highstream
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
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Hi, I've previously owned jkdac32 and I'm interested in Ciunas.
I found jkdac32 very, very musical and easy to listen to, but I've found its bass a bit on the loose side.
Could you tell me the differences in sound singature between them?
Thanks.
In prerelease production there was a thread on Tir Na HiFi with a few user reviews: http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2079. I haven't found the bass loose.
Btw, there was a review of the Ciunas dac in StereoMojo that I thought was worthless, but others defended. Not sure if it was on this thread. In any case, at Tir Na HiFi there was a thread in which John explained about the review and its process from his standpoint (he hadn't been offered the chance to respond by StereoMojo) - http://www.tirnahifi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2349&hilit=ciunas. The result, at least as of the middle of August, was that the review was withdrawn (see pg 3), although it still seems to be there..
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Hi Pearse,
I just saw this Stereomojo review today & I wrote to Isaac DaHan, the writer of the review (I didn't know he was doing a review) to tell him that his problem with charging the DAC was probably his misunderstanding of the function of the blue led on the front of the unit i.e when both USB signal & charger cable are both plugged into a PC, the led lights (meaning DAC is turned on automatically) but when the USB charger cable is instead plugged into an external PS, the led doesn't light (no automatic turn on) - the DAc is charging in both of these configurations.
So I think he is mistakenly interpreting the switch led not lighting as a sign that the DAC is not charging? This was all explained in the (old) user guide - I've since changed this operation as it was a bit confusing.
We had corresponded via email in which he said the DAC was not charging except through the PC USB charger cable but he never explained that what he meant was the blue led was not lighting so I didn't cop it until now!
When he initially received the DAC he made this comment "midrange is recessed, dynamics seem constrained, and bass is light."
After some time I contacted him again to see if burn-in had changed the sound - "The sound didn't change noticeably after about 48 hrs of burn-in. I'm still experiencing the same type of sound characteristics that I described before. It's certainly not bad, but I'd have wished for a bit more presence and livelier dynamics while still keeping the Ciunas' smooth sound that is not fatiguing. I'm going to continue to listen though and see what I think. I'm using it mostly with MOG on my PC. I've tried it w/ Foobar playing lossless recordings and it sounds a little better, but not dramatically so."
I asked what MOG was & he said this "MOG is a streaming service that streams music at 320kbps. In terms of USB I use a generic cable that's about 10 ft long." OOps a daisy on a two fronts which I told him!!
I suggested he try Jplay & lossless files - he did but on a Win 7 with 4Gb RAM & found it unreliable & bright sounding.
After many emails he eventually wrote this "After finicking around with JPlay settings and getting xtreme engine to work, I can finally hear what everyone is talking about. I need more time for a more critical listening session, but suffice it to say I couldn't draw myself away from the music until 2am."
But then he tells me that he really bought it for connection to an iPad but he never told me this when purchasing it or I would have advised him that it firstly needed a firmware change before I sent it & that the iPad was no patch on the sound from PC/Jplay
Anyway, just thought I'd give some background to his review & the origin of some of his comments
The sub-text on Stereomojo "Stereo for cheap bastards" has negative as well as positive aspects to it - i.e you can't just throw anything together & expect it to give of it's best but if chosen well & setup with care you can get excellent sound for relatively little money