Articles, Reviews and Measurements of Audio Products

This is a review, measurements, listening tests and equalization for KZ ZSX IEM. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $60.

Not much to say about the look of the unit. The owner sent me one set of tips which I used for measurements. They were kind of worn out but still worked out well. For listening tests, I grabbed one I had on hand which you see in the picture above. They did not provide a complete seal for long unless I kept pushing them in every couple of minutes. Expectedly, bass would response would drop some when that happened.

The unit has 5 BA and 1 DD driver. I assume the number 12 comes from two times six.

KZ ZSX IEM Measurements
As usual, we start with frequency response measurements of the IEM and comparison to our target:

I was relieved to see proper level of bass and generally...

This is a review, measurements and listening tests of the Shanling M0 Pro digital audio player and DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $129.99 on Amazon.

As you see, this is a very diminutive player, easily fitting in your pocket weighing almost nothing. Music is stored on micro-SD card that you have to provide:

Using the USB connection, you can treat the device as a mass storage unit and transfer files to it. Or you can configure it as a DAC. I did not test it but apparently it can also act like a host, driving other DACs.

The 3.5 mm plug can be converted to 4.4 mm balanced using their adapter which I did not have. Shame as I would have preferred balanced output if they are going to provide one connector.

The sole control is a rotary one which controls the...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Matrix Audio mini-i 4 streamer, balanced DAC and preamplifier. It was sent to me by Shenzehenaudio and costs US $649.

I am neutral on the look of the unit. The only button for power is on top. The front panel is touch sensitive in different areas. It is not discoverable as the up and down indicators for volume and input flanking the display go off after you use them. Likewise, to go into settings, you have to swipe left and right on the main display -- something I had to look up to find out. Fortunately touch sensitivity is very good and the processor behind it and the display is quite responsive. Older streamers from Matrix were not so situated.

Back panel shows clear differentiation:
[ATTACH type="full" alt="Matrix Mini-i 4 Music Streamer DAC...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D400 Pro balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth support. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $619.

The scalloped front together with the high resolution and bright display make this one of the most beautiful products SMSL has released. The processor behind the display is very speedy as well. I like that the volume level is now in big letters and sample rate is small. You have the usual connections in the back:


SMSL D400 Pro DAC Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard using balanced XLR Out with volume set to 0:

We expect top performance from SMSL and we get that here, landing the D400 Pro in our top 20 list of...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping Professional E2x2 audio interface (ADC, DAC, Headphone Amp). It was sent to me by the company and costs US $159.

As the British would say, the E2x2 definitely "looks the part" as far as fitting in the general offering of interfaces in the market. And that extends to control app which seems a lot fancier than I expected from a company just getting into this market:

The company must have staffed up on the software side of things. You can power the unit exclusively via USB-C if your host supports its level of power (mine did), or with auxiliary USB-C power:


Note an interesting feature that if...

Hi, it's been a while!
I would like to thank the people who made this project possible on a scale never before imagined in South Korea. I measured a total of 10 subwoofers, including my own DIY subwoofer(L26RO4Y), and measured them to the CEA-2010 standard using a Klippel TBM module. Below are photos and a list of the subwoofers I measured.



(In order from left to right)

- Arendal 1961 1V

- Arendal 1961 1S

- Neumann KH750

- Bowers & Wilkins DB4S

- SVS SB-3000

- SVS SB-2000 pro

- SVS SB-1000 pro

- Polk audio PSW111

- My DIY Subwoofer

- SVS 3000 micro

This is officially the first time CEA-2010 has been measured in South Korea.
So there was a lot of trial and error, which took a lot of time.
And for the products that were not loaded enough, I did a second measurement under slightly harsher conditions with the owner's permission, and added data.

[ATTACH...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Rega DAC-R stereo DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $1,195 when it came out in 2015.

I suspect extra money had gone into making the top curved down but it doesn't do anything for me. Fortunately the user interface makes up for the plain looks in how easy it is to select inputs and filters.

Back panel shows rather rich set of inputs and outputs for a DAC:


Sadly, no balanced analog output is provided. I did not get a remote with it so wonder if one had come with it.

Rega DAC-R Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard:

I saw some mains noise but no matter what I did, I could not impact it even a bit. I suspect that is coming out of the power supply and...

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D-6s balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth support. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199.

I was pleasantly surprised with the new industrial design which while minimalistic, manages to impress with its modern style. Love the matt diffuser in front of the white LEDs. And the elevated panel gives a distinct and dare I say, luxury feel. A remote control is provided which makes navigation very easy.

Very nice to have built-in power supply in such a small package:


SMSL D-6s DAC Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard with level adjusted to near 4 volts using XLR output first:

Distortion products are...

This is a review, listening tests, equalization and detailed measurements of the Tekton (Mini) M-Lore speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs $US 750 a pair.

As you see, this is a mini-tower speaker if there is such a thing. I had to put a 6 inch stand under it to get the tweeter to my ear height. There is nothing on the back side other than binding post. Not even a label.

Speaker was measured using Klippel Near-field Scanner. Tweeter center was used as acoustic reference (but see edit below).

EDIT: Company has post a formal response on his channel about my review:


Tekton M-Lore Speaker Measurements
Let's start with our usual anechoic measurements:

Boy, that is a pretty chewed up response. It is not...

As announced long ago the last part on the subject of audibility of capacitor upgrade in crossovers. The comparison ranges from a very cheap, decades-old film capacitor to an expensive high-end capacitor.

As promised, this time there are short audio samples of each capacitor (in a simple crossover) recorded with a microphone via tweeter (test setup see below).

The full mini series:
Capacitor upgrade in crossover - Is it audible?
Capacitor upgrade - part two
Capacitor upgrade - part three...