A wishlist of gear to be reviewed by Amir

[GXAlan]

@amirm this isn’t worth shipping back and forth and would be interesting to measure.

Amazon.com

$230, 8” Earthquake subwoofer. Just like Chinese hi-fi had a bad reputation until measured, car audio hifi has had a bad reputation too. Earthquake’s history is all car audio…

I actually just bought one for a visually space constrained application.

This is with 1/3 smoothing, Dirac on the outputs. Blue is the Meyer X40 alone and red is with the 8” sub nominally crossed over at 40 Hz. UMIK-1 with dip switches to disable the preamp gain.

My single position Dirac measurement at 3m at about 85 dB or so. It shows the unsmoothened response and Dirac’s own estimate of extension down to 22.8 Hz. Huge room too.

This might be perfect for filling in the last octave in budget systems where the SPL is limited by the main speakers.

What I don’t know if is the subwoofer shines when crossed over at 40 Hz and would struggle at 80 Hz or higher, or if it sort of works well at constrained SPLs.

Since the Rythmik L12 was easy to measure, this would be interesting I think!

Edit: Super high distortion at that measurement, but it doesn’t sound like super high distortion given that it’s such a low frequency.

 

[Thighsofsteel]

Anything from Primare would be nice. Not sure how prevalent it is over in the USA, but quite popular over here on the civilised side of the Atlantic.

 

[ahofer]

Anything from Primare would be nice. Not sure how prevalent it is over in the USA, but quite popular over here on the civilised side of the Atlantic.

If only to prove they are kind of a ripoff. Thousands of euros for DACs and network players and not a measurement in sight.

 

[Thighsofsteel]

If only to prove they are kind of a ripoff. Thousands of euros for DACs and network players and not a measurement in sight.

So let’s get some. But as I said not sure how prevalent the brand is over in the USA

 

[GXAlan]

Anything from Primare would be nice. Not sure how prevalent it is over in the USA, but quite popular over here on the civilised side of the Atlantic.

They used to be big when Sumiko was distributing it 20 years ago. and it was available at Magnolia Hi Fi. I think once Best Buy bought Magnolia and Sumiko dropped the line, it faded away for a bit. They were early adopters of Class D, so they are forward thinking but I most remember the quality of their remote controls.

Then they switched to direct distribution and then more recently to a more dedicated US distributor. When your distribution changes it often comes with gaps in availability which hurts the consumer mind share.

 

[jgd]

Dayton Audio New Classic Series tower T65 and bookshelf B65 speakers

 

[amirm]

Anything from Primare would be nice.

I have a 20+ year old class D amplifier from them in my main system! I use it as a pre only. I hate to rip it out to test but can do.

 

[Thighsofsteel]

I have a 20+ year old class D amplifier from them in my main system! I use it as a pre only. I hate to rip it out to test but can do.

I was thinking more like the modern stuff, but if it takes your fancy then it would be interesting.

 

[guigui]

Fosi K7

 

[Billy Budapest]

iBasso Nunchaku. Headphone DAC/Amp that is getting a lot of press coverage due to its selectable tube/solid state output. It is small in size but too big to be a dongle. Both the class AB and tube amps inside measure very well according to the few measurements published by the company, but I tend to disbelieve the tube measurements, at the very least.

 

[GXAlan]

iBasso Nunchaku. … Both the class AB and tube amps inside measure very well according to the few measurements published by the company, but I tend to disbelieve the tube measurements, at the very least.

That’s interesting and worth asking iBasso if they will send one to Amir.

That said, their advertised tube performance doesn’t mention THD just noise and bandwidth, so the numbers could be valid. One of the major sources of tube noise is the AC mains noise and this direct heated design may be cleaner. The “JAN” nomenclature is “Joint Army Navy” which means it’s a military spec tube.

The Carver Raven broke the 100 dB dynamic range level at full power and the iBasso isn’t using the tubes to generate power.

Schiit Freya+ also broke the 100 dB SNR ratio in the tube mode, and it’s a high gain preamp in the tube mode.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Another recommendation for a review for Amir:

Tanchjim Stargate II dongle. Has PEQ, great price, attractive looks, supposedly great measurements, and the pedigree of an engineering-focused company.

 

[GXAlan]

https://electronics.sony.com/audio/speakers/all-speakers/p/srsult900

 

[amirm]

Tanchjim Stargate II dongle.

I have some Tanchjim dongles here. Will have to check to see if one of them is this model....

 

[Giulio]

One recommendation for Amir:
Aune s17 Evo Pro.

 

[Danks]

no sleep till

Genelec 9320A Reference Controller​

 

[Thighsofsteel]

They used to be big when Sumiko was distributing it 20 years ago. and it was available at Magnolia Hi Fi. I think once Best Buy bought Magnolia and Sumiko dropped the line, it faded away for a bit. They were early adopters of Class D, so they are forward thinking but I most remember the quality of their remote controls.

Then they switched to direct distribution and then more recently to a more dedicated US distributor. When your distribution changes it often comes with gaps in availability which hurts the consumer mind share.

I think it’s https://fidelityimports.com/ always worth an email to see if they would provide something to test.