This is a review and detailed measurements of the Geshelli Balanced stereo USB DAC. It was kindly sent to me for review back in May and somehow got neglected until now. Company has discontinued it and I can't find how much it originally cost.
I must say, this dark plexiglass is very non-user friendly:
You can't read anything unless you tilt your head at the right angle. Then you see a power button and input. Toggling input just cases a dance of the 2x2 array of LEDs. Even after reading the manual I was not quite sure what it indicated as far as volume:
What is a "1x" or "2x" blink? Anyway, I muddled through it and got to where I needed to change the output level as the unit supports three different ones. That took even more head scratching until you realize you have to hold the "input" button for 3 seconds for it to blink something. Every time you do this, it goes to the next level in the cycle (three total). What were they thinking here? Trying to out obscure Chord in user interfaces that humans can't understand?
Thankfully back panel is easier to understand:
I forgot to show the USB adapter sized external power supply in the picture.
There are no remotes or Bluetooth as is common in this class of desktop DAC.
Geshelli JNOG Measurements
I focused my measurements on the XLR balanced output and was surprised that it maxed out at just 2 volts, rather than 4:
I don't remember the last time I saw a balanced output that is so low. Medium level was almost 0.5 volt and low was 0.128 or so. What is the purpose of these levels?
Distortion dominates our SINAD score which at 109 dB would have been great two years ago, but not today:
It ranks at 99 from the top.
Dynamic range is very good:
I was very surprised by the intermodulation distortion vs level:
Why the rise in distortion as levels increased? Let's perform a spectrum analysis at 0 dBFS:
IMD test has dual tones: 60 Hz and 7 kHz. We see a second harmonic of 60 Hz peaking up, reducing performance. We will see further investigation of this in other measurements below.
Jitter performance was disappointing:
So was linearity in one channel:
The filter is the standard default one in the DAC chip which unlike competitive products, can't be changed:
Multitone test shows higher intermodulation distortion in lower frequencies, enforcing what we saw in the IMD test:
I suspected we would see a rise in distortion at lower frequencies and that is exactly what we get:
Disappointing.
Conclusions
As I was researching this DAC, I landed on the page for J2 which is their replacement for JNOG. It has this preface on the measurements:
Measurements above prove the yellowed sentences wrong. There are a lot of weaknesses in this implementation that should have been caught and fixed prior to release. None of that is "art," nor does it contribute to better or different sound quality. If anything, the anemic 2 volt output is going to make this DAC sound subjectively worse than one that outputs 4 volts in back to back AB testing without level adjustments.
Really, I expect so much more from Geshelli. I hope J2 implementation is better but given what I see here and attitude displayed above, I am not so sure.
I am sad to not be able to recommend the Geshelli JNOG DAC.
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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/
I must say, this dark plexiglass is very non-user friendly:
You can't read anything unless you tilt your head at the right angle. Then you see a power button and input. Toggling input just cases a dance of the 2x2 array of LEDs. Even after reading the manual I was not quite sure what it indicated as far as volume:
What is a "1x" or "2x" blink? Anyway, I muddled through it and got to where I needed to change the output level as the unit supports three different ones. That took even more head scratching until you realize you have to hold the "input" button for 3 seconds for it to blink something. Every time you do this, it goes to the next level in the cycle (three total). What were they thinking here? Trying to out obscure Chord in user interfaces that humans can't understand?
Thankfully back panel is easier to understand:
I forgot to show the USB adapter sized external power supply in the picture.
There are no remotes or Bluetooth as is common in this class of desktop DAC.
Geshelli JNOG Measurements
I focused my measurements on the XLR balanced output and was surprised that it maxed out at just 2 volts, rather than 4:
I don't remember the last time I saw a balanced output that is so low. Medium level was almost 0.5 volt and low was 0.128 or so. What is the purpose of these levels?
Distortion dominates our SINAD score which at 109 dB would have been great two years ago, but not today:
It ranks at 99 from the top.
Dynamic range is very good:
I was very surprised by the intermodulation distortion vs level:
Why the rise in distortion as levels increased? Let's perform a spectrum analysis at 0 dBFS:
IMD test has dual tones: 60 Hz and 7 kHz. We see a second harmonic of 60 Hz peaking up, reducing performance. We will see further investigation of this in other measurements below.
Jitter performance was disappointing:
So was linearity in one channel:
The filter is the standard default one in the DAC chip which unlike competitive products, can't be changed:
Multitone test shows higher intermodulation distortion in lower frequencies, enforcing what we saw in the IMD test:
I suspected we would see a rise in distortion at lower frequencies and that is exactly what we get:
Disappointing.
Conclusions
As I was researching this DAC, I landed on the page for J2 which is their replacement for JNOG. It has this preface on the measurements:
Measurements above prove the yellowed sentences wrong. There are a lot of weaknesses in this implementation that should have been caught and fixed prior to release. None of that is "art," nor does it contribute to better or different sound quality. If anything, the anemic 2 volt output is going to make this DAC sound subjectively worse than one that outputs 4 volts in back to back AB testing without level adjustments.
Really, I expect so much more from Geshelli. I hope J2 implementation is better but given what I see here and attitude displayed above, I am not so sure.
I am sad to not be able to recommend the Geshelli JNOG DAC.
----------
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/