[Makiah S]

I reach out to the JDS Labs guys see if they can fix the channel imbalance

And this is a subjective hobby so you all welcome to hear whatever you'd like to hear but for me in my experience in with the vast collection of amps that I have I don't really find the Atom to be either warm or bright...

It reflects totally reflects the presentation of your DAC much like a lot of the most expensive amps to again that the only felt that I have it sometimes lacks a little bit of detail and resolve

And if you're using it with a hard drive headphone like a planar magnetic then yeah you're probably going to be missing out on some low frequency body and impact because the amp only does one 1 watt out, so of course if you're used to having a certain level of Base presents and you moved to an amp that has less bass presents you're going to perceive that is brightness even though the amp isnt an adding anything

And really anytime I've listened to a bright solid state piece of equipment it's one that's had added noise or distortion on the top end that adds this false sense of emphasis in the top end, and again the Adam isn't going to add that kind of noise or Distortion to create that brightness so again I imagine what you're hearing is a lack of low body which is still again you perceive that is being bright you're absolutely correct

 

[corgifall]

I plan to bug them eventually to see about the channel imbalance maybe once the hype slows down. I know they were out of stock when I told a friend to buy the atom a few days ago. I agree with what you're saying. It is bright on the top end for me but I didn't lose any bass at all, just get a nice clean sound across the board and I think I'm just not used to a clean sound so it seems bright to me. I have the sh-8 incoming to pair with my smsl dac to see how that sounds balanced but I do recommend the atom for its price and I get no hiss from my iems or full size cans and I'm rather impressed with the atom for sure.

 

[bequietjk]

If what has been said about the SDAC is true my guess is that it would be very nice paired with the Atom.

 

[Bmxant]

What are you guys experiencing channel imbalance with? Only IEM's?

 

[Ultrainferno]

The Atom review is now online on HFN as well: https://www.headfonia.com/review-jds-labs-atom/

 

[corgifall]

What are you guys experiencing channel imbalance with? Only IEM's?

I'm having issues with my iems and full size cans. Tried different rca cables and no luck. Should be a easy send back for repair. It's definitely a volume knob related issue.

 

[corgifall]

20-30% I need to drop the left channel 2 db and at 50-70ish percent I'm dropping the right channel 2-3 db so it might just be a bad knob. I haven't heard any real complaints about this and with the crazy amount they're probably shipping I imagine I got lucky and got a defective unit. Fingers crossed its an easy replacement.

Edit: JDS labs did offer to look at the unit and replace if needed. My roommate ended up using it and offsetting the channels in windows and that doesn’t bother him at all. He has been using it since pretty much launch when I bought it and has had no problems.

 

[HoHGamer]

Can one of you guys test this issue of channel imbalance for me?

I am playing this song and only get audio in the left channel at first. As it goes on it balances out:


Other songs so far i have not produced the same results, however this same song does the same thing on another video here:


Yet on this video of the same song, i cannot reproduce the same results:


Anyone able to elaborate on what is going on here? I understand youtube has very sketchy quality so i am hoping that is all it is.

 

[bequietjk]

I think wish you were here starts in one channel (left?) and then balances out once his voice comes in. Not too sure on the original recording but I have heard it that way before.

Btw, yes the Atom volume knob sucks. Let's be honest lol. I love the little amp but man the knob can use some work.

 

[corgifall]

Youtube has been tested for quality before and it's not ideal or constant quality wise for sure and I must agree with bequietjk, they could of used a better knob for sure but oh well the performance is nice.

 

[loki993]

I hear good thing about this amp but it's mostly from Reddit which I trust about as far as I can throw it.

Here is the thing I had an Element for a while and I eventually sold it because ultimately I didn't like it very much. It provided plenty of clean power but it was also too clinical, flat and and ultimately not very exciting/musical, for me. Ive heard similar thing about the O2, but Ive never personally heard an O2. The element is the only JDS thing Ive heard so the question is......is this the JDS house sound or does the Atom sound significantly different when compared to an O2 or say an Element, or EL Amp?

 

[Anshin]

Remember to put sound to mono when you're testing channel imbalances. The imbalance should be smaller if you put it on low-gain mode

 

[Bmxant]

I'm having issues with my iems and full size cans. Tried different rca cables and no luck. Should be a easy send back for repair. It's definitely a volume knob related issue.

No issues here with my TR-X00's, I can hear it when it's whisper quiet and then it disappears around 7:00-7:30, but that's better than most amps from what I've read.

 

[corgifall]

Remember to put sound to mono when you're testing channel imbalances. The imbalance should be smaller if you put it on low-gain mode

I did that just now to double check and same result. The jds labs rep seemed confused as well as I and said when the tested it they would let me know what they found.

 

[Anshin]

I did that just now to double check and same result. The jds labs rep seemed confused as well as I and said when the tested it they would let me know what they found.

Damn, that seems really indictive. Keep us all posted on how this works out.