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Audio-gd Master 7 Singularity Review (DAC)

milosz

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NOS mode - Non Over Sampling

One of the many tropes of audiophile nonsense is that DACs that use oversampling sound worse than ones that don't oversample. I think this is right up there with "negative feedback is always bad" and "discrete components are always better than an I.C."
 

beefkabob

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I know it's shit, but man, the interior is gorgeous. Hang it on the wall with the case off, baby. Hubba hubba!
 

milosz

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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.
It's not ears but the brains of these people that come to this consclusion.
 

raif71

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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.
Ah, somebody NOS about the mode :facepalm::D
 
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Peter A

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Would be really curious to compare the measurements of a really well built PCM1704 DAC against some modern discrete R2R like Holo May.
 

YSC

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NOS mode - Non Over Sampling

One of the many tropes of audiophile nonsense is that DACs that use oversampling sound worse than ones that don't oversample. I think this is right up there with "negative feedback is always bad" and "discrete components are always better than an I.C."
but fact to be told, that for a well designed R2R with NOS it can still measure and sound good, say the Holo Spring (ver 1, 2 or even 3) and May, all measured >100db SINAD in NOS in the audible band, and it looked even better!
 

milosz

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Wow such an elegant way to communicate.

I am glad I spent money to entertain and educate you.

You can sell that thing - someone out there wants it! Just make sure you show a picture of the interior in your ad, and don't forget to mention that it has fantastic separate power supplies for every stage inside.
 

respice finem

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...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...
It doesn't take much to cheat the ears, even less with casual listening without level-matched and blind testing (which is rarely done). That said, such parameters at this price level (and with these claims) are foolhardy.
BTW, the Germans have once made the DIN 45500 "Hi-Fi norm" stating parameters sufficient for trained listeners to hear "true to life" music. Those parameters were... well... very humble, even back then.
http://bee.mif.pg.gda.pl/Oktoda/index.php/DIN_45500 (sorry can't find an English translation of this)
edit: automatic translation
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&u=bee.mif.pg.gda.pl/Oktoda/index.php/DIN_45500
 

raif71

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You can sell that thing - someone out there wants it! Just make sure you show a picture of the interior in your ad, and don't forget to mention that it has fantastic separate power supplies for every stage inside.
Those people that do a google search will come to this site and may think twice ;)
 

respice finem

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...or maybe buy it for the enclosure and build some decent DAC in it :D
/scnr
 

Mike2fr

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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.
I know exactly that. This is why i wrote specifically the details of the comparison. I sent this DAC to Amirm to confirm my thoughts and you read the review.
Lucky me i was right this time.

Sometimes it is obvious, just like adding a subwoofer to a pair of speakers that are very weak in low frequencies. The bass line just pop out the dark etc etc. Dammit i was not comparing two cables here. ( i am not saying that cables make a difference, they usually don't, in video i've witnessed differences, especially with long length but this is a different topic)

I am all for the science, like most of the readers here i imagine.

But i am not equipped with the tools to measure anything and just did not feel like asking my neighbors to come test review my DAC's.

So take my feeling for what it is. An educated feeling for whatever it can mean here. This is not scientific and i know it. I never claimed otherwise.

I use to work for a very high end audiotorium and I spent hours comparing products, blind, on the same track. I am probably not the average Joe in term of experience. But i perfectly understand that this is subjective.
 

3125b

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Graveyard of parts really hits the nail on the head. Here is the better performing Apple dongle (measurements added):

wlf3uydj.jpg


It's also 250 times less expensive :)
 
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bidn

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The measurements of this Audio-gd Master 7 Singularity reveals that it has, as indicated by its name, more than one singularity, so the company delivers here! Except that these singularities are unexpected crazy flaws!

For its price, I see it as one of the worst products in its category, and along with other products, as confirming Audio GD to be worst audiophile company. That moneyphile "professional" (commercial) fake reviewers highly praised it, like other Audio GD products, unfortunately confirms the widespread pattern of business corruption in the world of these reviewers.

Somehow I still find it fun to see such incredibly bad products being debunked, and their fraud as well as that of the fake reviewers to be exposed...
 
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