[Drosera]

And now on topic:

Now that the first impressions seem to be that the sound of the Compass rolls off a bit in the highs (Ok, actually too early to tell I guess. We'll have to see.), I wondered what kind of OPA (HDAM) will you guys be using in your Compasses? Since most of us will get both the Compass and the OPA new, they will have to go through burn-in combined. But I also assume that a lot of you have bought at least one extra OPA. So what will you use for the burn-in period? Earth, Moon or Sun?
Personally, I think I will use Earth to start with, I think. Since it seems to be the most neutral one. (I have a choice, I've ordered the complete half solar system.) For those people who have already received their Compass, are you using the Moon that came with it?

 

[K3cT]

I have a spare Earth myself but I'm wondering how should I ground it since Kingwa has special HDAMs for the Compass.

I think I'll start with the Moon first because I like its sound signature the best and without using any jumpers for a smooth-neutral sound. I also think of ordering the Sun as well since its vibrancy may complement the softness of the Compass well.

 

[sandchak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have a spare Earth myself but I'm wondering how should I ground it since Kingwa has special HDAMs for the Compass. .

Nothing different from regular HDAMs he sells, just that ground wire has an attachment, unlike bare wire which needed to be soldered, you can just take the Earth's ground wire and screw it where he has asked to..

 

[K3cT]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandchak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nothing different from regular HDAMs he sells, just that ground wire has an attachment, unlike bare wire which needed to be soldered, you can just take the Earth's ground wire and screw it where he has asked to..

All right, thanks for the clarification. I hope yours arrive soon so we can have more impressions to share.

 

[Currawong]

Ok, some impressions:

After a day running continuously (with whatever HDAM I wasn't using being kept warm in my Zero) the sound has much improved. The very warm and soft sound I initially heard has gone and the sound has moved towards neutral. The headamp is a tiny bit less bright than my C2C, somewhere in the very high treble, but that's by design because of a comment I made to Kingwa.

Even not fully burned in yet, the DAC gives about 85% of what my Northstar does using my expensive Van Den Hul Optocoupler from my MacBook Pro. Edit: I should probably add that I don't think that this means that the Compass is 90% as good as a Northstar. The Northstar has the much better I2S connection, meant for connecting its matching CD player directly to the DA chip. Very likely with a much better CD player, or the matching CD player from Northstar, the result would be considerably better, but I have no means of testing this. In my set-up, the Compass gives 90% of what I get from the Northstar.

It took the same optical cable to best the quality of USB input, but only very just. I had to A/B tracks many times to pick up the most subtle of differences, stuff like the decaying of notes in a piano solo, before I could discern which was better.

Yes, it sounds like a much improved Zero in all aspects, even using 3x HDAMs in the Zero. The sound signature is very similar.

Build quality is excellent. The main switches are great. The Neutrik jack is great (and necessary because the Chinese alternative is rubbish).

A quick listen (to the ST3) suggests the headamp section is better than the ST3.

I forgot about the gain settings. I don't find them necessary switching between HD-600s (300 Ohm) and D5000s (25 Ohm).

Edit: The 4 layers of double-sided foam tape under the lid to hold the HDAM in place, is just for shipping and can be removed, according to Kingwa.

There are a couple of small negatives: The reduced highs (my fault, again) which make the "soft" modes possibly pointless. There's no hex key included with the unit (unless I didn't look hard enough) and one is needed to take the case off, though pliers + fingers will work as the bolts are the raised type.

I could easily live with just the Compass as it is now. It's met (and exceeded) what I hoped would come from the design. Though it's going to end up a bit more expensive than what would be practical to replace a fully-upgraded Zero, from other gear I've heard (Lavry, Northstar, Benchmark, C2C), it would take $1000 or more worth of equipment to get a significant sound upgrade, especially taking into account at this stage: It's not fully burned in and a couple of minor improvements will likely be made.

 

[Drosera]

I wonder if there's an easy way to tune it to sound a little bit brighter, if only to make the changeable jumper settings more useful.

Nice impressions though. On the other hand, it kinda makes me want to do the visual equivalent of sticking my fingers in my ears and going 'lalalalala' at the top of my voice, because I want to find these things out for myself. But maybe that's just me.

But summing up, we already have an amp section that's better than a 225$ headamp from Audio-Gd (the ST-3) and a DAC that's already 90% of what a 2500$ DAC delivers (the Northstar), with room for improvement. This is already a package that's pretty hard to beat!

