Ciúnas DAC USB DAC Review

[Xulonn]

your destroying any semblance of objectivity this forum might have had

It is quite likely that most of the rest of the audio world would disagree. Your actions are patently self destructive, and that is sad to watch. In fact, exposing such absolutely horrid electronics design, implementation, and workmanship as the Ciúnas DACs is doing a service to the global audio enthusiast community.

You had a chance to prove yourself by demonstrating that you have improved your assembly methods and techniques, and you seem to be purposely avoiding that issue. This indicates that it is quite likely you have not changed anything - and are still selling dangerous electronics devices.

Why do you refuse to show the world your commitment to offering safe products? You could do that by simply showing pictures of the internals of your current offerings, and posting your safety and compliance certifications.

Oh gee...your product flaws have not been addressed? And you hove no certifications? No wonder you are flailing about and self-destructing!

 

[restorer-john]

At this point, as I and others have pointed out, you need to own the disaster of your own making, acknowledge the flaws in the products, and move on.

You've painted yourself deep into a corner and no amount of hand waving and protestations are going to help.

 

[Ciunas Audio1]

Well if it was me, of course I wouldn't send Amir a new DAC after the reception I got here - there is a lot of unprofessionalism here. When dealing with manufacturers I would suggest treating them all equally with respect and consideration. I think the only reason for this behavior I've seen boils down to "he deserves it" which is a poor excuse.

A voice of reason light & in this dark place - just when I thought it was hopeless. Thank you!
When I am treated with reason & respect, I reciprocate - when not, I also reciprocate

 

[amirm]

So to make sure everyone knows what is on the table, I received two products from John's shop.

1. A non-working DAC with a USB hub in it which he believed was the ISO DAC. The unit died before the owner sent it to me. He had bought it from ebay. I offered to help fix it thinking it would be simple. I was not prepared for what greeted me: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-iso-dac-teardown-and-failed-review.9653/

People were aghast that someone would commercially ship such a product thinking the original owner may have modified it. The unit was not working so no review/measurements were performed. Just a teardown.

As it luck would happen, another owner read that thread, post some pictures of his own and then offered me for testing and improvement. This thread has the measurement of the second device since it was working. Measurements show that this DAC's performance is way below anything we would want to recommend.

Subsequent to the review, I also performed a teardown of this second unit: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/ciúnas-iso-dac-usb-dac-teardown-2.9809/

This proved that the horrible construction exists in both units:

The same unsafe, haphazard, totally unprofessional construction exists in this one too.

Subsequent to the review, John demanded that I test the unit with battery alone. This, despite the fact that I told him his own manual says you are not supposed to run it on battery. And due to lack of battery management, the battery could be damaged with one try that would drain the unit to zero. He persisted so I put the unit back together. Tried charging it, but it will not hold charge. I will have to open it again to see what is wrong with it.

For now, we have conclusive proof that this is what these products look like. Across countless posts John has refused to give us pictures of anything different.

So even if the unit performed better than a $40 ebay special DAC, it is something no one should buy. It is unsafe, poorly assembled, and lacks legal safety certifications for sale in any western country.

This is on top of anyone having to deal with the personality that John brings. See how fast he is disowning his own products, and customers. Instead of offering to instantly make good by sending new units to these customers, he is trashing them. He ranks as the worst person ever to buy audio gear from in decades I have been in this industry.

 

[BDWoody]

Keep going, you are presenting a very clear impression of this forum by your posts. The site badly needs some unbiased moderation to retain any bit of reputation it might still have

What's clear is you simply have no answers to anyone who may come here in good faith looking for answers.
Many more people read these threads than post in them, and your inability to address even the basics of the clear shortcomings in design and assembly just shouts incompetence.

You really don't know what you are doing. Anyone who has touched a soldering iron or looked at properly constructed electronics can see that without any commentary by anyone.

By acting like a child not used to having to explain himself, in the face of clearly shoddy 'workmanship,' there aren't many conclusions to be drawn, other than you've got nothing to offer in mitigation to this disaster.

The fact that you aren't embarassed by those products, and aren't quick to show a pic of a current version demonstrating some higher level of design elegance, safety and skill seems to speak for itself.

No real wonder why no one is supposed to open it up...

The thing is, I believe that YOU believe it's a great piece of gear.
Astonishing...

