@Themilkman46290 I think you should give a try your H1 with litle modifications.
Still waiting for tube amp from Zishan to say something more about quality of Tube preamp section.
In official GAD store on TaoBao just found Zishan A1 Amplifier. It's based on transistors only - without opamps.
In all Zishans DAC devices worst part is AMP section. They have greate DAC chips and line output but not amps sections. Consider price is not a issue.
I understand what you are saying, but I am not an engineer, it took me a lot of studying to modify my all three of my zishan dsd players, but I was lucky there where hundreds of pages of other people's mods to look through and understand.
With h1, there are no modifications, no one is modified it, and when I read the Russian sights it seems there is a general consensus that the h1 simply is not worth it, so I doubt anyone will modify and make tutorials like the dsd or dsds or z1, z2, z3 that have hundreds of mods.....
So if I want to modify, I will need to spend a few months studying lamp amplifier circuits so I can understand what I am doing, but as far as I have understood so far, the lamp will not sound good with less then 50 volts, it gets around 30v so all it does is degrade sound.
Using the line out defeats the purpose because then your bypassing the lamp anyway and I could have saved money and bought a new z3 for that purpose(I don't need another z3) so it seems I was duped by a gimmick that doesn't actually work
After using it for a month, I can say it needs very bright headphones with boosted sub bass to sound good
But in general I can't go past 16 on the volume or it distorts like crazy, doesn't sound good with most of my headphones except my grados, it sound very good with my grados
But for the same price or cheaper you can get a ak4497 dsd or the new dual CS43198 dsds witch have a huge community of modders, and much better sound to begin with.........
The h1 could have been good, but the mix of high output impedance and severally cut off sub bass and muted highs just make it sound lifeless....
I like tube sound because it tends to sound more alive not lifeless. I was expecting a couple dB of sub bass roll ( all zishan have a couple dB of sub bass missing) but not this much
And I still don't understand why it distorts sooo much after 16-17 on volume that goes up to 30
In the end, I am disappointed, every year zishan products get less and less attractive, the ak4495 dsd was there best soundwise without any modification, then there ak4490, but the ak4497 takes a lot of modding to bring to the same level not to mention cost of mods, cost of tools like a hot air station. I tried to contact someone that can do the mods and it would cost a couple hundred dollars on top, so that is 200 dollars on top of around 200 dollars plus cost of parts. So to take a new dsds with ak4499 that cost around 200, and paying someone another 200 plus hundred bucks for parts doesn't really make sense.
I could buy a yinlumei DAP for that price or a used dx200 - dx220 for that price.....
Not hating on the new dsds, i am sure it sounds like a ak4499 DAP should sound, and I have high impedance gear that works great with these players and I am certain that it sounds better then anything in its price range. But every new zishan player takes more effort to perfect, and I still don't understand what was the point of a 2.5mm line out?
I have found 3 portable amps that can handle balanced in and they are all very pricey (cheapest was a no name chinese amp for $300 bucks)
I might get the dual CS43198 but I will wait a bit for reviews, atleast it will be a bit easier to find modding info
Does it even have a balanced headphone out or just a balanced line out going at 400ohms and 2 volts?
