[Andykong]

Curious, just took a look at the Goldenwave GA09 and it looks like a beast of an amp.

I always found it interesting how perception of certain companies differ from country to country. Among the Chinese brands, how do Auralic and Questyle fare in China when compared with Yulong, Goldenwave, Audio-GD, and Hifiman?

Auralic is well received in general, but their product is kind of beyond the reach to a large number of Mainland China users, you can easily find comments questioning their C/P value, but that is on relative terms, right?

Questyle didn't get a lot of attention beyond their Questyle Q192, I am kind of surprised as given the high popularity of HD800, the current based solution targeted at HD800 should have been well received.

Hifiman is a bit controversial, partly because Fan has Fang has a rather strong personality and PR is not his strong suit, so the brand has a big group of supporter, and yet has a lot of different opinion at local (Mainland China) forums.

Goldenwave and Yulong are both well-received in general, but both boss/designer are low-profile type engineers, so they didn't bit a large share in the market at this moment.

To certain, these China brands (including Audio-Gd) get more popular over here then their local market, this is sad but there is nothing much they can do right now, lets hope they can get a bigger welcome at their home market down the road.

 

[Andykong]

http://detail.tmall.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.1.2kGOzM&id=19921115714&ad_id=&am_id=&cm_id=140105335569ed55e27b&pm_id=
Andy do you think  this 4 pin female to 2*3 pin male adapter would fit the DA8 or D200 to conned a balanced  headphone? 

I guess so, but since they didn't specify the pin out of the adapter cable, we can only guess on that.

Or you can quote the link I post earlier on and ask them to confirm if they are compatible with the pin-out specified by Yulong.

 

[Andykong]

What do you mean? Not enough headroom for volume? Loss of dynamics and bass?

I'll cover this in detail later, I hope there will be more D200 reviews available, so far I didn't see any other D200 reviews at HeadFi, and I am hesitate to put up any more detail report on D2000 again,

In short, I just want more power then D200 can offer, maybe more current is a more accurate word to describe the situation. Please understand that the headphone amplifier of D200 and DA8 is sharing the same power supply of the DAC, so please don't expect the amplifier to be very powerful with difficult load, and Alpha Dog happen to be the most demanding headphone in my list (D7000, HD700, T5P).

The fact is, when I turn up the volume (using balanced out to drive my Alpha Dog), I can feel the soundstage is getting better and the lower end is getting deeper, and the improvement is still on-going until I reach 0db. There is a few occasion that I reach out to the volume pot after I reached the maximum volume setting, that's why I'll consider to add a headphone amplifier to stretch the Alpha Dog better.

 

[EraserXIV]

Auralic is well received in general, but their product is kind of beyond the reach to a large number of Mainland China users, you can easily find comments questioning their C/P value, but that is on relative terms, right?

Questyle didn't get a lot of attention beyond their Questyle Q192, I am kind of surprised as given the high popularity of HD800, the current based solution targeted at HD800 should have been well received.

Hifiman is a bit controversial, partly because Fan has Fang has a rather strong personality and PR is not his strong suit, so the brand has a big group of supporter, and yet has a lot of different opinion at local (Mainland China) forums.

Goldenwave and Yulong are both well-received in general, but both boss/designer are low-profile type engineers, so they didn't bit a large share in the market at this moment.

To certain, these China brands (including Audio-Gd) get more popular over here then their local market, this is sad but there is nothing much they can do right now, lets hope they can get a bigger welcome at their home market down the road.

 
Very interesting, thanks for this! What tends to be more popular in China? The European brands?

 

[Andykong]

Hey guys!  Guys can you tell me what will be better for Fostex TH900 D200 or DA8? and if i buy D200 there will be enough for the built-in amplifier fo Fostex TH900? 
Thanks for the advice!! 

If you are refer to synergy, I would agree with you that DA8 is a better "partner" then D200 for TH900. However, I doubt both will be able to really explore the TH900 very well. TH900 don't require a lot of power, even a DAP like X5/DX90 will drive the TH900 to exceeding loud level, but you need a lot of "control" to make it sing well.

