Turner72
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2012
- Posts
- 4
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- 0
Hi,
I'm new to this forum and want to report my experience with two products I have bought recently: the aune x1 DAC and the aune x2 amp. I'm for a long time in the hifi department and have a man high hifi tower as main listening system with DIY three-way active speakers. They are also almost as tall as I am. Since it happened that I listen more and more to my music on my computer, I thought it might be a good idea to invest a litte bit in my hifi equippment around my mac.
I ordered a headphone from beyerdynamic that has not arrived yet. I will report about that later. I also ordered a DAC and a digital amp from aune I want to report about.
Delivery and shipment
Since there is no dealer in Germany having this products in stock I ordered via ebay directly from a dealer in China. Price was ok and shipping with DHL was incredible fast. I was really impressed.
First Impressions
After unboxing the devices I first noticed that they sent me a power supply with that crappy UK plugs. So I had to heat up my solder station and insatll a new power cord on one of the supplies. Second issue I did not like was that both devices have no feet to stand on. Since the housing is not flat on the bottom side, this is a real problem if you want to store them on top of each other. I ordered some self adhesive feets from 3M on ebay that fit very well. Build quality of both devices is fine and i would say it is better than supposed for the price paid. The manual is short but has all the important information included to get the amps running. Don't mix up the power supplies of the DAC and amp or you will hear some really ugly noise!!!
Operation
I connected the DAC with an SPDIF optical connection to my iMac to get the best signal quality out of the mac. The DAC is connected with RCA cables to the mini amp. By now I have a pair of DIY two-way micro-speakers conected to the amp (they will be replaced by some DIY fullrange speakers soon). Since the DAC has multiple inputs, you have to choose optical-in via the selector. When the DAC is turned off and on again the last input is still selected. However, in case you use the the optical-in, youn don't get a signal immediately, you have to go through all the inputs again. When connected to an iPhone line-out via dock connector cable, the input signal is available immediately. Another really annoying thing is a very loud PLOPP from your speakers when you turn the digital amp off. I wonder why they did not implement some kind of transient killer in this device.
Sound
Since I do not have similar devices to compare, a review is nearly impossible. Additionally, my current speakers do not take advantage of all the potential this DAC has. At least I cannot notice any noise at all. Maybe I can add more on this topic when my headpones arrive (t50p).
Upgrades
Besides the 3M feets I attached I also have serious thoughts about making a new power supply for the DAC. The included supply is really very basic and I think sound quality can be enhanced a lot with a good power supply.
so long
Turner
I'm new to this forum and want to report my experience with two products I have bought recently: the aune x1 DAC and the aune x2 amp. I'm for a long time in the hifi department and have a man high hifi tower as main listening system with DIY three-way active speakers. They are also almost as tall as I am. Since it happened that I listen more and more to my music on my computer, I thought it might be a good idea to invest a litte bit in my hifi equippment around my mac.
I ordered a headphone from beyerdynamic that has not arrived yet. I will report about that later. I also ordered a DAC and a digital amp from aune I want to report about.
Delivery and shipment
Since there is no dealer in Germany having this products in stock I ordered via ebay directly from a dealer in China. Price was ok and shipping with DHL was incredible fast. I was really impressed.
First Impressions
After unboxing the devices I first noticed that they sent me a power supply with that crappy UK plugs. So I had to heat up my solder station and insatll a new power cord on one of the supplies. Second issue I did not like was that both devices have no feet to stand on. Since the housing is not flat on the bottom side, this is a real problem if you want to store them on top of each other. I ordered some self adhesive feets from 3M on ebay that fit very well. Build quality of both devices is fine and i would say it is better than supposed for the price paid. The manual is short but has all the important information included to get the amps running. Don't mix up the power supplies of the DAC and amp or you will hear some really ugly noise!!!
Operation
I connected the DAC with an SPDIF optical connection to my iMac to get the best signal quality out of the mac. The DAC is connected with RCA cables to the mini amp. By now I have a pair of DIY two-way micro-speakers conected to the amp (they will be replaced by some DIY fullrange speakers soon). Since the DAC has multiple inputs, you have to choose optical-in via the selector. When the DAC is turned off and on again the last input is still selected. However, in case you use the the optical-in, youn don't get a signal immediately, you have to go through all the inputs again. When connected to an iPhone line-out via dock connector cable, the input signal is available immediately. Another really annoying thing is a very loud PLOPP from your speakers when you turn the digital amp off. I wonder why they did not implement some kind of transient killer in this device.
Sound
Since I do not have similar devices to compare, a review is nearly impossible. Additionally, my current speakers do not take advantage of all the potential this DAC has. At least I cannot notice any noise at all. Maybe I can add more on this topic when my headpones arrive (t50p).
Upgrades
Besides the 3M feets I attached I also have serious thoughts about making a new power supply for the DAC. The included supply is really very basic and I think sound quality can be enhanced a lot with a good power supply.
so long
Turner