[Clemmaster]

Quote:

 
Are they mutually exclusive?

 
Probably not, but they are quite hard to achieve both at the same time with limited budget.
 
Again, I also tend to favor smoothness (e.g. Metrum Quad) over details (NFB-27) because I had a hard time removing the hardness/glariness from the NFB-27 (power cord/conditionning issue, mainly). By comparison, the Quad is a set-and-forget solution which is pretty much insensitive to power feed (at least in my system?) and a fast access to an enjoyable and fatigue-free moment.
 
Once I solved most of the hardness issue, I found the NFB-27 to be very smooth as well and provide a fatigue-free sound. This was after 3 months and few attempts to sell it... Eventually, I sold the Concero + Quad

 

[khaine1711]

Quote:

 
Are they mutually exclusive?

Not mutually exclusive, but cost a lot to obtain - more so with headphones. People have find a few workarounds to this: a) find the most revealing source, then try to tame the shortcomings with amp and transducer; and b) try to get a pleasant detailed (not much as a) ) smooth sound without breaking the bank or c) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$, or in our case [size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size][size=small]£[/size]
 
If you want to add engaging but not fatiguing, holographic with good center/front to back/left to right imaging, immune to power quality/interference, multiple input/output it's gonna cost a crapload more 

 

[nigeljames]

I favour clarity & detail above smoothness but still feel I am getting both.
The Audio-gd NFB-7 is extremely detailed, the Master-6 is very neutral and fully extends high and low and both are very smooth.
Audio-gd amps are known for being smooth, maybe because of the quality power supplies.
I also use pure silver or silver/gold interconnections/headphone cables and still have no issues with brighness, even with the HD800 probably the brightest phone I have, or harshness.
Sibilance can be an issue sometimes but only if it's on the recording in the first place. My system does not add or emphasize any sibilance.
My old AKG K701's used to make my hears ring after 1 hour or so on a different system but none of my phones do that now and I probably listen louder than I used to because of the cleaner sound I am getting now.

 

[Clemmaster]

Quote:

I favour clarity & detail above smoothness but still feel I am getting both.
The Audio-gd NFB-7 is extremely detailed, the Master-6 is very neutral and fully extends high and low and both are very smooth.
Audio-gd amps are known for being smooth, maybe because of the quality power supplies.
I also use pure silver or silver/gold interconnections/headphone cables and still have no issues with brighness, even with the HD800 probably the brightest phone I have, or harshness.
Sibilance can be an issue sometimes but only if it's on the recording in the first place. My system does not add or emphasize any sibilance.
My old AKG K701's used to make my hears ring after 1 hour or so on a different system but none of my phones do that now and I probably listen louder than I used to because of the cleaner sound I am getting now.

 
Do you use any particular power conditionner or power cable with the NFB-7 and Master-6? Or do you use the cheap ones that came with them?
 
The best description of a properly driven NFB-27 is: effortless.
Effortless in that it is (very?) resolving, dynamic and, all-in-all, "technical" without a hint of harshness.
I think the treble is smoothed out a bit on all the Audio-GD gears, be them SA or NFB ones. They all have a hint (or more) of warmth in them, IMO.
 
By comparison, the Concero has more incisive treble (tizz or sizzle) but extend less and is less resolving. In this, one could say the NFB-27 actually is the best of both worlds (smooth and detailed).

 

[nigeljames]

Quote:

 
Do you use any particular power conditionner or power cable with the NFB-7 and Master-6? Or do you use the cheap ones that came with them?
 
The best description of a properly driven NFB-27 is: effortless.
Effortless in that it is (very?) resolving, dynamic and, all-in-all, "technical" without a hint of harshness.
I think the treble is smoothed out a bit on all the Audio-GD gears, be them SA or NFB ones. They all have a hint (or more) of warmth in them, IMO.
 
By comparison, the Concero has more incisive treble (tizz or sizzle) but extend less and is less resolving. In this, one could say the NFB-27 actually is the best of both worlds (smooth and detailed).

 
I use a Tacima CS929 power strip, which I bought because I needed another power strip.
I also use a Clearer Audio Copper-line cable on my Master-6 and an Audio Freindly one on NFB-7. The power leads  were bought because I needed them not because I expected any significant SQ improvements. I have never bothered to compare them to bog standard leads.
I did move the AF cable from my Cyrus CD player/transport to the NFB-7 and did not notice any obvious differences.

 

[project86]

As has been explained, yes - it is possible to "have it all". But it tends to cost a lot. My Resonessence Labs Invicta, to my ear, achieves just that. But watch out - high price alone is no guarantee. The $5k Esoteric D-07x does the detail thing well, but not the musical thing. 

 

[Sanlitun]

Just curious, are these actually shipping right now? Has anyone received one?
 
I see them available on Ebay from Chinese sellers so it seems they should be available.

 

[allyl]

A friend of mine ordered within the last week and had his unit shipped yesterday.

 

[project86]

Just heard from the North American distributor - orders are shipping right now, and a silver version is just around the corner. No time frame on that but it should be soon. Wow, as much as I love the looks of the black enclosure, silver would be mighty nice as well.

 

[Esprit]

No native DSD input?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgVhKcl_3lHfdFVyenBBNjNpQ2lieG81WGpqQTNfVUE#gid=0

 

[Maxvla]

It does DSD over PCM. The data is the same at the end, it just does it over a PCM protocol. It isn't native, but it is identical in result.

 

[project86]

Yeah, think of it like FLAC in a way, no, it's not uncompressed, but then again yes, it is. Make sense?

 

[Esprit]

Quote:

It does DSD over PCM. The data is the same at the end, it just does it over a PCM protocol. It isn't native, but it is identical in result.

TNX Maxvla. I know what is DoP 

 
http://dsd-guide.com/dop-open-standard

 

[Sanlitun]

Well mine has shipped and if I am lucky it may arrive this week. Perhaps I can do an unboxing and consumer level review soon.

 

[tacky187]

I just received my X-Sabre today.  I have a Macbook Retina and the USB was plug and play just like the documentation said.  My iTunes and Spotify sound good, and when I fired up Audirvana Plus and switched to my higher res music, it really came alive and sounded pretty fantastic; although I haven't tried my collection of amps/headphones yet.  Right now it's just my HE-6's and Emotiva amp.  
 
But, I did want to point one thing out though.  I noticed that when a co-worker sent me a youtube video, there was no sound.  I tried a couple of browsers and any sound that played in flash just didn't come through. While not super important to hi def audio, it certainly was annoying none the less.  I went into the Audi MIDI Setup tool and noticed that it defaults to an output format of 384k.  When I changed this to 192k, sound started playing through flash just fine.  
 
I haven't really checked any other reason that would cause the sound not to play in flash at 384k, but this is a quick workaround for those times a Mac user wants to hear their youtube videos.