Topping has bigger problems L30 blowing headphones and damaging hearing as they 'forgotten' about ESD protection. The same lack of ESD protection is found in their top product A90. So far no incidents, but another negligence in this design cause spreading ground loops making RCA inputs unusable. It is also off topic, but SMSL must investigate for a cause. Such performance drop can be in result of HF oscilation in some amps or DC regulators, it will be audible as it create a lot IMD distortions on any connected equipment. In such case it is a serious problem. Analyser will only show minor performance drop, it is because low pass filtering is in place. Both companies are in the same slot of Chineese junk.
The the other side this DAC is built like a high-end equipment. It looks inside messy, but everything is done with a care for SQ. There is no connectors, everything is manually soldered using a quality silver solder (not a ROHS approved stuff) and Audio GD is using quality components even in the entry-level products.
As said before I fully agree that SMSL should investigate the issue and fix it in future revision products.
But is this little drop in SINAD actually audible.. I highly doubt it simply because
before this thread with extra measurements concerning SQ degradation everyone was enjoying their M500 unit and everyone was praising the SQ of the M500 given the price of the unit not a single complaint or thread was made about SQ degradation issues with the M500.
After the thread was posted about a possible thermal issue that could cause SQ degradation one after the other suddenly hears this SQ degradation.. the same persons who 2 weeks earlier were praising the M500 for the excellent SQ. In my opinion this is clearly a case of the mind between the ears and not the ears themselves. They read about a potential SQ degradation and now they have convinced themselves that they hear what they think "should" hear with this new information in mind.
If Amrim really have faith in his so called golden ears he should do listening tests portion
before the measurements portion of his reviews.
Now his listening tests are willingly or unwillingly biased by the measurement numbers he just made. Many times he stated things like "I hear/notice some <insert audiophile lingo here> in the high tones which is "confirmed" by the graph in the measurement section". I honestly wonder if he would have heard or noticed the same thing if he did the listening before the measurements. I have the feeling that in a lot of cases he wouldn't.. He created those measurements graphs and that created an expectation on what to hear and the mind plays into that.
Another ASR relating thing i noticed..
The
Review and Measurements of Audio-gd NFB-27.38 DAC and Headphone Amplifier
Interesting part in the listening test:
Listening Tests
Since I could not get the USB interface working without drivers on Audio-gd NFB-27.38, I used a Topping D10 DAC as the USB to S/PDIF bridge. I then ganged up both the Topping DX7s and Topping D10/Audio-gd combo in Roon so that I could play my reference tracks in sync. Levels were matched using a 1 Khz tone well below max level of Topping DX7s (and hence much, much lower than max level of Audio-gd NFB-27.38). I then used an AB switcher to instantly switch between on device versus another.
Testing was performed using Sennheiser HD-650 and HifiMan HE400i.
I could detect no difference in bass or mid-frequencies. In high-frequencies though, there was a subtle difference. They were a bit more emphasized in Audio-gd which gave a slightly more airy and open sound to Audio-gd. But as I focused on them, I realized the high notes are being distorted with the highs having a "sizzle" to them. That exaggerated their presence which could be to some people's liking. For me, as I focused on the same in Topping DX7s, I realized they were very clean and well defined whereas they were "blown" on the Audio-gd NFB-27.38 leading me to prefer the Topping version better.
I should emphasize that the above is very subtle effect. If I did not focus on it, I would find the two DACs to sound the same. Then again, younger people with better high frequency hearing than me will detect the above effect better than me which may lead them to more preference or dislike as the case may be. If you are older than 50, you can safely go with my impressions.
So he measures 60dB difference and yet the actual SQ is only a very subtle effect only heard when focussed on it and in a blind test probably would not even notice.
Yet there are 8 pages of post burning down Audio-GD because of the measurements by people who most likely never owned or even heard an Audio-GD unit. Apparently is the "cool thing" to jump on the criticize Audio-GD bandwagon with post how much garbage it is without zero actual experience.
Now back on topic..
How is the experience with the Amanero Combo384 windows 10 drivers?
Read on some places that it could be tricky to get the drivers installed and the unit recognized correctly.