Yeah yeah...it was dead and broken...and it's all Amir's fault...almost forgot.

I just hope prospective buyers find their way here so they don't unwittingly support this kind of garbage...the more you reply, the more likely that is...

 

[Xulonn]

Well if it was me, of course I wouldn't send Amir a new DAC after the reception I got here - there is a lot of unprofessionalism here. If ASR wants the big boy manufacturers to post and interact here, they have to ensure that every manufacturer gets treated with a certain amount of objectivity, a chance to be contacted before and after the review - especially if it's negative

Although you might prefer that Amir emulate the Stereophile model, I prefer ASR's rebel "tell it like it is" attitude, where kissing manufacturer's butts is not the primary motivation.

I find it interesting that some local-yokel manufacturer of shoddy electronics with no academic or professional electronics background, and skills that appear to be lower then your average high-school science fair winner insists that he knows more than the experts. I have seen zero evidence that the subject of this thread knows very much about electronics compared to the wide array of electronics engineers and skilled and experienced audio experts who participate here at ASR.

From the perspective of psychology, "desperate flailing" is another phrase that comes to mind as I watch this thread continue.

 

[Ciunas Audio1]

So even if the unit performed better than a $40 ebay special DAC, it is something no one should buy. It is unsafe, poorly assembled, and lacks legal safety certifications for sale in any western country.

This is on top of anyone having to deal with the personality that John brings. See how fast he is disowning his own products, and customers. Instead of offering to instantly make good by sending new units to these customers, he is trashing them. He ranks as the worst person ever to buy audio gear from in decades I have been in this industry.

Amir, you make it very clear what your intent is & it certainly is anything but unbiased
Are you willing to admit your mistakes & what you actually measured & reviewed was a >7 year old DAC with dead battery?
Are you willing to post this prominently on the first post of this thread?

Failing to do this only reinforces what your intent & bias is in this whole matter

This thread will stand as a beacon of light revealing the true nature of the owner & reviews that are conducted here under the guise of science review. Science stands ashamed.

 

[RayDunzl]

You wish.

 

[amirm]

Well if it was me, of course I wouldn't send Amir a new DAC after the reception I got here - there is a lot of unprofessionalism here. When dealing with manufacturers I would suggest treating them all equally with respect and consideration. I think the only reason for this behavior I've seen boils down to "he deserves it" which is a poor excuse.

Any proper businessman with common sense would respond professionally regardless of the treatment he is getting. I have been on the other side of this fence many times with my own products getting reviewed. You always act proper, kind and helpful. That way, you at least look good in front of your potential customers even if you can't turn around the reviewer.

Here, John's job was impossible anyway. The measurements are ruthlessly revealing of a poorly performing DAC. Construction of not one, but two showed the device to be unsafe, sold without legal certification putting aside all the dubious "audiophile ideas" stuffed in there with no verification.

Being an interactive forum, people are naturally outraged and indicated so. The treatment John is getting is factual based on his debating tactics, not answering simple questions, showing clear lack of understanding of electronics he is playing with etc. He needs to feel the pain as to do better, much better. Us rolling out a red carpet for him would cause him to continue doing the disservice to the audiophile community.

John's rude remarks have also broken our rules here for proper conduct. I could have banned him multiple times for that but have restrained.

Finally, remember, I am an advocate for consumers, not manufacturers. You want to do the latter, be my guest but don't ask me. The tested products here are so bad that no amount of outrage is enough to describe it. If there was a time to make the comment you are making, this is NOT it.

 

[BDWoody]

. Science stands ashamed.

Science is proud. It clearly exposes garbage like this. You are an embarrassment to service techs everywhere.

 

[amirm]

Amir, you make it very clear what your intent is & it certainly is anything but unbiased

My measurement equipment has no bias. I have shown measurements for your DAC that are awful. I have asked you if you have your own measurements. You have not answered. So the conclusion is that the objective data holds.

Here is the performance of your device versus a professionally designed DAC+Headphone amp at half the price:

You can't even get the two channels to act the same way.

The second bit is the product shots. Everyone who knows about electronics is appalled by it. Would you like me to post it in EEVBLOG to show you what they could do to you? Again, this data is objective and there is no response from you otherwise.

