[geraldsmallbear]

Hi, my first post here. I bought this DAC to replace the Grant Fidelity TubeDAC, partly from the rave reviews I found lurking this site. I'm very pleased with the quality  and overall sound, I can hear so much that I didn't know existed but I have a few concerns.
 
First, it has no soundstage. Zero. My TubeDAC projected into the next room, and that's not hyperbole, it actually projected instruments into the next room, which is one reason I was so glad to see it go, it was just far too projectile, it hurt. It also channelled a lot of emotion through it. This at maximum punch was just too much, even at low volume it was totally in my face.
 
The Audio GD is by contrast very pleasant to listen to, I never fatigue from it, but the sound is firmly buried in my speakers.
 
I've tried reversing the polarity of my speakers to no effect.
 
To be fair, there is a slight soundstage and it varies from day to day - so I'm hoping this is a burn-in issue, but I can't find any mention of it, anywhere. I've been burning the NFB for a bit over two months now and it has changed dramatically, but the soundstage has barely changed at all.
 
Audio-GD don't do customer support, so I don't really know who to ask or what to do.
 
As a reference, could you please listen to this on your speakers before posting:
 
http://www.longcat.fr/web/en/audiostage-lite-edition
 
(I know it's a headphone forum, but humour me)
 
For me this initally sounds flat and then gets very, very far away behind the speakers, like hall distance away, behind them, the sound sources are never near me, or in front, they're just off to the sides and either louder or more quiet, not moving in 3D space, except when they are behind, then they are more centralised. There's little to no projection of the sound. But on other recodings, proper ones, there is height, sometimes, which is nice.
 
If you have a a better reference track/sample please share it and I will post my results. I'd really like to know what's going on and if my unit is faulty, and if so why?
 
Also, some idea of exactly how long to burn it in would be helpful, all discussions of this are pretty vague. I've run it at least 10 hours a day and have been doing so for a bit over 2 months now. I could find the delivery date and get a closer estimate if anyone wants it.
 
I hope this is a burn-in issue, cos I'm in a tight space and have to listen on the side most of the time, with good soundstaging this isn't a problem, but with this DAC it's a bit irritating.

 

[Tom W]

Any chance your left/right channels are switched?
 
With headphones this will cause the music to sound like it's behind you. 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[geraldsmallbear]

They're not, but I'm going to try reversing them in an hour or so. Unfortunately, can't plug headphones into this system.

 

[geraldsmallbear]

Didn't work, obviously. Would you try my test track now, please?

 

[haloxt]

For the record, audio-gd does do customer service. Kingwa recently helped me through email to fix my dac which I messed up modding, and he solved the issue for me and I didn't have to ship it back for repair.
 
I think if there really is as little soundstage as you say, then either the dac is faulty, or something else in your chain is faulty, or your ears or expectations are faulty, but this last one is of course the least likely .
 
Try using bit-perfect software, and disable all DSP in computer and any other equipment in chain with DSP.
 
Winamp, mediamonkey, mpc+reclock, and cplay/cmp are some free players that can support bit-perfect. Then get the asio, kernel streaming, or wasapi dll file specific to the player you are using. I recommend this because, imo, normal waveout on xp makes the soundstage get mushed together. Simplest would be to try a cd player digital output and see if it improves the soundstage.
 
Also try using a cheap dac, or $15 cd player's rca output to your amp, and see how the soundstage compares. If you have the same lack of soundstage, then maybe try the dac with different amps and speakers. If a cheap dac has better soundstage than the nfb-2, you better contact audio-gd hehe.
 
From experience with the sparrow with wm8741, which admittedly has a dac section about 1/4th the cost of the nfb-2, and from experience with dac19mk3 which should be similar to nfb-2 except different dac chip, I'd GUESS that the nfb-2 should have quite big and full soundstage, so what you say is highly indicative of something wrong.
 
