Douk Audio VU360 Review

[amirm]

This is a review and measurements of the Douk Audio VU360 stereo VU meter. It was sent to me by the company (along with a nice holiday card) and costs US $100.

The retro, steampunk design not only looks nice but feels nice! You have full control of the brightness and shades of color -- the best implementation I have seen. The top controls manage these:

No, you don't get the special ASR signature on yours.

You can feed it audio using either Aux input (with loop to Aux Out) or the in-built microphone for no wire connection:

Power as you see is provided through any USB adapter.

VU360 Measurements
I connected the analyzer through Aux In and Out. Alas, the input overloads easily, causing distortion:

Suggest either using the microphone input or dedicating a cheap headphone amplifier as a buffer. I briefly used the analog output of my DAC+HP Amp combo as I was listening to it with headphones and didn't notice any distortion.

The meters don't have any acceleration unfortunately so move slowly. And even max sensitivity was not enough to have it show low level signals.

Conclusions
What a magnificent design, matching and exceeding of the casework and VU meters on super expensive audio gear! Alas, the drive circuit needs some work. The VU360 is so good that i would dedicate a buffer to it as mentioned above. Or replacing the insides with a circuit with acceleration.

I am going to recommend the VU360. Go ahead and complain. I don't care!

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

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

 

[Power Pop 23]

I don't want to chase after the SINAD of the Douk Audio VU360.

 

[Theodore8]

That is perhaps the most fun review I have ever read on this site! Put a smile on my face. Happy new year to all!

 

[Tell]

Got a video of it in action?

 

[amirm]

Here is a brief video showing it:

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

 

[Blockader]

VU needles move. Men happy. Men content.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Gorgeous

The pic from Amir has a so so color. This one is the right color, from my point of view.


On Taobao the price is around 50$.

 

[Victorr_]

I wonder if it will work if I connect it to an unregulated line output?

 

[solderdude]

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

[Robbo99999]

So this thing creates distortion unless you limit the power of the signal going to it, and even then you only get 65dB SINAD after doing so, plus it looks a little tacky to my eyes all whilst not really adding any real functionality - hmm, guess you know how I voted!

 

[Multicore]

It was sent to me by the company (along with a nice holiday card

Happy holidays to @Douk Audio too!

And, btw, while VU meters don't interest me, I would like to have a vectorscope on my desktop. Over the last year I've used the open source VST Signalizer to decorate some music I've published on YouTube. Here's an example. I really enjoy watching the pictures. VU meters are kinda uninteresting as a visualization by comparison.

 

[Dmitri]

Nothing like some plain old fun to spice up your audio gear. Back in college days I built a RadioShack led VU meter kit. Little metal box, two lines of 5(?) red led’s that due to my somewhat pitiable metallurgical expertise at the time weren't exactly evenly spaced or aligned but…to my amazement!… actually worked. I was pretty stoked and just knew I was going to have a brilliant future as an audio engineer. Except for those little hurdles like science and math that might actually have come true. (sigh) I spent a lot more time than might be considered healthy staring at it.

Enjoy your toy Amir. Of the multiple thousands you have undoubtedly spent on your system, sometimes it’s the simplest things that provide for the greatest pleasure.

 

[Multicore]

How does it do stereo with only one RCA in?

 

[DVDdoug]

How does it do stereo with only one RCA in

I assume those are 3.5mm stereo jacks.

 

[solderdude]

So this thing creates distortion unless you limit the power of the signal going to it, and even then you only get 65dB SINAD after doing so, plus it looks a little tacky to my eyes all whilst not really adding any real functionality - hmm, guess you know how I voted!

Chances are when using a headphone out as 'source' the added distortion ( assuming loopthrough) might be lower ?

 

[johnnyx]

I bought some Sifam VU meters, not their expensive broadcast-standard-ballistics ones, but very nice anyway.,
I just need a box to put them in, along with the VU drive amplifier, and cheap DAC so I can monitor digital audio levels, power supply, selector switch, and all the other things to make it useful.

 

[tineared]

I like the VU meters on my DMP-A6, but I see no need for this piece of audio bling
It's kinda cute, but just not my style

 

[Nopiano]

I’d be more impressed if I could have audiosciencereview badged on the top!

 

[eddantes]

I think the operative statement for this thread is "Let's agree to disagree" :-D .... Hmm I should send in my APM100

 

[JDS]

I assume the internal mic is mono, so having two VU meters for that use case is redundant. Of course the real use case here is just "eye candy," so that isn't very important.