The amplifier portion of both DA8 and D200 are designed with maximum cost benefit in mind, and for popularity reason, being able to handle 300ohm headphone to a satisfactory level seems to be more "sellable" then dealing with 32ohm headphones, and from what I see, Yulong used 300 ohm headphone such as HD600/650 to promote DA8/D200 instead of low impedance, high sensitive headphones, that tells you something on the design compromise under limited resources.

 

[Andykong]

i found this review comparing Matrix DACs with the very same ES9016 and ES 9018 chips... Looks like ES9018 better matches 'bright' headphones like HD800 is said to be. just received my HD540 ii, marvellous and said to be similar to HD800 sound signature. so I guess DA8 might be a better choice than D200 even if the price tag is double ....
http://www.head-fi.org/products/matrix-mini-i-2014/reviews/10549

Well, there are over a dozen DAC based on ES9018 and yet they sound very different, both in terms of sound quality and sound signature, so I am hesitate to "predict" the sound of a DAC based on the chip they used.

If I must put up a checklist, sound signature and system synergy are more affect by the analogue stage then the DAC chip itself, and driving power probably will be affect by the Power management portion then the DAC chip. So its a matter of implementation, not the choice of chip.

 

[Andykong]

Received my yulong D200 2 weeks ago. My current set up Yulong D200, Lafigaro 332s, seinnheiser hd 650, connected by usb cable to laptop. I think standalone amplifier would do fostex TH 900 more justice. I'm not an audiophile. But i would say the difference is miles apart with and without an standalone amplifier. 

Really excited to see more D200 owners on board, maybe you help us by comparing D200 driving HD650 with and with Lafigaro 332s, that sure will help potential D200 buyers to know what they should expected before jumping on board the all-in-one boat.

 

[owendace]

  Received mine a few days ago. I find it has a little but clearly more laidback/smoother sig than D100/A100. Still beautifully clean. Controlled is a word that comes to mind too. Like a grown up Yulong. I keep going back and forth between the two setups for a while.
 
A reminder, don't think that setting volume at 0.0dB equals 0 volume. I nearly blew my ears and headphone to bits. Also, did anyone get a volume knob that has a few millimeters of room when tapping left-right-top-bottom? I did and that's a -1 for Herr Yulong right there.

Mine does as well.. I noticed it right when I first used it. Pretty disappointing considering I paid around 700 including taxes, exchange rate and what not. It's not that bad but I would expect better assembly from a premium product.

 

[TominJapan]

this is not acceptable I wont buy this DAC even if I could buy it at 540 bucks here in China, sorry

 

[Andykong]

Received mine a few days ago. I find it has a little but clearly more laidback/smoother sig than D100/A100. Still beautifully clean. Controlled is a word that comes to mind too. Like a grown up Yulong. I keep going back and forth between the two setups for a while.

A reminder, don't think that setting volume at 0.0dB equals 0 volume. I nearly blew my ears and headphone to bits. Also, did anyone get a volume knob that has a few millimeters of room when tapping left-right-top-bottom? I did and that's a -1 for Herr Yulong right there.

Just checked, the volume knob in my D200 is not "zero gap" also, when I push it left to right, it does shake a bit, but not as wild as a few millimeters, I just feel that there is very slight gap when I delibrately feel it, under the normal turning control, I didn't feel the knob as "loose" or insecure at all.

About the volume reading, I have quite a lot of home entertainment equipment that use 0db as maximum volume, including my Yamaha AV receivers right in front of me now (as attached).



The common practice is to increase volume when you turn the volume knob CLOCKWISE and decrease volume when you turn anticlockwise, which Yulong has implemented that correctly. I suppose to run into your situation, you need to do the following:

(1) You connect everything, switch on the machine, all display show up, and you put on your headphone
(2) The volume by default is not at 0db (I assume), you turn the volume CLOCKWISE several round to make it reach 0db, but at that same time you didn't aware that the volume number is DECREASING instead of increasing while you turn "up" the volume
(3) You hit the play button, and music start to play at 0db setting.

