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Audio-gd R7HE vs Holo May vs Denafrips Terminator

Lupin

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Audio-GD products measure terrible and their site is.. weird.. with weird google translated claims.

Yet it would be very entertaining to let all the people who call Audio-GD crap, trash and what not do a volume matched double blind test as I'm certain that the majority wouldn't be able to reliably pick the Audio-GD from a Topping or something similar.

I'm not saying that Audio-GD sounds good nor I'm saying that Audio-GD sounds bad. I'm not saying that Audio-GD products are designed well. Just saying that the difference is not as night and day as people would want to make you believe or measurements make it look like.
 

Dallas2122

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all of that doesn't really tell anyone about your actual critical listening skills though. can't remember the name of that exact paper but i'm pretty sure in one of those, it has been shown that people who run audio stores are little better than (i think?) completely untrained listeners in picking out sonic changes. and no, the training AFAIK does not involve running audio stores.

this is the equivalent of saying "i am a veteran in x conflict so i am qualified to talk about how a gun works"...which is nonsense, since being a vet doesn't necessarily mean you have the technical knowledge to actually know what is going on, since being a vet does not mean you had to service firearms at the armourer-level or worked as a professional gunsmith in your civilian life and know exactly how they work inside-out (and all too often, veterans don't actually know what they're talking about). it's kind of the same thing here.
 

Dallas2122

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The statements you make speak very highly for your lack of audio experience
I have listened and tested to far more high end gear and have some of the best tech friends that know quality living in the states in New England we have access
to many pieces of equipment in a 5 state region . most who have most to say the
majority of the time have the least . I keep an open mind and can afford to buy and sell as I want ,I am not married to any one product,and I am not stuck on specks ,if that were the case I would never own vacuum tube gear for solid state has
far less distortion but its even harmonic distortions of vacuum tubes that sound good , thats what makes variety ,we will never agree on many things.
 

THW

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The statements you make speak very highly for your lack of audio experience
I have listened and tested to far more high end gear and have some of the best tech friends that know quality living in the states in New England we have access
to many pieces of equipment in a 5 state region . most who have most to say the
majority of the time have the least . I keep an open mind and can afford to buy and sell as I want ,I am not married to any one product,and I am not stuck on specks ,if that were the case I would never own vacuum tube gear for solid state has
far less distortion but its even harmonic distortions of vacuum tubes that sound good , thats what makes variety ,we will never agree on many things.

knowing how to spend money on novelty products does not provide you with the ability to hear minute sonic discrepancies. you can try to pretend otherwise but it still doesn’t actually teach you any critical listening skills.

so you can take your elitist crap and shove it.
 

Dallas2122

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Nothing elitist about having a great area to hear a lot of high quality gear .
you are a bitter non objective so called Audiophile if you spent as much time
listening as you do on the forum you would be pretty educated in the newbie league !!
 

THW

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Nothing elitist about having a great area to hear a lot of high quality gear .
you are a bitter non objective so called Audiophile if you spent as much time
listening as you do on the forum you would be pretty educated in the newbie league !!

weird flex but ok

still doesn’t make you any more qualified to talk about the “unique sonic signature” of DACs.
 

Dallas2122

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I am like yourself looking for great sounding digital and a fair price
AudioGD forget them Their top dac with power regeneration is a very good sounding dac ,but their lesser dacs have Quality control problems .I spoke with a few guys in the U.K and found out because of these hot running dacs they fried the Digital board on a bunch and blamed the owners no warranty .here in NY same thing one guy had the sam3 issue ,now there is a U.S distributor but that changes Nothing in the design and the distortion specs are Horrible. I am now looking at buying the New Holo Springs 3 KTE dac possibly with trickle down technology from the flagship May dac ,for $2800 plus shipping.
As an alternate the Denafrips Venus -2 dac, $3k. Next year it seems for a top tier dac $5k+ is needed , Denafrips terminator +, or the Holo Springs May KTE dac at $5k , next year is a new year if any of you guys have a alternative
In the $3k range or under please let us know ,Thanks.
 

Jimbob54

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I am like yourself looking for great sounding digital and a fair price
AudioGD forget them Their top dac with power regeneration is a very good sounding dac ,but their lesser dacs have Quality control problems .I spoke with a few guys in the U.K and found out because of these hot running dacs they fried the Digital board on a bunch and blamed the owners no warranty .here in NY same thing one guy had the sam3 issue ,now there is a U.S distributor but that changes Nothing in the design and the distortion specs are Horrible. I am now looking at buying the New Holo Springs 3 KTE dac possibly with trickle down technology from the flagship May dac ,for $2800 plus shipping.
As an alternate the Denafrips Venus -2 dac, $3k. Next year it seems for a top tier dac $5k+ is needed , Denafrips terminator +, or the Holo Springs May KTE dac at $5k , next year is a new year if any of you guys have a alternative
In the $3k range or under please let us know ,Thanks.