If your NFB-2 is not faulty, and assuming also the fault is not due to the rest of your chain or to your ears, then there's only one final thing I would suggest. Make sure your cables are all decently thick gauge. Like 24 awg rca cables, 14 awg power cables, 12-14 awg speaker cables. At monoprice.com you can get all the thick gauge cables a normal audio system could use for $25-50 shipped. I make this last recommendation because audio-gd's mid and upper tier dac's tend to be more unforgiving of weaknesses in the audio chain since they try to resolve so much detail, including soundstage detail. When cables are too thin or too long then the sound gets choked, soundstage is unstable, and overall the sound can feel like a distended water balloon. Just imo of course, nobody has yet scientifically proven cables .

 

[geraldsmallbear]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. While I think your methodology is sound, most of those tests either can't be done because I lack the equipment or are redundant because I recently switched from a cheaper DAC that had a huge soundstage - as I mentioned (but ASIO WAS working then). If you post your experiences with the test track we'll have a reference point. Other than that, my sig mentions my cables are BlueJeans and they're all good. The main point is, nothing's changed in my chain, the problem was there from the start, and wasn't there before the Audio-GD, but after what you said about WaveOut, I'm thinking about giving ASIO4ALL another shot. It wouldn't work after I uninstalled my last DAC, no matter what I did, reinstalling, nothing, I gave up in the end. But I'm getting a second laptop soon so I might try it fresh install style on that one. So, on reflection, that and the DAC have both changed, it's bound to have an effect.
 
If you could run the track and let me know your results, and let me know how you got in touch with Kingwa, cos he never answered my initial enquiries and many other people complain of the same. I will have a look at trying ASIO again over the next few days and let you know if it works. Thanks again for reminding me, it's good to have a yarn about these things.
 
Update: http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=93918.20
 
Seems like I won't be using ASIO with Jukebox, grrrr.... unless I retrograde it. I knew this would be the proverbial can of worms.

 

[SilverCans]

Make sure the phase of the rca wires in the dac are correct. One member once reported that one channel was out of phase which can cause cancellations and therefore lack of soundstage

 

[haloxt]

There's also WASAPI and Kernel Streaming. Don't have to get ASIO.
 
The test track seemed fine, sound seemed to follow the visual locations, but I noticed like you that the volume does go quite low as the distance increases, but I hear the transition fine.
 
I would suggest you try cplay/cmp. It's not very intuitive, but follow the install instructions (not all the tweak instructions) and you will get one of the best sounding software for the computer. http://www.cicsmemoryplayer.com/index.php
 
To talk to Kingwa, email him at:
 
audio-gd-kingwa@hotmail.com
 
The normal email address which Edwin reads most of the time, but he should forward to Kingwa if needed:
 
audio-gd@126.com

 

[geraldsmallbear]

Quote:

Make sure the phase of the rca wires in the dac are correct. One member once reported that one channel was out of phase which can cause cancellations and therefore lack of soundstage

 
I had pondered this too. I just checked using this site:
 
http://www.eminent-tech.com/music/multimediatest.html
 
and this one:
 
http://www.digital-recordings.com/www-dfg/www-dfg-sine-HR/dfg_help_shr.html
 
And they are definitely in phase. The RCA cables are fused by machine at BlueJeans. So that's one down, now on to ASIO, downgrading Jukebox and friends, oh joy!
 
Quote:

There's also WASAPI and Kernel Streaming. Don't have to get ASIO.
 
The test track seemed fine, sound seemed to follow the visual locations, but I noticed like you that the volume does go quite low as the distance increases, but I hear the transition fine.
 
I would suggest you try cplay/cmp. It's not very intuitive, but follow the install instructions (not all the tweak instructions) and you will get one of the best sounding software for the computer. http://www.cicsmemoryplayer.com/index.php
 
To talk to Kingwa, email him at:
 
audio-gd-kingwa@hotmail.com
 
The normal email address which Edwin reads most of the time, but he should forward to Kingwa if needed:
 
audio-gd@126.com

Thanks. I'll try the other suggestions first and see how they go. I think on XP at least WASAPI doesn't exist, I'm not sure about Kernel though, would you mind telling me how to do this. I know how to set the output in Jukebox. I have ASIO4ALL and I've located his forum in case it still doesn't work and I'm downgrading to Jukebox 12 which I believe still contained support for ASIO, but I can't confirm it works for Kernel.
 