Well, I would say that is several uncommon practices happen at the same time in order to reach the situation that you blew your ears and headphone to bits suddenly. Yes, it could have happen, but if you didn't aware that truing the volume knob clockwise normally will increase the volume, and yet you didn't check out the user manual or look at the display panel when you try it out the first time, and you didn't play any music while you turn and turn and turn the volume knok, then this could be a problem.

Since we are on the subject of volume control, I'll take a little bit more on this. For the record, the minimum volume setting on D2000 is -60db, and the maximum volume setting is 0db. From -60 db to -20 db, the volume is adjusted at 1 db step, at -20 db to 0db, the volume is adjusted at 0.5db step. To turn all the way from -60db to 0db, you need to turn the volume knob FOUR cycles, yes, round and round 4 times x 360 degree, With my headphone collections, I used the D200 from -35db (Beyer T5P) to 0db (Alpha Dog), so I was is a bit busy with the volume knob when I change my headphone, but so far I am happy with the volume setting and never have any problem to adjust the volume to the right level I want with whatever headphone I throw into the system, this is not a "given" as I do run into situation before the volume control is not fine enough that I have to either settle with "a bit too loud" or "a bit too soft", Burson was one example of that, if you tried that before, you'll know how difficult things can be, especially when you are rotating around several headphone with diversified impedance and sensitivity rating .

 

[Andykong]

this is not acceptable I wont buy this DAC even if I could buy it at 540 bucks here in China, sorry

Nothing to sorry with pal, this is just a hobby for leisure, if this is not the DAC for your, there is nothing to sorry with, just keep digging, the process to explore is part of the fun indeed.

Just curious, not acceptable because of the 0db volume setting? or because of the "shaking" volume knob?

 

[darksiderjay]

IMHO, yulong d200 as all-in-one was able to drive seinnheiser hd650 decently. The sound is good but not great. I bypass the its amp in my set up.The only all in one dac/amp that is available for my comparison is Fiio E17. I would say it definitely sound a lot cleaner and more articulate than Fiio E17. Not even close i would say(I know it's not fair to compare this two as they belonged to diifferent leagues). But once you set it up with standalone amp you wouldn't want to use it as all-in-one at all. I try d200 on different genre of music, classical, enya, eric clapton, neil young, hiphop, eminem, dr dre, katy parry, lady gaga etc. Detailed, clean, spacious, warm are the words  that i would like to use to describe. I could even hear Norah Jone breathing in her song . But it definitely less forgiving for poor recording source. Some of my poor recording song crackling noise became so obvious that it's literally unlistenable.

 

[TominJapan]

Well both.....the devil is in the details and at such price point a part of the experience includes hardware design and quality. Some people refrain from buying the HD800, regardless of the money they want to spend, simply because well it looks "ugly".Of course, I am pretty optimistic YuLong can sort this out shortly. 

 

[TominJapan]

  IMHO, yulong d200 as all-in-one was able to drive seinnheiser hd650 decently. The sound is good but not great. I bypass the its amp in my set up.The only all in one dac/amp that is available for my comparison is Fiio E17. I would say it definitely sound a lot cleaner and more articulate than Fiio E17. Not even close i would say(I know it's not fair to compare this two as they belonged to diifferent leagues). But once you set it up with standalone amp you wouldn't want to use it as all-in-one at all. I try d200 on different genre of music, classical, enya, eric clapton, neil young, hiphop, eminem, dr dre, katy parry, lady gaga etc. Detailed, clean, spacious, warm are the words  that i would like to use to describe. I could even hear Norah Jone breathing in her song . But it definitely less forgiving for poor recording source. Some of my poor recording song crackling noise became so obvious that it's literally unlistenable.

Thanks for sharing, which amp have you paired your D200 with ? 

 

[rawrster]

0 dB is pretty standard for most devices as max or near max volume isn't it? I've only had a few devices that displayed volumes in terms of dB and they were all similar in that regard.