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Audio-gd Master 7 Singularity Review (DAC)

DSJR

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£9 surely? So much worse value than £7! ;-) But the way to look at it is: just think what's inside a smartphone. Tiny stuff and yet so powerful. Same with things like the Amazon Fire Stick and Roku Streaming Stick.

Otherwise, I agree 99% (allowing 1% distortion!).

I paid £7 for mine from Ao - Oh, it's gone up a quid since. I did have to buy a USB C to USB A adaptor so total was a tenner...

https://ao.com/product/mu7e2zma-app...apter-cables-and-adapter-white-63644-267.aspx
 

Jimbob54

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WRT adding distortion - yes, like a 'plugin' used in Protools (recording software). I've been waiting for this to happen in home HiFi but so far
doesn't seem to have.
TCD
Have a look at Distort by member @pkane . Don't know how it integrates with player and eq software though
 

PO3c

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Can you explain what are/were those inconsistencies?
I where thinking more in general terms for R2R compared to preferred new technology. But your numbers are not wrong and should i theory even be smoother given there are parallel chips ;) One can wonder if it actually have genuine PCM1704K chips in the first place as low distortion figures are not considered the singular factor to its house sound.

How do you know an Apple dongle (£7 in the UK) 'sounds' worse than a $3000 dac? I'm going to challenge that statement when the eyes (and facilities needed) are taken from the comparison.
I'm not biting and I do not know which would end up as the best sounding. But I do know from experiance with distortion stomp boxes that multiple transistor circuits with minimal distortion in each stage create a more plesant meaty tone than a diode clipper in an filtered feedback loop on an op-amp.
As for trusting one's ears, do leave off, PLEASE :D Our ears are crap
Agreed, they are horrible as measuring devices. But they're connected to my brain and together with the sense of self I'm able to say I prefer the sound coming from button A over the sound coming from button B. And living with a setup where I can switch between A and B over a period of months I don't even have to trust my incredible short memory but simply take notice of whish button got the most use ;) Then try to figure out as to why this is.

In my setup M7 adds more meat to the sound. Fuller low mid and mid. As a whole this sound suits the rest of my setup with two way speakers. Other with bigger speakers having more output in the low mid might have a different experiance.

And here lies the problem with trusting measurements and hearsay from the web. What sound good in my place with my hearing have zero value for others. And it seems measurements provided rarly align with what users perceive as plesant in any given setup. Ususally speakers fall short here.

As I said previously, I do not possess golden ears and are puzzled by the fact I do not prefer great measuring devices to handle the digital to analog conversion. And for the record, I where not able to tell RME and Topping apart. But M7 being a colorbox it is where easy.
 

PO3c

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WRT adding distortion - yes, like a 'plugin' used in Protools (recording software). I've been waiting for this to happen in home HiFi but so far
doesn't seem to have.
TCD
Me too. In a sense what we would have is similar tool rig as mastering engineers use today. Although removing distortion and compression will prove difficult.

Projects like Carla providing host capabilities for VST on Linux might be a solution forward for custom products.
 

Madlop26

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Agreed, they are horrible as measuring devices. But they're connected to my brain and together with the sense of self I'm able to say I prefer the sound coming from button A over the sound coming from button B. And living with a setup where I can switch between A and B over a period of months I don't even have to trust my incredible short memory but simply take notice of whish button got the most use ;) Then try to figure out as to why this is.

In my setup M7 adds more meat to the sound. Fuller low mid and mid. As a whole this sound suits the rest of my setup with two way speakers. Other with bigger speakers having more output in the low mid might have a different experiance.

And here lies the problem with trusting measurements and hearsay from the web. What sound good in my place with my hearing have zero value for others. And it seems measurements provided rarly align with what users perceive as plesant in any given setup. Ususally speakers fall short here.

As I said previously, I do not possess golden ears and are puzzled by the fact I do not prefer great measuring devices to handle the digital to analog conversion. And for the record, I where not able to tell RME and Topping apart. But M7 being a colorbox it is where easy.

You may have good interesting points; still there is a thing you need to do to make your statements scientifically stronger:
You prefer the sound of you M7 set up, you can clearly tell there is a difference, well i can tell you one thing, subjective bias is strong; and human minds can be fooled easily, even in a non-blind a-b test done for months; only a strict proper blind test can give you scientific strength to your claim.

if turns out you can tell the difference , then you need to think the following, are you looking for fidelity of sound or a colored sound for your music.
The end point of good measuring devices is the capacity to give you the most accurate reproduction of the sound that was produced by instruments and voices when they were recorded, like if you were present i the recording studio. I want that, if you give me a device that colors the music, even if it sounds better to my ears I would still prefer the accurate sound, it is just my choice; i like reality.
 

Sonny1

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I almost bought one of these a few years ago. Audio-GD gets glowing reviews by the slanted audiophile mob. Glad I dodged this bullet. My condolences to the owner.
 