 

[sandchak]

Thanks Curra, I must say, the initial impressions seem very positive. For people like me who believe in burn in - a scope for further improvement..

 

[Currawong]

I'm sure that because people have different headphones and different computers, as well as tastes in music, we'll get some interesting comments. Also, people will have different equipment to compare it to, which is where I think things will get interesting.

 

[sandchak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drosera /img/forum/go_quote.gif Was this done just for transport? Or is the HDAM generally unstable in its socket?

Yes, those are only to keep the HDAM on the socket during transportation, it can used again if you plan to pack Compass and relocate somewhere else.. whatever..

 

[Drosera]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sandchak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes, those are only to keep the HDAM on the socket during transportation, it can used again if its going to be again on the move..

Ok, I see it has been edited in the original post now.

This is reassuring to know. I thought the pins of the HDAM looked long enough to make it stable, but then again, it is quite a big construction.

 

[mbd2884]

While this project started by asking Kingwa to design an alternative to the ZERO.

This is in fact is a closer competitor to the KECES 152 in that they both use a 250$ DAC both companies had with great reviews and added on good amps, even though Audio-dg appears to have put in a much better discrete amp than KECES did.

Might also be a competitor with the Meier Audio DAC/AMP combos, even though again, I think Audio-dg Compass appears to be using much higher quality parts and hopefully a much more accurate, larger soundstage and well more awesome.

Thanks Curra for that review. Sounds like what I was looking for in the Compass, a DAC/AMP so good at its price range, after promotion guessing 450+, that only way to get an improvement would be to start dumping thousands of dollars into the system. I was not expecting the Compass to be beating the beta22, was just expecting it to be the most value and best for an entry level mid-fi/hi-fi DAC/AMP. Awesome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's very interesting so far. For me the Zero has an overall smooth sound so it's looking that the Compass may retain the same signature.

 

[direcow]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drosera /img/forum/go_quote.gif I wonder if there's an easy way to tune it to sound a little bit brighter, if only to make the changeable jumper settings more useful.

yeah, perhaps instead of neutral, and soft 1-3 we can have "hard 1" and drop the "soft 3" or something like that.

 

[Drosera]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong /img/forum/go_quote.gif Edit: I should probably add that I don't think that this means that the Compass is 90% as good as a Northstar. The Northstar has the much better I2S connection, meant for connecting its matching CD player directly to the DA chip. Very likely with a much better CD player, or the matching CD player from Northstar, the result would be considerably better, but I have no means of testing this. In my set-up, the Compass gives 90% of what I get from the Northstar.

Haha, I knew that was a little too good to be true. Still, for this kind of money, pretty amazing. And of course, if you do want more DAC, Audio-Gd has some rather mouthwatering specimens on offer.

 

[Drosera]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbd2884 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Might also be a competitor with the Meier Audio DAC/AMP combos, even though again, I think Audio-dg Compass appears to be using much higher quality parts and hopefully a much more accurate, larger soundstage and well more awesome.

I wondered about this as well. Certainly a lot of the Audio-Gd stuff looks more high-grade than the insides of a lot of Meier equipment. (Is there anyone who knows a little more about this?)
Is it better than a Cantate? Could very well be, certainly the Cantate-DAC is a rather simple one, as far as I know. Can it beat the Symphony? I think not. Can it beat the Opera? Well, I hope I can tell you more about that in a few months time.
What I do expect/am hoping for is a different sound signature than that found in Meier amps. The Meier signature is rather reserved and laid back (Jan would say 'neutral), which I really like, but most people might prefer a little more aggression. I'm just hoping for a different character, and hopefully some different synergy results.

 

[sandchak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by direcow /img/forum/go_quote.gif yeah, perhaps instead of neutral, and soft 1-3 we can have "hard 1" and drop the "soft 3" or something like that.

Actually there is a lot of factors to take into consideration like Curra said, what is the source one is using, the headphones, I mean everything in the path has its own sonic characteristics, if the DAC is neutral as Kingwa suggests, then it is basically true to its source

Maybe in my case its good I don't have a headphone yet ( just sold the K701s a fortnight back), so I'll be keenly watching what headphones are being used and how it sounds before I make a purchase..

As far as my correspondence with kingwa goes, he is willing to make some changes like making it a little brighter if the majority of us feel that way after we have received the Compass and allowed some time to settle down.