 

[Ciunas Audio1]

You guys have dug yourselves so deep a hole in your initial 8 pages or whatever of free-form abuse of me & my company & my devices, aided & abetted by Amir & his moderators, that you cannot now back out of that hole of biased abuse & find some semblance of honour & professionalism.

You think that you are ruining my business & it's a fight you must win but what you are doing is ruining ASR

Maybe you don't care about the reputation of ASR & you are actually suffering from what you accuse me of - self-destruction - it certainly looks like that to me & as you say there are far more readers than posters so be careful & try to get some perspective on matters rather than the venomous bile that is continually pouring forth

 

[amirm]

It is quite likely that most of the rest of the audio world would disagree. Your actions are patently self destructive, and that is sad to watch. In fact, exposing such absolutely horrid electronics design, implementation, and workmanship as the Ciúnas DACs is doing a service to the global audio enthusiast community.

That is the sad part of it. There is some exquisitely designed high-end audio gear. They will all be damned in the future by using John's contraptions as examples of how bad high-end audio is.

 

[amirm]

You think that you are ruining my business & it's a fight you must win but what you are doing is ruining ASR

We have no intention whatsoever to ruin your business. Using instrumentation and photography, we are simply showing the audiophile community what is inside the gear. What comes out of that is up to you.

And while you will continue to stew over this review, we have already moved on to testing countless other products. You have a chance to clean up your act (both online persona and products) but if you don't want to, that is fine.

The purpose of having you here was to see what answers you have for the failings we have found. You don't have any so we are good.

 

[amirm]

Maybe you don't care about the reputation of ASR & you are actually suffering from what you accuse me of - self-destruction - it certainly looks like that to me & as you say there are far more readers than posters so be careful & try to get some perspective on matters rather than the venomous bile that is continually pouring forth

Go to sleep John. What time is it over there? 2:30am?

When you wake up, consider what I said in one of my other teardowns of your product. Think hard whether you want to live your life this way. Hand assembling all this gear? Really? You couldn't make this money doing your IT job and have your weekends and nights to yourself and family?

 

[Ciunas Audio1]

My measurement equipment has no bias. I have shown measurements for your DAC that are awful. I have asked you if you have your own measurements. You have not answered. So the conclusion is that the objective data holds.

As I said lies disguised as science are still lies & you are doing your reputation absolutely fatal damage with this continuing disingenuous line.

As a PierreV has already posted "It does indeed appear that the measurements are indeed of an old device with a dead battery. I don't think anyone disputes that."

Do you dispute that, Amir?

Why do you continue to present your measurements in a false light " have shown measurements for your DAC that are awful."

Clam down & try to obtain some objectivity

 

[Krusty09]

Why do you keep saying 7yr old dac and dead battery. If it had a new battery with no power supply plugged into it would it perform any better? 7 years old should have no relevance to performance.

 

[Blumlein 88]

You guys have dug yourselves so deep a hole in your initial 8 pages or whatever of free-form abuse of me & my company & my devices, aided & abetted by Amir & his moderators, that you cannot now back out of that hole of biased abuse & find some semblance of honour & professionalism.

You think that you are ruining my business & it's a fight you must win but what you are doing is ruining ASR

Maybe you don't care about the reputation of ASR & you are actually suffering from what you accuse me of - self-destruction - it certainly looks like that to me & as you say there are far more readers than posters so be careful & try to get some perspective on matters rather than the venomous bile that is continually pouring forth

John,
Do you measure your devices to corroborate you methods result in better performance? Is it all by ear?

 

[Ciunas Audio1]

Why do you keep saying 7yr old dac and dead battery.

Because these are the material facts that don't want to be admitted

If it had a new battery with no power supply plugged into it would it perform any better?

Isn't that the point - measuring a crippled DAC & pretending it is the measurements of the normal DAc is disingenuous at best [/QUOTE]

 

[Killingbeans]

Well if it was me, of course I wouldn't send Amir a new DAC after the reception I got here - there is a lot of unprofessionalism here. When dealing with manufacturers I would suggest treating them all equally with respect and consideration. I think the only reason for this behavior I've seen boils down to "he deserves it" which is a poor excuse.

True. This thread does have bit of a stank to it. But Ciunas Audio1 isn't doing much to break the deadlock either.

Besides, sometimes diplomacy simply just doesn't cut it anymore.