Articles, Reviews and Measurements of Audio Products
Review and Measurements of the Topping D70 DAC
This is a review and detailed measurements of the new Topping D70 balanced audio DAC. The company was kind enough to send me a sample for review. The D70 costs US $499 although their products frequently go on sale.
The D70 has a similar look and feel to other Topping products which is to say feels quite solid:
The display is now white OLED which gives the unit more of a professional look. Alas, even in its highest setting, it was not bright enough for my taste.
The back panel is what you expect with the addition of IIS port:
The D70 like the rest of the Topping products comes with full set of safety and emissions regulatory certificates which is important for a mains operated product. These certifications are expensive and add to the development time and hence the reason they are skipped in some other competing products.
The D70 comes with a new revision of their standard remote...
The D70 has a similar look and feel to other Topping products which is to say feels quite solid:
The display is now white OLED which gives the unit more of a professional look. Alas, even in its highest setting, it was not bright enough for my taste.
The back panel is what you expect with the addition of IIS port:
The D70 comes with a new revision of their standard remote...
Review and Measurements of Peachtree Nova Pre
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Peachtree Nova DAC and Preamplifier. It belongs to my son who bought it years back prior to upgrading to the Oppo HA-1. Peachtree site still show it as current but I don't think it is available in distribution now. It cost US $999 when it first came out I think.
If you are not familiar with Peachtree, they burst into the scene back in 2007 and due to clever online participation and marketing, became a huge success. I remember threads with thousands of posts on them and people would eat every word about newer versions of them and such.
The Nova Pre is one of the largest and heaviest DACs I have tested:
Some of the weight comes from the very thick, glossy finished case though. I had to take that apart to figure out why the line outs were not working. My son had...
If you are not familiar with Peachtree, they burst into the scene back in 2007 and due to clever online participation and marketing, became a huge success. I remember threads with thousands of posts on them and people would eat every word about newer versions of them and such.
The Nova Pre is one of the largest and heaviest DACs I have tested:
Some of the weight comes from the very thick, glossy finished case though. I had to take that apart to figure out why the line outs were not working. My son had...
Review and Measurements of Audio-gd DAC19 DAC
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Audio-gd DAC19 DAC. It is on kind loan from a member who sent me two of their DACs for review. The DAC19 costs US $640 plus shipping from the company's website.
The design of DAC19 is similar to the rest of the Audio-gd line:
Controls feel solid and good. The unit also has good bit of heft to it so overall impressions are positive from a male perspective.
The back panel is what you expect plus a couple of their current-driven proprietary "ACSS" connectors:
At this price range, XLR balanced output should be mandatory to help avoid ground loops which can readily occur with computer audio. It is missing here which is disappointing.
There have been many revisions of this model over the years. I think the original unit came out in 2010 and seems like that is the marking that is on the back of the unit. I am not an expert in all of that so...
The design of DAC19 is similar to the rest of the Audio-gd line:
Controls feel solid and good. The unit also has good bit of heft to it so overall impressions are positive from a male perspective.
The back panel is what you expect plus a couple of their current-driven proprietary "ACSS" connectors:
There have been many revisions of this model over the years. I think the original unit came out in 2010 and seems like that is the marking that is on the back of the unit. I am not an expert in all of that so...
Review and Measurements of Benchmark AHB2 Amp
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Benchmark AHB2 Amplifier using THX technology to reduce distortion. I was going to request one for testing due to membership demand but to my pleasant surprise, the company volunteered to contact me and send not one, but two units! I requested the second one because of something I was seeing in the measurements that turned out to be my issue, not the amp's. The AHB2 retails for US $2,999 from the company direct.
The AHB2 is a very compact form factor, enabled by use of switching power supply to increase efficiency/density:
There is just a power switch in the front. It might be but I constantly reached for the screw next to it to power it on! Having the power switch be slightly different color or shape may help with this.
There are a set of LEDs that show the status of the amplifier. They are driven by an FPGA (field...
The AHB2 is a very compact form factor, enabled by use of switching power supply to increase efficiency/density:
There are a set of LEDs that show the status of the amplifier. They are driven by an FPGA (field...
Review of NanoPi NEO2: World's Smallest Audio Streamer
This is a review and detailed measurements of NanoPi NEO2 tiny single board computer acting as an audio streamer. It was purchased and drop shipped to me by a kind member. It costs just US $19.99 although for some reason it is listed for $60 to $75 on Amazon.
The NanoPi NEO2 is one of the many variations of the Raspberry Pi single board computer. It gets its tiny size from elimination of the HDMI video output and some of the ports:
It is so tiny that I had to keep smacking the pink panther to keep it from eating it!
The low cost and small size is courtesy of Chinese implementations of ARM SoC (system on a chip) which you can see on the back:
The "Allwinner H5" is the Soc sporting quad-core ARM processors. The NanoPi NEO2 has just enough peripherals for a "headless" (no display) audio streamer: gigabit ethernet port and one USB to connect to your DAC.
This is a blank slate: the...
The NanoPi NEO2 is one of the many variations of the Raspberry Pi single board computer. It gets its tiny size from elimination of the HDMI video output and some of the ports:
It is so tiny that I had to keep smacking the pink panther to keep it from eating it!
The low cost and small size is courtesy of Chinese implementations of ARM SoC (system on a chip) which you can see on the back:
The "Allwinner H5" is the Soc sporting quad-core ARM processors. The NanoPi NEO2 has just enough peripherals for a "headless" (no display) audio streamer: gigabit ethernet port and one USB to connect to your DAC.
