Review and Measurements of Audio-GD R8

[YSC]

Reading measurement of this type of crap is a big facepalm of such a successful hifi company, and to be frank, in their product lines I think this is kinda acceptable, as most discrete R2R except the holo audio spring and may, and the MSB ones which cost a new BMW, most R2R nowadays measures similarly crap, their D/S products producing similar or even worse measurements are the real "amazing" ones IMO

 

[Duncan_McCloud]

I woudl like to ask a question. I am an owner of an Audio-GD Roc Headphone Amplifier for about 10 years. To me it sounds good but I haven't donw any comparison/measurement so I am pretty ok with it. May I ask if these best measurement of the R8, (and maybe of my Amp as well) fall in the "audible" region ?

Thanks

 

[Koeitje]

I woudl like to ask a question. I am an owner of an Audio-GD Roc Headphone Amplifier for about 10 years. To me it sounds good but I haven't donw any comparison/measurement so I am pretty ok with it. May I ask if these best measurement of the R8, (and maybe of my Amp as well) fall in the "audible" region ?

Thanks

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-thresholds-of-amp-and-dac-measurements.5734/

 

[milosz]

Audio-GD's biggest downfall is their DACs. Their straight audio amplifiers / preamps / headphone amps are probably not quite as bad, and likely most of their sins would be hard to hear. You might hear issues on pure tones, but on music most of any bad things going on would be masked, unless THD or IM was so bad that the resulting sound became dreadful. I've had a few Audio-GD headphone amps and I can vouch that they seemed to produce decent amounts of power, enough to drive my HiFiMan HE-6's which are notoriously power-hungry. They might not be GREAT headphone amps, but they are probably at least OK. That is, OK if you already owned one, not necessarily good enough to spend money to buy a new one. Maybe try borrowing a headphone amp from someone, an amp that measures very well, and compare the sound. See if you can hear any differences.

 

[Duncan_McCloud]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-thresholds-of-amp-and-dac-measurements.5734/

Oh god. Thank you. Guess I will need to read a lot

 

[Duncan_McCloud]

Audio-GD's biggest downfall is their DACs. Their straight audio amplifiers / preamps / headphone amps are probably not quite as bad, and likely most of their sins would be hard to hear. You might hear issues on pure tones, but on music most of any bad things going on would be masked, unless THD or IM was so bad that the resulting sound became dreadful. I've had a few Audio-GD headphone amps and I can vouch that they seemed to produce decent amounts of power, enough to drive my HiFiMan HE-6's which are notoriously power-hungry. They might not be GREAT headphone amps, but they are probably at least OK. That is, OK if you already owned one, not necessarily good enough to spend money to buy a new one. Maybe try borrowing a headphone amp from someone, an amp that measures very well, and compare the sound. See if you can hear any differences.

Well I was just curious. At the moment I have an HD800s, but I plan to go for a Raal SR1a, which means Schiit JOT R and nothing else in a reasonable price. Strange I heard only good things about Audio GD DACs, but of course, multiple opinion is always better than one!

 

[Koeitje]

Strange I heard only good things about Audio GD DACs, but of course, multiple opinion is always better than one!

Its not an opinion that Audio-GD DACs offer objectively bad performance, measurements have already proven this is simply a fact.

 

[Duncan_McCloud]

Its not an opinion that Audio-GD DACs offer objectively bad performance, measurements have already proven this is simply a fact.

I got this, but still need to check your article to better understand if those fall in Audible Range. Of course a blind test with something which measure better would be great. But in absence of that I would always go for something which measure better.

 

[omniweltall]

Audio-GD's biggest downfall is their DACs. Their straight audio amplifiers / preamps / headphone amps are probably not quite as bad, and likely most of their sins would be hard to hear. You might hear issues on pure tones, but on music most of any bad things going on would be masked, unless THD or IM was so bad that the resulting sound became dreadful. I've had a few Audio-GD headphone amps and I can vouch that they seemed to produce decent amounts of power, enough to drive my HiFiMan HE-6's which are notoriously power-hungry. They might not be GREAT headphone amps, but they are probably at least OK. That is, OK if you already owned one, not necessarily good enough to spend money to buy a new one. Maybe try borrowing a headphone amp from someone, an amp that measures very well, and compare the sound. See if you can hear any differences.