The other players sound interesting, but I'll just cross one bridge at a time. First the bridge of RCA, then of Downgrading, then of ASIO, and maybe then the final bridge of other players, or possibly paying for Media Centre if necessary.

 

[dealaddict]

I have the same comment as you.  I just bought a NFB-3 to replace Maverick Audio Tube Magic, and I sold the Maverick a few days after.  Now, I want the Maverick back.  It is exactly as you described.  It sound very boxy.  It sound exactly like music coming out from speaker!  The Maverick give me a sense of presence that I feel the singer is in front of me.  For the Audio-gd, I can't hear the singer but speaker.

 

[geraldsmallbear]

Quote:

I have the same comment as you.  I just bought a NFB-3 to replace Maverick Audio Tube Magic, and I sold the Maverick a few days after.  Now, I want the Maverick back.  It is exactly as you described.  It sound very boxy.  It sound exactly like music coming out from speaker!  The Maverick give me a sense of presence that I feel the singer is in front of me.  For the Audio-gd, I can't hear the singer but speaker.

I'm sorry to hear that, but it is good to hear honest feedback about this DAC. I can tell you with certainty that it will get better, but it will take ages. I'm about 2 months into burning it in (at least 10 hours per day) and I think it's still going. It seems that all DAC's follow a pattern - they appear to be smoothing out their fidelity, like a rolling pin going over and over the same piece of dough. It will also have days where it gets worse, the stereo image may flutter and shift around, the bass will disappear, then the treble, and so forth.
 
Another major change I noticed was that it sounded very polite when I first used it, it had a very slow attack. Bands like Korn sounded like lounge-bands, really laid back. This wore off after about a week or so. Now it punches really hard, too hard perhaps on bands like Portishead, but this can be tweaked with free effects from places like gersic.com.
 
So bare with your NFB-3, it will get better, how much better I'm yet to find out.
 
Now, onto my recent trauma: I've installed Media Centre 12 and the difference is profound. I'm almost completely satisfied. Almost. I got v12 cos I mistakenly thought it was the same as Jukebox 12 and therefore both free and able to run ASIO. It does run ASIO (in theory) but isn't free, oh well.
 
As for ASIO, I'd really like some help here if possible: I've tried setting channel offset to no avail. If I leave it on zero it plays through my laptop, every number up to 8 seems to only return a playback error. Anyone using JRiver with an NFB with ASIO4ALL?
 
But, to be honest, I'm almost happy enough with this change to Media Centre, I might just give up on ASIO for now, until I get a windows 7 laptop and can try WASAPI or Kernel.

 

[dura]

I used to have the ref5DSP; I loved the friendly soundsignature, but on my speakerbased system the soundstage had no debt at all, everything happened in one line between the speakers; my current Rega DAC (which I love very, very much) on the same system has a far bigger soundstage; in front and behind the speakers, and also outside of the speakers. 

 

[haloxt]

geraldsmallbear, I read that jriver supports KS directly in version 15+. Did you make sure you set the playback device to the tenor chip in the nfb-2, and not to the motherboard soundcard?
 
If you can't get it working, I would suggest cplay+asio4all, and play around with cmp as well, if only so you have a good benchmark. Ugly user interface, but optimized for low jitter playback.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

FYI Win7/WASAPI used in concert with JRiver Media Center 15/16 is quite a bit better sounding than any audio player under XP (regardless of gear). XP is awful for audio when compared to the new totally reworked HAL audio layer in Win7. The jump in performance (SQ) from XP to Win7 is not a small one, it's very noticeable (to my ears at least). 
 
