Review and Measurements of Furutech ADL GT40 DAC/Phono

[amirm]

This is a review and detailed measurements of Furutech ADL GT40 DAC, preamplifier and phono stage. It is on kind loan from a member. The GT40 came out back in 2011 I think and cost US $525. There is a GT40a which seems to have replaced it now with almost the same look.

I know of the Furutech as a company that makes expensive aftermarket audiophile AC outlets and such. Until the member contacted me, I did not know they had a group that produced electronics.

The GT40 is rather attractive for a desktop product:

The volume control feels nice. There is a headphone jack which I did not test.

As you can tell, this is an unusual DAC with analog input that can be switched to be phono stage:

There is even a selector for moving magnet cartridge in addition to moving coil.

Power is provided in the form of external power supply.

Only digital input is the USB connection.

I was unable to get ASIO4ALL to work on top of the DAC class driver in Windows. So my testing for the DAC portion is limited to steady state tones I could play through Roon using WASAPI interface.

DAC Audio Measurements
Here is our usual dashboard with volume adjusted to produce 2 volts.

Distortion is quite high and definitely not competitive with anything you could buy today:

Jitter and noise picture is not pretty either:

The USB interface on GT40 is old enough to not even be asynchronous. If so, that would partly explain the rather poor results here.

Preamplifier Audio Measurements
I was surprised how much better the preamp performance was compared to DAC and preamplifier combined shown earlier:

Something must be wrong with how they interface the DAC to the analog preamp to show such poor distortion ratings as we saw.

Signal to noise ratio is just OK:

Phono Stage Audio Measurements
The dashboard view shows massive amount of hum which I could not get rid of in the few minutes I played around with grounding:

During the entire process, if I touched the volume control, it would generate a ton of hum no matter if I was testing the DAC, preamp or now, phono stage. So something is not right here.

Speaking of something not right, check out this phono frequency response:

What is this? Did they not make any attempt at proper RIAA equalization???

To make sure I was not doing something wrong, I sought out reviews and landed on what I have quoted in the graph above. With 7 dB rise at 20 kHz, no wonder the reviewer comments on it being "on the bright side." If it were me, I would have run out of the house! Other reviews made no remark about this making me wonder what ears these reviewers have: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/a...hi-fi-accessories/furutech-gt40-922744/review

There should be a certification and mandatory hearing test for anyone wanting to get into audio testing....

Conclusions
Both the DAC and Phono stages in the GT40 are badly broken. Hopefully they have fixed this in the new version. Then again, seeing almost complete lack of specs, that one could also be just as broken.

It is a shame as this is pretty case. Beauty it seems is just skin deep.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

The fiber optic link to our remote entrance into the property has gone down. As such, I can't spy as much as I like on who is coming and going. I have to go and troubleshoot it in the rain, making me depressed thinking about it. What could brighten my outlook though would be some money in my bank account. So please consider donating using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[GrimSurfer]

Another kwality product from the consumer electronics industry.

 

[Noob]

It really is amazing to see that some of the products tested here ever made it out of the design stage and to the market. It's inspiring. No matter how poorly I actually perform, maybe I too can be "high performing".

 

[digicidal]

You've got a mistake in wording @amirm :
"There is even a selector for moving coil cartridge in addition to moving coil. " - I presume the second "coil" was supposed to read "magnet".

However, considering the performance, age, and MSRP of this product... I'm not sure it's even worth correcting.

Another kwality product from the consumer electronics industry.

One can only hope they stick to overpriced outlets and plugs. Those are a bit more difficult to completely botch.

 

[amirm]

Thanks. Corrected.

 

[LLL]

These measurements are outright...wrong (on the manufacturer's part). What a rip-off.

 

[Nango]

Another case for the F.B.I.

 

[SDC]

Well, I guess BS cables weren't enough for FuXXtech.

 

[Wombat]

Your Avatar is a warning for those who rely on Sony's past reputation.

 

[digicidal]

From WhatHiFi?:

If this unit were judged solely on DAC performance it does enough for a five-star verdict. But it’s way more than that…

Um yeah... It's also horribly inaccurate as a phono stage, a pre-amp, and likely a headphone amp as well, though who knows. Although to be fair, if your name is "WHAT HIFI?" - it's honesty in advertising. I don't subscribe, but I'm guessing the number of stars awarded is inversely proportional to the actual level of fidelity... hence giving this 5 stars makes sense.

 

[vkvedam]

Thanks for the review @amirm, another one to watch out for

 

[dinglehoser]

This has been quite the recent run of irretrievable turds.

