This is a review and detailed measurements of the Updated Douk Audio (Little Bear) VU3 VU meter and amplifier/speaker selector. It was kindly drop shipped to me by a member and costs US $139.
Both the case and the VU meters are top class. The metal box is heavy as to help keep it in place and the glass in front of the VU meters ultra clear. Picture above is a bit washed out relative to the smooth/vintage shading of the yellow color. The peak LED is an added bonus. Sensitivity control is smooth and nice to operate. The two selector switches activate what sounds like hefty relays providing some sense of quality.
The back panel is where the problem is *for me*:
I don't want to route heavy/messy speaker cables through this just to have a VU meter. I rather have a line level one. But maybe your needs are different.
As you see power input is a USB-C jack but no supply is provided. I used a Samsung phone charger which worked well.
I first used whatever speaker cable I had to put the unit inline with my amplifier but that caused measurements to drop. So I built 1 foot bare wire speaker cables which worked better than any off-the-shelf banana cable.
Edit: this is supposed to be the updated version of the meter, solving the distortion issue in the last VU3 I reviewed.
Douk VU3 Measurements
The unit is rated at 100 watts maximum so I used a Topping LA90 as the amplifier. Here is the fresh measurements of that by itself:
Superb performance as before. Now let's route it through VU3:
We have fair bit of increase in distortion. Note that testing amplifiers at this level of distortion requires absolute attention to speaker wiring and termination. So likely the cabling had some contribution but it is impossible to separate that out. Let's put a pin in this for now and test SNR:
That's good. We have transparency there as well as in crosstalk:
Now let's sweep into 4 ohm and see what the difference is:
We see an increase in distortion with increasing power. As I noted, this can happen with less than optimal wiring. I checked my standard testing cables and they were sold. And as noted, I also made very short jumpers to connect the LA90 to VU3. My sense is that there may be some contribution for additional cabling. Most of this though is likely due to quality of the switching and speaker terminals in VU3.
Edit: Per member request, here is a test of hooking up the VU meter in parallel with amplifier speaker terminals:
I only connected channel 2 to the VU meter and as you see, SINAD took a hit of 5 dB. Distortion is distinctly increased in that channel.
Conclusions
Douk nails the look and feel of the VU3. In addition, it doesn't have any of the horrendous loading problems of their other (line level) VU meters. Alas, the product is now inline with higher power speaker connection. With it, comes the limit of 100 watts and potential for degrading amplifier performance at higher power levels. I like VU meters but don't want to give up hard earned transparency in the amplifier I paid for. I like to see Douk produce a version of this with RCA input (and pass through).
As it is, the Douk VU3 is not for me. Your priorities may be different so you can decide otherwise.
------------
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/
Both the case and the VU meters are top class. The metal box is heavy as to help keep it in place and the glass in front of the VU meters ultra clear. Picture above is a bit washed out relative to the smooth/vintage shading of the yellow color. The peak LED is an added bonus. Sensitivity control is smooth and nice to operate. The two selector switches activate what sounds like hefty relays providing some sense of quality.
The back panel is where the problem is *for me*:
I don't want to route heavy/messy speaker cables through this just to have a VU meter. I rather have a line level one. But maybe your needs are different.
As you see power input is a USB-C jack but no supply is provided. I used a Samsung phone charger which worked well.
I first used whatever speaker cable I had to put the unit inline with my amplifier but that caused measurements to drop. So I built 1 foot bare wire speaker cables which worked better than any off-the-shelf banana cable.
Edit: this is supposed to be the updated version of the meter, solving the distortion issue in the last VU3 I reviewed.
Douk VU3 Measurements
The unit is rated at 100 watts maximum so I used a Topping LA90 as the amplifier. Here is the fresh measurements of that by itself:
Superb performance as before. Now let's route it through VU3:
We have fair bit of increase in distortion. Note that testing amplifiers at this level of distortion requires absolute attention to speaker wiring and termination. So likely the cabling had some contribution but it is impossible to separate that out. Let's put a pin in this for now and test SNR:
That's good. We have transparency there as well as in crosstalk:
Now let's sweep into 4 ohm and see what the difference is:
We see an increase in distortion with increasing power. As I noted, this can happen with less than optimal wiring. I checked my standard testing cables and they were sold. And as noted, I also made very short jumpers to connect the LA90 to VU3. My sense is that there may be some contribution for additional cabling. Most of this though is likely due to quality of the switching and speaker terminals in VU3.
Edit: Per member request, here is a test of hooking up the VU meter in parallel with amplifier speaker terminals:
I only connected channel 2 to the VU meter and as you see, SINAD took a hit of 5 dB. Distortion is distinctly increased in that channel.
Conclusions
Douk nails the look and feel of the VU3. In addition, it doesn't have any of the horrendous loading problems of their other (line level) VU meters. Alas, the product is now inline with higher power speaker connection. With it, comes the limit of 100 watts and potential for degrading amplifier performance at higher power levels. I like VU meters but don't want to give up hard earned transparency in the amplifier I paid for. I like to see Douk produce a version of this with RCA input (and pass through).
As it is, the Douk VU3 is not for me. Your priorities may be different so you can decide otherwise.
------------
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/
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