Most headphones have very little in the way of sound staging...the HD800's try and address this shortcoming and are the current staging champs comparable in ability to the AKG K1000s. A highly exaggerated and/or heavily processed source material may be contributing factors (in quashing original ambiance/staging cues in the recordings themselves ). Try to eliminate any DSP effects and run the file as pure as you can. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust to a new piece of gear especially so if you are used to altering the original source material with DSP effects.
 
Peete.

 

[geraldsmallbear]

Quote:

geraldsmallbear, I read that jriver supports KS directly in version 15+. Did you make sure you set the playback device to the tenor chip in the nfb-2, and not to the motherboard soundcard?
 
If you can't get it working, I would suggest cplay+asio4all, and play around with cmp as well, if only so you have a good benchmark. Ugly user interface, but optimized for low jitter playback.

You're right, in principle, I just upgraded to 16 and it does 'have' Kernel streaming, but it doesn't 'do' Kernel streaming unfortunately. What I get is a lot of slightly recessed stuttering. But this is still on XP, it may be fixed on 7 and I'll find out in a few days hopefully. Yes, the playback is all set up right, has been for a few months. I tried ASIO4ALL, as mentioned above and I still can't get it working, so after reading some of the hellish bugs on his forum I decided to uninstall it again. I can see cplay is nicely purist, but so far MC16 is doing a nice job. I don't love it, but for my needs, I think it fits a bit better than cplay for now.
 


Quote:

I used to have the ref5DSP; I loved the friendly soundsignature, but on my speakerbased system the soundstage had no debt at all, everything happened in one line between the speakers; my current Rega DAC (which I love very, very much) on the same system has a far bigger soundstage; in front and behind the speakers, and also outside of the speakers. 

I'm wondering if the neutrality of the Kingwa stuff is the issue. This is pure conjecture, but I've auditioned a Rega CD player and Amp together with similar speakers to the ones I own and the two things that really stood out were the excellent soundstage, but also the sound was austere, unemotional compared to the second-hand ME which I bought. Rega gear makes stuff like Tangerine Dream and Harold Budd sound 'Remastered'. Music that was already pristine sounded lifeless, just like a bad remaster. Whereas Kingwa's stated goal is 'a wire with gain', neutrality. That's what my NFB sounds like to mme.
 
I think for me, my speakers are the weakest link, which was intentional, as I can't afford the ones I want yet, and they're the easiest things to build cheaply as well. Perhaps if I get Win7 and new speakers the soundstage will be huge again. What I'm trying to say is, perhaps, just perhaps the Kingwa sounds flatter because that's actually what my speakers sound like, and the TubeDAC I had was artificially boosting the soundstage using onboard compression. The instruments didn't have the separation they have with the Kingwa, but they were more projected. I suspect the Rega gear uses a range of standard re-mastering tweaks to get that sound, whereas the TubeDAC used a poorly implemented 'WOW' compression technique as heard in lots of bad electronic music.

 
Quote:

FYI Win7/WASAPI used in concert with JRiver Media Center 15/16 is quite a bit better sounding than any audio player under XP (regardless of gear). XP is awful for audio when compared to the new totally reworked HAL audio layer in Win7. The jump in performance (SQ) from XP to Win7 is not a small one, it's very noticeable (to my ears at least). 
 
Most headphones have very little in the way of sound staging...the HD800's try and address this shortcoming and are the current staging champs comparable in ability to the AKG K1000s. A highly exaggerated and/or heavily processed source material may be contributing factors (in quashing original ambiance/staging cues in the recordings themselves ). Try to eliminate any DSP effects and run the file as pure as you can. Sometimes it takes a while to adjust to a new piece of gear especially so if you are used to altering the original source material with DSP effects.
 
Peete.

That's encouraging. I look forward to my new laptop with Win7, I never thought I'd say that as a former Mac acolyte.
 
I don't use any DSP's at this stage, but I don't object to them in principle, if they're mastering quality. I use smiling as my primary gauge, when it makes me smile, it's working, with some allowances, but generally that works for me. I think I could milk a little more smile out of my current setup, but it's getting there. As for cues, classical recordings are suddenly sounding 'live' again, which is a welcome change.