 

[JJB70]

From WhatHiFi?:

Um yeah... It's also horribly inaccurate as a phono stage, a pre-amp, and likely a headphone amp as well, though who knows. Although to be fair, if your name is "WHAT HIFI?" - it's honesty in advertising. I don't subscribe, but I'm guessing the number of stars awarded is inversely proportional to the actual level of fidelity... hence giving this 5 stars makes sense.

Shocking, this is the same magazine that gave a 2* review to the excellently designed Technics C700 speakers, and people still buy it.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Speaking of something not right, check out this phono frequency response:

How is that possible?!? How on Earth this unit has been able to leave the factory? Is it supposed to be defective or designed to sound this way on purpose?...
I'm shocked. Even more shocked that some have heard this crap and didn't notice anything wrong, not to mention they happened to like it.

Edit: Alright, I just understood: People would need high end interconnects from Furutech to "calm down" the treble.

 

[digicidal]

Shocking, this is the same magazine that gave a 2* review to the excellently designed Technics C700 speakers, and people still buy it.

Well, I would say that means they are nearly perfect (perfect being one star for speakers since they always have some flaws IMO). True, measurable perfection undoubtedly gets zero stars on their scale.

 

[Tks]

I know of the Furutech as a company that makes expensive aftermarket audiophile AC outlets and such. Until the member contacted me, I did not know they had a group that produced electronics.

And with good reason it seems... I'd not even gamble getting an AC outlet from them after seeing their FR from the phono stage(let alone the rest).

This thing looks amazing, but also reminds me of modern day high-powered GPU's. Coil whine/hum that grates your brain to dust from the "high frequency attack" this thing seemed to have people boasting about the unit.

But then again, this stuff is always a problem somewhere or another with companies that provide subpar (or none at all, pathetically enough) specifications for their products. Personally, my internal debate is always between either their knowing malicious intent to hide such specs (usually the byproduct of not doing validation testing of the product through the design/production phases of the creation), or only perhaps (if you're lucky) one final test of the product after it's made that shows its flaws like this unit has, and somewhere in a room decided "yeah, these specs won't be on the website".

There is no way grown adults engage in these sorts of sets of ordeals, and then go on to pass off products at these price ranges. And with such conclusion, you're either infantile-levels of negligent, or simply knowingly concealing an issue you know full well should have been rectified pre-release. I always wonder if it's really this easy to get into the audio business and still be breathing after putting out products like this. Of course I may seem dramatic, but then you take a look at the upper echelon and where something like: X shows it's full exemplary behavior as I insinuated just now and another here, and one other with a squarewave instead of a sinewave when testing the 1Khz FFT.

At $500, probably not the end of the world compared to what most spend, but being made to feel like a sheep for slaughter at any price makes the cost feel far worse.

Here's the real kicker though of why this can always be a massive problem. In the same way audio cable nonsense can. Lots of folks see that most tech trickles down to more affordable mainstream products. I think every rational person with any shred of good will and decency would hope people in their community are able to enjoy a hobby or their products, because the products keep getting better, and newcomers are also always having better options than they might've had themselves who got into audio long ago.

What sort of trickle-down can you have for mainstream products when company like totaldac attempts to pass off it's high end offerings as some of the pinnacle that someone can aspirate toward? It's an insult to every sensibility to see anyone attempt contextually lacking defense of products like that.

 

[Cortes]

Furutech ICs, plugs, connectors, metallurgy etc are jewelery. Really attractive. If they get tested maybe they'll perform like this garbage. A shame.

 

[majingotan]

Some send Amir the Chord HUEI MM/MC phono. I probably won't be surprised that it'll measure just as bad as this

 

[ichonderoga]

From WhatHiFi?:

Um yeah... It's also horribly inaccurate as a phono stage, a pre-amp, and likely a headphone amp as well, though who knows. Although to be fair, if your name is "WHAT HIFI?" - it's honesty in advertising. I don't subscribe, but I'm guessing the number of stars awarded is inversely proportional to the actual level of fidelity... hence giving this 5 stars makes sense.

It's articles like WhatHifis that really make me question the parameters on which mainstream media reviews are conducted. And at large a question about "who should earn my trust"?!

 

[Ilkless]

I've heard this many years ago and can attest to the severe hum and brightness, as well as the lack of clarity. Some sort of obscuring sheen to the sound. Those were the days when NwAvGuy just released his designs into the unmeasured wild west and JDS were still on their first few products. A lot has changed since then, and a lot is still to change.