Whats the cheapest DAC you have listened to ? (Lets say standalone audio DACs so we dont start talking about phones and other electronics). Why does everything have to be in the four figures of $$$?
 

Vini darko

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pick the holo may , It measures very well is a lovely piece of engineering in genral.
However if were my money instead I would go with a smsl dac and buy a nice headphone with the money.
 

Dallas2122

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I own the Topping D70S dac and it is Outstanding for the money .it competes
with dacs 2x the price or more very well. I have heard the higher end dacs
and they give much more of everything in realism ,it’s just the cost is not cheap.
upper end Digital is not cheap ,and even $5 k is not expensive in Audiophile Terms.
for myself I have to save for any upgrades And $5k is too much for me currently.
 

Jimbob54

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I own the Topping D70S dac and it is Outstanding for the money .it competes
with dacs 2x the price or more very well. I have heard the higher end dacs
and they give much more of everything in realism ,it’s just the cost is not cheap.
upper end Digital is not cheap ,and even $5 k is not expensive in Audiophile Terms.
for myself I have to save for any upgrades And $5k is too much for me currently.

Fair enough. As long as you've tried "affordable" I'm not going to try and argue.
 

Dallas2122

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The Holo springs 3 ,level 1-2 and kte will be out in 2 weeks ,then a 4-5 week wait
from Hong Kong which sucks,. I was thinking about Audio -GD but after seeing their distortion specs and horror stories about failures and then blame the owners saying they didnot allow enough air for cooling ,that s all I needed to hear in Europe and in the U.S . I guess we will see in a few weeks what’s new in Holo Springs.
 

thornclaw

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i had an audio gd dac 19. very colorful and vivid presentation. horns sounded spectacular but other music didnt really sound right. i understand what you mean when u say it sounded musical though
 

Dallas2122

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You are spot on ,i just heard their totally redesigned ,upgraded Audio GD R8 mk2
it is very good ,it beat my Denafrips pontus 2 pretty easy which I was not expecting .I am ordering one next week .it is a tank it weighs 26 pound
and runs the 3 R core transformers 2 run in pure class A for the analog section
and the digital is now servo controlled for the DC . It runs much cooler then past models and much cleaner presentation .it takes over 800+ hours to runin the engineers said ,i heard it with about 500 hours .I wanted the r7 he mk2 with the power regenerator built in which is exceptional ,but almost $5 k ,which I don’t have this year.
 

thornclaw

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yes i know it measures terribly
but i must have listened to miles davis kind of blue >150 times on that dac because it sounded incredible. on my current setup i hardly listen to that album at all. like i mentioned some tracks did not sound good on that dac which is why i sold it
 

sq225917

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If an effects box makes you happy, great, there's no reason why anyone should choose fidelity over enjoyment, other than a predilection towards low distortion. Any comments about the musicians intent or closer to the source is just so much bollocks. No music is recorded with flat eq and zero artistic mastering choices, it that's your bag go to gigs and record stuff binaurally and digitally from the 5th row, all power to that persons elbow if they do.

There really is quite an ugly undercurrent to a lot of the comments on here lately. It should be sufficient just to tell new posters we don't do subjective opinion and leave it at that.

On the subject of r2r dacs I'd take the holo May over almost any other current dac on quality and measurements alone. The ne plus ultra build quality and engineering exactitude are just the icing on the cake.
 

Dallas2122

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This new R8 mk2 Audio gd sounds excellent, much better all around and the FPGA processor now has a upgrade port for software upgrades
and their $1200 R2R dac with a very good 8 watt head phone amp .my brother says it’s a very quiet unit with any headphones he tried.myself don’t use headphones .
how they can do That for that price is great time for buyers.
 

Dallas2122

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Ok...

The good thing about objective datas is: there's not that much room for personal opinion:

- Opinion: You can like your Audio-GD DAC.

- Proved fact: Audio-GD products show no sign of decent engineneering, plus, do lie with their published graph and at last ask hundreds of dollars for their units

So, components for components, I'm not sure. But if you're interested in performance alone (that could matter in Audio), yes, Audio-GD is a scam.
 
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