single ended probably into my 300b SET amp.
 
If I get the DAC19-DSP with the C2 amp immediately, I can use the ACSS and hear what that is all about through my D2000 but then I'll always wonder what performance improvements there are to be had with the Reference 7. And then again with the Reference 7, I  can get the Phoenix and run balanced headphones as well as maybe in the future get one of Kingwa's amplifiers to run a full balanced speaker rig (maybe even get the CD7).

The question comes down to whether I can live with a less than flagship DAC in the DAC19 which I'm sure will sound really good already. I don't think anyone can help me with this decision but any thoughts would be great. I've been reading all the threads for audio-gd and the proof will end up when I choose one and listen to it. I got the u-dac2 recently and find that it finally makes the d2000s listenable which is what is causing me to just want to up the ante now cause I know there must be much better than the u-dac2.
 
I also understand that the power supply is a large part that makes up the audio component so Kingwa's designs makes sense to me in that sense. The Reference 7 looks extremely enticing based on that but again it's a large chunk of change to have tied up in audio. But then I read about the Wadias using the same pcm1704 x8 per channel and selling that for $26k or $36k and that makes the Ref-7 seem like an extremely good bargain... Decisions.. decisions...

You need to go straight to the top, otherwise you will always be wondering. If I am not mistaken, the single-ended RCA outputs still do take advantage of all 8 chips on the REF7. It's a decent chunk of change, but it probably costs about the same as having a smartphone or a deluxe cable TV/Internet package for one year. 

 

[haloxt]

Quote:

The question comes down to whether I can live with a less than flagship DAC in the DAC19 which I'm sure will sound really good already.

If you want balanced but don't want to pay for something as expensive as ref 7 and don't mind not getting pcm1704's, consider nfb-10es or nfb-10wm.
 
The dac19 single-ended and ref 7 balanced should be pretty different animals. They both sound good, just different. Dac19 should be more pleasant and less revealing/microdetails, ref 7 should be more revealing of recording and have more microdetail.