Audio-gd Master 7 Singularity Review (DAC)

[respice finem]

One has to wonder about what’s in the head of the designer of this crap when he draws schematics.

My best guess: "I have to create something unique".
Such "parametric disasters" despite using decent parts are often the effect of trying to "reinvent the wheel" IMHO.

 

[respice finem]

Still many people will keep liking those r2r dacs,citing some magical property which make them "sound good" despite poor measurements.

If this is enough for them, why not, but now at least they know what they've bought for their money.
Reading ASR for that special adrenaline kick

 

[magicscreen]

.... I compared it with a Topping D90SE
Yes it was not blind

Then it is worth nothing. Sorry. This is a scientific site, we do not care what you imagine.

 

[respice finem]

@amirm needs a panther that is just a pile of broken, pink ceramic shards to classify devices that are overly-engineered with such stunningly poor performance. The headless panther just doesn't cut it in a case like this.

Alternatively, a facepalming panther sitting on a pile of burnt $$$...

 

[Rja4000]

From their website:

"every unit finished the parts assemble , must had the full test by the technician , then build by another technician .
There are 300 hours burn in time after building, during the burn in time, every unit must had two times test in every day .
Finally , the QC technician had the final test and audition before package and shipping.
The complex process in the building , just for keep every units had the highest quality"

And also
"Audio-gd products had design and test based on the AP SYS-2722 (The top-drawer professional equipment in world)"

I don't know in which drawer the AP was when they tested this one, but it was not on the test bench, for sure.

That may be a broken unit, though ?

They claim "SNR >120dB"
and
"THD <0.0005% (20Hz-20KHz, Non-Weight)"
(-106dB)
But as we see here, 20Hz-20kHz unweighted... with this kind of "filter", seriously ?

I also wonder what they do with the DSP.
Given the linearity, maybe they expand at low level to push noise down ?

 

[voodooless]

Looks like this unit is quite different from the one currently advertised. This one seems to be stuck in NOS mode all the time, which explains parts of the bad scores. The new one is selectable and has some upgraded circuits. They even have some AP measurements on the site, and they are while not SOTA, not as bad as in this review.

.. still, I would not trust that enough to every buy anything from them.

 

[Georgrig]

China ....... the greater China ..... everything are best .....

Darko love it https://darko.audio/2011/04/audio-gd-reference-71-dac-8-x-pcm1704uk/

A Chinese technology company sued Apple for 'Siri infringes on its patents. ' The Chinese company is seeking damages of approximately 151 billion yen, as well as suspension of manufacturing and sales of products using Siri.

Topping is from China...

 

[milosz]

I am the owner of this fine piece of singularity.... I compared it with a Topping D90SE

On My focal Shape 65/Preamp Schiit Freya it took me seconds to figure it out.

Yes it was not blind but I went back and forth because I could not believe it.

The difference is massive and extremely obvious.

But hey if you want it, it is for sale

Simply doing a "sighted" listening comparison doesn't really mean much. I'm glad you think you can hear the difference, but that's an opinion- not science. And really, you'd need to have a number of people do the blind listening test in order to get some meaningful data about how readily people can hear the difference- one person doing a blind test only tells us that he can hear the difference - not if the difference is readily hearible by listeners generally.

These Audio-Gd products have so many flaws that they MIGHT be hearable; but I'd like to see some science done to show what percentage of people could hear these differences. But then too distortion artifacts that are audible on pure tones are often masked when playing more complex waveforms like music.

I just want to see at what level bad engineering is unequivocally audible by the "average listener." I suspect it's less audible than one might think.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FYI I am not interested in buying this boat anchor - but list it on eBay, US Audio Mart and Head-Fi => someone will buy it! I sold the Audio-Gd gear that Amirm tested, and the new owners are happy with the stuff.

These were my two Audio-Gd pieces that he tested => https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d-measurements-of-audio-gd-nfb2-192-dac.7807/ and => https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-and-measurements-of-audio-gd-dac19-dac.7646/

 

[milosz]

Merger between Audio-gd and PS Audio would make sense

Audioquest, too!

 

[Peter A]

A hot air gun an 5 minutes later you have 8 of the PCM1704 gems for potential fun

 

[amirm]

Looks like this unit is quite different from the one currently advertised. This one seems to be stuck in NOS mode all the time, which explains parts of the bad scores.

It has jumpers to modify it but this is how it ships.

 

[carlosmante]

I am the owner of this fine piece of singularity.... I compared it with a Topping D90SE

On My focal Shape 65/Preamp Schiit Freya it took me seconds to figure it out.

Yes it was not blind but I went back and forth because I could not believe it.

The difference is massive and extremely obvious.

But hey if you want it, it is for sale

Can you hear "massive and extremely obvious" differences in music that are -130 dB? Congratulations.

 

[amirm]

Can you hear "massive and extremely obvious" differences in music that are -130 dB? Congratulations.

That's not -130 dB in the measurements. FFT signal processing has reduced the noise floor by some 35 dB so actual noise floor is -95 dB. It is also modulating up and down which you don't see. And in the case of USB, it is glitching every 2 seconds or so.

Distortion also rises to just -50 dB at 20 kHz. So a lot worse than what you are saying.

 

[voodooless]

It has jumpers to modify it but this is how it ships.

Ah! So it ships in NOS mode then. You did not try the other setting? You usually test the different filters.

 

[digicidal]

Can you hear "massive and extremely obvious" differences in music that are -130 dB? Congratulations.

My guess is more that it's what he wasn't hearing that made such a (perceived) difference - like errors and distortion. Nothing in this DUT is even close to -130dB so not sure what you're getting at?

 

[amirm]

Ah! So it ships in NOS mode then. You did not try the other setting? You usually test the different filters.

I couldn't figure out what the other settings are. The description made no sense to me. I also don't know that it is NOS mode.

 

[voodooless]

I couldn't figure out what the other settings are. The description made no sense to me. I also don't know that it is NOS mode.

You got to hand it to the Chinese to make some incomprehensible manual

Looking at the filter response, it does look very NOS’y..

 

[Veri]

Looks like this unit is quite different from the one currently advertised. This one seems to be stuck in NOS mode all the time, which explains parts of the bad scores. The new one is selectable and has some upgraded circuits. They even have some AP measurements on the site, and they are while not SOTA, not as bad as in this review.

.. still, I would not trust that enough to every buy anything from them.

Their AP measurements so far have never matched Amir's. I'm starting to think they either measure some golden egg, or another product altogether.

 

[ShiZo]

They should be ashamed. It's basically a white van speaker scam. Except they waste money on nice parts, what a complete mess.

 

[Deleted member 36131]

Interesting that sound-wise people just love AGD, not just a little but a lot for years across its products.....Ears, thousands and thousands of ears say one thing which are the opposite of measurements.

Interesting, strange, odd to say the least.