Comparisons I've read in the past between the Lite DAC-83 and the Audio-GD Reference 5 tend to go in favor of the Reference 5 most of the time. It's basically the balanced DAC-19 with 4x PCM1704UK chips.
P.S. @junnyzhu has a Reference 5.32 in the classifieds right now for less than a DAC-19. You won't get Amanero, but it is the previous USB implementation.
Can one assume safely that the Reference 5.32 is better than the DAC-19? Also I may be interested in buying a used Reference 5.32, but is the warranty on AudioGD gear transferable? I thought I should ask. Thanks.
Received the DAC-19. From quoting order to receiving the unit, it took only 6 days. It's pretty fast between China and US. The package is very good. There are good protection foam. Box is well taped on edges. If they want to add more protection they can use two layers of box. The DAC-19 unit does not have box itself.
I did not expect it's this big and heavy. I only listened to it for less than 1 hour and it sounds good but I don't have any "WOW" feeling. Before I get the DAC-19 I was using NuForce Icon HDP as DAC. so its like this
Windows 8.1 Foobar playing FLAC ---> USB --> DAC-19/(NuForce HDP as DAC via optical from windows) --> regular RCA cable --> HDVA 600 --> HD 800 with stock cable
I know they burned it for about 100 hours before shipping to customer. What else do I do to bring the best out of my setup? I will buy 1.5 feet or 3 feet quality RCA cable to connect the DAC-19 and HDVA 600. I also will get balanced cable for the HD 800.
Received the DAC-19. From quoting order to receiving the unit, it took only 6 days. It's pretty fast between China and US. The package is very good. There are good protection foam. Box is well taped on edges. If they want to add more protection they can use two layers of box. The DAC-19 unit does not have box itself.
I did not expect it's this big and heavy. I only listened to it for less than 1 hour and it sounds good but I don't have any "WOW" feeling. Before I get the DAC-19 I was using NuForce Icon HDP as DAC. so its like this
Windows 8.1 Foobar playing FLAC ---> USB --> DAC-19/(NuForce HDP as DAC via optical from windows) --> regular RCA cable --> HDVA 600 --> HD 800 with stock cable
I know they burned it for about 100 hours before shipping to customer. What else do I do to bring the best out of my setup? I will buy 1.5 feet or 3 feet quality RCA cable to connect the DAC-19 and HDVA 600. I also will get balanced cable for the HD 800.
What music genre are you listening to? I find the biggest difference being with cymbals, acoustic guitar, live instruments etc,. I had a similar reaction the first couple hours, then I went back to my old DAC and the differences were clear to me.
I guess
Point being, the strength of the R2R is, IMO, in its naturalness and the way it effortlessly presents music.
It doesn't push treble on you, it's just lavishly smooth and musical The details are presented without the need to be screamed at you.
Having an original DAC-19 from 2009, I found that it took many hours, maybe 500 hours before the sound really opened up. 2nd influencing factor was cabling, 3rd was power supply cording and refinement. Still crazy for the sound after all these years. BRGDS,
Can I stack the HDVA 600 (smaller) on top of the DAC-19? On top of DAC-19 there is air vent to disperse the heat. The HDVA 600 has feet as high as 5 mm. Is that sufficient to let the heat out? My desk simply does not have that much space.
So far I found two things that I am not sure what that is.
1. Once the windows 8.1 restarted, the Sound device list does not contain the USB (Amanero combo384) any more and I had to rerun the device manager to use it or the driver set up. But all the time the Device Manager does show the USB is there. I had updated the software for the USB.
2. The phase change button does not seem to do any thing for me and I heard no difference.
I do not like that you have to pay more to ship it back too. Kingwa seemed to imply that I'll get refunded the full $80 that I spent on shipping the item back if he determines that the faulty knob is indeed not my fault, but I might have read his e-mail response wrongly. In the worst case, I'll get $50 back for shipping and would have paid $30 to get an exchange on a fault new product. We'll see how that goes.
Audio-GD received my faulty DAC-19, and is sending me a new one with a working selector knob. As I suspected, I will only get refunded $50 for return shipping, even though it cost me $80 to ship it back to them. I don't like that I had to pay an extra $30 to correct an error that was entirely the manufacturer's fault, but I'll deal with it since I accepted the terms of their warranty when I bought this unit. Just thought I'd let people who might exercise their warranty in the future know.
So far I found two things that I am not sure what that is.
1. Once the windows 8.1 restarted, the Sound device list does not contain the USB (Amanero combo384) any more and I had to rerun the device manager to use it or the driver set up. But all the time the Device Manager does show the USB is there. I had updated the software for the USB.
2. The phase change button does not seem to do any thing for me and I heard no difference.
1. just power off for 5 sec and power on the DAC19... audio-gd usb interface is self powered and NOT from the pc. its likely why it doesn't show up after a restart. this is mentioned on the audio-gd website I believe. But the usb interface has it's own pure Linear power supply that is far superior than the the onboard usb power from a motherboard pc/mac whatever.
does this help?
2. depending on the headphones you use, it MAY or MAY NOT do anything. so don't stress it. Some gear sounds better in phase or out of phase, just depends. My HE560's did NOTHING with the phase in or out.sounds the same, normal.
Audio-GD received my faulty DAC-19, and is sending me a new one with a working selector knob. As I suspected, I will only get refunded $50 for return shipping, even though it cost me $80 to ship it back to them. I don't like that I had to pay an extra $30 to correct an error that was entirely the manufacturer's fault, but I'll deal with it since I accepted the terms of their warranty when I bought this unit. Just thought I'd let people who might exercise their warranty in the future know.
It's unfortunate, yes. Too bad it happened to you. We all risk "human error" in anything we buy that is hand assembled and tested by actual humans. Robots make mistakes? meh, i'd still prefer my audio gear to be made by hand. We all agree to the less than ideal terms of the warranty. Yet, the warranty still applies for 10 years from original purchase date and something "could" potentially fail that would far surpass the return shipping costs. Fortunately they are mostly built like a tank! It's not often i've heard of many warranty claims with audio-gd. A very small amount in fact. I would have thought the dac19 may of been damaged in shipping. There was a power switch that failed on an NFB28 that I know of... but if you have a little bit of mechanical/electrical ability you can replace the parts yourself and they will ship you a replacement part for free, which was the case with the nfb28 I believe.
Sorry to hear your experience was less than stellar. :/ You'll soon forget about it once you get your replacement dac19 and get lost in the music again.
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