LaL

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So with all the apparent flaws, does it sound really, really bad ?
 

pkane

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Have a look at Distort by member @pkane . Don't know how it integrates with player and eq software though

DISTORT can add your preferred distortion to any WAV file. You can listen to it in DISTORT, or just use your favorite player to figure out what sounds best/worst to you.

PKHarmonic is a VST plugin that adds arbitrary level of harmonic distortion and can be used with any player that supports VST 2.0. You can tune it in real time and continue to use the same distortion profile with all your source content.
 

JRG123

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You've tested so many DAC's the names are no longer legible on the SINAD chart. Does a higher resolution of this image exist?
 

ShiZo

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I where thinking more in general terms for R2R compared to preferred new technology. But your numbers are not wrong and should i theory even be smoother given there are parallel chips ;) One can wonder if it actually have genuine PCM1704K chips in the first place as low distortion figures are not considered the singular factor to its house sound.


I'm not biting and I do not know which would end up as the best sounding. But I do know from experiance with distortion stomp boxes that multiple transistor circuits with minimal distortion in each stage create a more plesant meaty tone than a diode clipper in an filtered feedback loop on an op-amp.

Agreed, they are horrible as measuring devices. But they're connected to my brain and together with the sense of self I'm able to say I prefer the sound coming from button A over the sound coming from button B. And living with a setup where I can switch between A and B over a period of months I don't even have to trust my incredible short memory but simply take notice of whish button got the most use ;) Then try to figure out as to why this is.

In my setup M7 adds more meat to the sound. Fuller low mid and mid. As a whole this sound suits the rest of my setup with two way speakers. Other with bigger speakers having more output in the low mid might have a different experiance.

And here lies the problem with trusting measurements and hearsay from the web. What sound good in my place with my hearing have zero value for others. And it seems measurements provided rarly align with what users perceive as plesant in any given setup. Ususally speakers fall short here.

As I said previously, I do not possess golden ears and are puzzled by the fact I do not prefer great measuring devices to handle the digital to analog conversion. And for the record, I where not able to tell RME and Topping apart. But M7 being a colorbox it is where easy.
I feel like you are trying to justify your purchase to us. Honestly, we don't really care, as long as the customer knows what they're getting. Based on their marketing alone, I would believe it has good specs. All I have to say is thank you @amirm. Before I found this site I heard all the audiofoolery and almost bought one O_O.

Also, you cant hear past 14khz but think you have golden ears? At 33, I can hear up to 17khz.
 
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Lupin

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So with all the apparent flaws, does it sound really, really bad ?
Lot of subjective audiophiles praise the sound of Audio-GD.
I don't think it will sound really, really bad. In fact I'm pretty sure the majority of the people bashing Audio-GD here will not be able to pick an Audio-GD from a Topping in a volume matched double blind test.
 

ShiZo

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Lot of subjective audiophiles praise the sound of Audio-GD.
I don't think it will sound really, really bad. In fact I'm pretty sure the majority of the people bashing Audio-GD here will not be able to pick an Audio-GD from a Topping in a volume matched double blind test.
I wish I could blind test it vs my d90se because I believe I could. I've blind tested dacs before and was extremely accurate. But only after listening to both dacs on music I already know frequently and finding differences to look for while blind.
 

LaL

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Lot of subjective audiophiles praise the sound of Audio-GD.
I don't think it will sound really, really bad. In fact I'm pretty sure the majority of the people bashing Audio-GD here will not be able to pick an Audio-GD from a Topping in a volume matched double blind test.

Maybe I missed it, but doesn't Amir normally do a listening test with his HD650's and Drop Ether CX ?
On second thoughts, maybe that's only for Amp's not Dac only units.

Designed badly, weighs too much and measures awfully,
it's gona sell really well:D:D
 
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Doodski

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Lot of subjective audiophiles praise the sound of Audio-GD.
I don't think it will sound really, really bad. In fact I'm pretty sure the majority of the people bashing Audio-GD here will not be able to pick an Audio-GD from a Topping in a volume matched double blind test.
Perhaps although would you or I want this unit after seeing this test? I doubt that would be the case and we would be looking at less expensive, more practical better measuring gear that makes sense and does not scintillate the visual senses with overbuilt rubbish like the Audo GD stuff does.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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I don't get why the chart isn't rotated and bigger/zoomable so the best is at the top and the text is in rows.
If I post it vertically it will go for a number of pages which would mess up the flow of the review. You can use the dac review index to get a vertical version.
 

AudioSceptic

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If I post it vertically it will go for a number of pages which would mess up the flow of the review. You can use the dac review index to get a vertical version.
A suggestion: give an excerpt including a few above and below; and a link to the main index? The horizontal list is not really useful as it is.

Edit: you beat me to it, thanks!
 
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