Cannot put it anyway better.

Not a big fan of AGD amps. They look better than they sound. But they are all right.

Never liked their DACS though. Even their TOTL ones. But it is audio. You can still enjoy it as long as you listen to sings you like.

 

[triggsviola]

I purchased an R7. It sounded good. Then I tried the Qutest. It sounded way better. For $1000 fewer dollars. Goddamnit.

 

[YSC]

I purchased an R7. It sounded good. Then I tried the Qutest. It sounded way better. For $1000 fewer dollars. Goddamnit.

similar experience, I used to use a NFB1 for the fame of Audiogd in elsewhere and the ESS9018 chip used back then, kind of enjoyed it for a few years until I get into here and purchased a Holoaudio Spring 2... never looked back on my wasted money

 

[Veri]

Goddamnit.

Well. Live & learn

 

[capitanharlock]

In past measurements we have confirmed that even discrete R2R can perform very well.

However, many devices using the same type of technology perform poorly, which is why I mentioned in my previous measurements that I instinctively hate discrete R2R.

Today we have ushered in such a unit.

A reader of my website sent me this unit and he wanted me to measure it.

(If you are from China, I believe that by seeing the photos, you can already understand what terrible things will happen later)

View attachment 40751

This is the dashboard:

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View attachment 40753


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All the above measurement results indicate that this is a garbage.

Even more frightening is that the manufacturer is a liar

Here are the measurements published by the manufacturer:

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My suggestion: you should Never Ever Forever consider this manufacturer's products.

Did you ever try to contact them in order to ask for an explanation?

 

[YSC]

Did you ever try to contact them in order to ask for an explanation?

When they deliberately do so I don’t think they will respond to such a minority site as ASR and when asked by customers they will just throw out the dozens of praise reviews

 

[capitanharlock]

Worth a try in my opinion.

 

[VintageFlanker]

I don’t think they will respond to such a minority site as ASR

I don't know what website you're talking about. ASR traffic now weights 2.23 Millions visits per month. This is the third biggest audio forum worldwide, next to AVS and Head-Fi.
I should pay attention there if I was AGD. Schiit did. See how far they went since.

 

[Grotti]

I don't know what website you're talking about. ASR traffic now weights 2.23 Millions visits per month. This is the third biggest audio forum worldwide, next to AVS and Head-Fi.
I should pay attention there if I was AGD. Schiit did. See how far they went since.
View attachment 112734

Wow, that is impressive!!!

 

[milosz]

I think there's a lesson here. Even with these significantly poor measurements, I wonder how many listeners could hear the problems. We need a companion project "Listening Science Review" to do some scientific listener studies.

I'm not suggesting that technical performance doesn't matter; but I think audio hobbyists overestimate how acute their listening skills are.

 

[YSC]

I don't know what website you're talking about. ASR traffic now weights 2.23 Millions visits per month. This is the third biggest audio forum worldwide, next to AVS and Head-Fi.
I should pay attention there if I was AGD. Schiit did. See how far they went since.
View attachment 112734

I am aware of this but, as audio gd have so much rave reviews in YouTube or so and seems they really aren’t able to produce really well measured stuffs and need to fake those measurements they published, so I bet it will be easier for them to just avoid answering what in asr said and more pushing on their theory of the unmeasurable or desired distortion thing

 

[raif71]

I think there's a lesson here. Even with these significantly poor measurements, I wonder how many listeners could hear the problems. We need a companion project "Listening Science Review" to do some scientific listener studies.

I'm not suggesting that technical performance doesn't matter; but I think audio hobbyists overestimate how acute their listening skills are.

I may be one of those people that cannot tell whether a gear sounds awful or not. I bought a used Audio-gd R2R11 dac/amp and AB tested it with Topping D10s and found them to sound the same. Here's the link https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...et-another-a-b-test-of-dacs.19769/post-668743