This is a blank slate: the...
Review and Measurements of Sony UDA-1 DAC & Amp
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Sony UDA-1 DAC, headphone and power (speaker) amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. It seems the UDA-1 was released back in 2014 with a retail price of US $799. Depending on the color, I see used ones around $350.
First impressions are positive on UDA-1 with a very hefty box and controls that feel nice:
There is no display but what is there is functional. Here is the back panel:
Disappointed to see a fan in there for a box with such modest capabilities (rated at just 23 watts/channel). I had headphones on during testing so don't know how loud it gets.
Nice to see line in/out which makes my testing a lot easier as I can test the DAC and headphone/power amplifiers separately.
Note: I used to work for Sony in early 1990s so I have a soft spot for the company. Keep that in mind as you read this review.
DAC Audio...
First impressions are positive on UDA-1 with a very hefty box and controls that feel nice:
There is no display but what is there is functional. Here is the back panel:
Disappointed to see a fan in there for a box with such modest capabilities (rated at just 23 watts/channel). I had headphones on during testing so don't know how loud it gets.
Nice to see line in/out which makes my testing a lot easier as I can test the DAC and headphone/power amplifiers separately.
Note: I used to work for Sony in early 1990s so I have a soft spot for the company. Keep that in mind as you read this review.
DAC Audio...
Review and Measurements of Rane PS1 Phono Amp
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Rane PS1 Phono stage/preamplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. It has been discontinued and seems to have come out circa 2002 (?). I can't find a price for it.
If you are not familiar with Rane, it is a company focused on pro audio and has written some of the best tutorials on audio. Needless to say, my expectations are quite high here with respect to the engineering of the PS1.
The PS-1 is an industrial looking thing:
The back panel makes you even less proud to put it on display:
An external AC transformer with split tap powers the unit using a phone/RJ-11 style cable.
There are both unbalanced (RCA) and balanced (screw terminals) for output. I had to make a bare wire XLR cable to mate with the balanced output.
The shell of the balanced screw terminals was quite lose so I opened it to see what is going on...
If you are not familiar with Rane, it is a company focused on pro audio and has written some of the best tutorials on audio. Needless to say, my expectations are quite high here with respect to the engineering of the PS1.
The PS-1 is an industrial looking thing:
The back panel makes you even less proud to put it on display:
An external AC transformer with split tap powers the unit using a phone/RJ-11 style cable.
There are both unbalanced (RCA) and balanced (screw terminals) for output. I had to make a bare wire XLR cable to mate with the balanced output.
The shell of the balanced screw terminals was quite lose so I opened it to see what is going on...
Review and Measurements of Emotiva XPS-1 Phono Amp
This is a review and measurements of the Emotiva XPS-1 Phono stage/pre-amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member. The XPS-1 costs US $199 from Emotiva or Amazon.
The XPS-1 looks and feels fantastic despite its bargain price:
It reminds me of a very high quality piece of instrumentation than home audio gear. Shame that the form factor will probably relegate it to somewhere behind your regular audio gear.
The XPS-1 is powered by a 12 volt/0.5 amp universal switching power supply that is barely bigger than a mobile phone charger.
As you see, the XPS-1 supports both moving coil (MC) and moving magnet (MM) cartridges. There are a set of dip switches which seem to set the input impedance of the XPS-1. To wit, setting it to the lowest value of 47 ohm, severely reduced the output from my analyzer which has an output impedance of 20 ohm.
All in all, the XPS-1 nails the industrial design of a budget phono amplifier.
Phono Stage...
The XPS-1 looks and feels fantastic despite its bargain price:
It reminds me of a very high quality piece of instrumentation than home audio gear. Shame that the form factor will probably relegate it to somewhere behind your regular audio gear.
The XPS-1 is powered by a 12 volt/0.5 amp universal switching power supply that is barely bigger than a mobile phone charger.
As you see, the XPS-1 supports both moving coil (MC) and moving magnet (MM) cartridges. There are a set of dip switches which seem to set the input impedance of the XPS-1. To wit, setting it to the lowest value of 47 ohm, severely reduced the output from my analyzer which has an output impedance of 20 ohm.
All in all, the XPS-1 nails the industrial design of a budget phono amplifier.
Phono Stage...
Review and Measurements of BSS BLU-BIB & BLU-BOB1 DAC/ADC
This is a review and detailed measurements of Harman/BSS BLU-BIB 8 channel analog to digital converter (ADC) and BLU-BOB1 8 channel digital to analog converter (DAC). They are on kind loan from a member. The BLU-BIB retails for I think US $930 and so does the BLU-BOB1 but I see the latter on Amazon for US $790 and free shipping.
This is how the pair look:
I suspect most of you are not familiar with these two products. BSS is a company that Harman acquired a few years back. Their speciality is audio signal processing/DSPs that are easily programmed using their interactive software. The BOB1 and BIB are expansion output/input modules should you run out of ports on their DSB units. All products communicate using physical Ethernet link but not logical. That is, you can't talk to them from a computer but they communicate with each other over this link and can handle up to 255 channels of digital audio with sample rate up to 96 kHz...
This is how the pair look:
I suspect most of you are not familiar with these two products. BSS is a company that Harman acquired a few years back. Their speciality is audio signal processing/DSPs that are easily programmed using their interactive software. The BOB1 and BIB are expansion output/input modules should you run out of ports on their DSB units. All products communicate using physical Ethernet link but not logical. That is, you can't talk to them from a computer but they communicate with each other over this link and can handle up to 255 channels of digital audio with sample rate up to 96 kHz...