JDS Labs Atom DAC Review

[Deleted member 4360]

Your experience of returning a faulty item to Amazon? What does it have to do with Topping support?

My mistake - purchased from Massdrop. They sent me in Topping's direction. No returned emails. Hassled Massdrop to take the product back. They did, but it takes a bit of effort which is my point, I email JDS and they're quick, responsive, easy to deal with. Specs alone aren't what makes a product (to me), it's the entire experience (but that's just me). I have nothing against Topping but no, I won't buy their product because I've got a States-side solution...

 

[Deleted member 4360]

The relationship isn’t US vs China, it’s where the company is in its lifecycle and it’s tolerance to risk. The younger the company the less tools and processes they have setup for testing in both design phase and production. The more mature the company the greater processes are in place to specify and measure quality. The higher threshold a company has for risk the more likely they are to use their V1 releases as betas to collect data that would otherwise take much longer to collect. Many of the Ch-Fi brands are (relatively speaking) rather young and in my experience are rapid iterators so taking the risk of moving too fast often yields greater success in the end.

Good point and I would like to add that there are many "young" brands that make good products. However, what Chinese and Taiwanese companies do well is cost reduce reference designs at the expense of "something". That variable could be components, trace material quality, labor, casing, assembly, and circuit board design. The good manufacturers (in audio) still use 4-layer designs where many cost-reducing blow out the 2-layer designs which are prone to noise and lower MTBF (mean time between failure). I love how Amir shows the boards - you see the solder flow, component choice, board design, etc. Right off the top, a physically well designed board has the advantage prior to testing.

 

[aarmath]

You mean the ones that have already been measured here and show good measurements? Think most would say that would be a futile exercise.

You are right, that did not come out quite right
I was thinking just good ol' plain music experience of the Atom DAC through various headphone amps as well as full-fledged preamps.
Get a feel for the DAC's pulse so to speak. Pun intended

 

[gvl]

My mistake - purchased from Massdrop. They sent me in Topping's direction. No returned emails. Hassled Massdrop to take the product back. They did, but it takes a bit of effort which is my point, I email JDS and they're quick, responsive, easy to deal with. Specs alone aren't what makes a product (to me), it's the entire experience (but that's just me). I have nothing against Topping but no, I won't buy their product because I've got a States-side solution...

More features with/more effort to get support vs. less features/convenient support with everything else being equal sounds like fair game to me.

 

[Deleted member 4360]

More features with/more effort to get support vs. less features/convenient support with everything else being equal sounds like fair game to me.

To each his own. What I've learned after owning tons of equipment is that simplicity is best and that includes design...

 

[Objectivist01]

In the EU there is something called "Sachmängelhaftung" (§ 437 BGB in Germany), wich states, that the vendor is required to sell an item free of any faults and therefor has the duty to have it repaird or replaced for the customer if it breaks within two years of purchase. So basically a mandatory 2-year warranty. The manufacturer or vendor are of course free to give additional warranties just like in the US.
Of course that is only enforceable if you can get hold of the seller (eg don't buy expensive electronics form a questionalbe manufacturer off some dodgy eBay seller).
So over here it matters more from wich seller one buys than from wich manufacturer, at least for the first two years.

JDS honors warranty . But jds is no longer sold in Germany by any resellers. So only option is import and send it back to US for repairs. Topping is sold at amazon in Germany. But if something goes wrong since they being a third party seller, I doubt they would be easy to handle, which makes similarly painful. For folks in US atleast they have the company in home land. But for rest both are same when it comes to warranty

 

[Objectivist01]

Your experience of returning a faulty item to Amazon? What does it have to do with Topping support?

After 30 days ?

 

[Guetta]

I have Khadas Tone Board and JDS Labs Atom AMP. In terms of performance am I loosing or gaining something if I make a switch to JDS DAC?

 

[JohnYang1997]

I have Khadas Tone Board and JDS Labs Atom AMP. In terms of performance am I loosing or gaining something if I make a switch to JDS DAC?

A chassis and a no imd hump dac. You may lose some inputs, some format support.

 

[gvl]

I have Khadas Tone Board and JDS Labs Atom AMP. In terms of performance am I loosing or gaining something if I make a switch to JDS DAC?

Nothing performance-wise that you will be able to hear.

 

[Guetta]

Nothing performance-wise that you will be able to hear.

What about ESS vs AKM?

 

[gvl]

What about ESS vs AKM?

What about it?

 

[Guetta]

Which one is performing better and reveal more details?

 

[Guetta]

A chassis and a no imd hump dac. You may lose some inputs, some format support.

I have 3D printed case for KTB matching JDS Labs Atom AMP dimensions. Hmm I am not sure if no IMD hump should be reason to 'upgrade'?

 

[gvl]

Which one is performing better and reveal more details?

You won't be able to tell them apart in a blind test.

 

[Objectivist01]

Good point and I would like to add that there are many "young" brands that make good products. However, what Chinese and Taiwanese companies do well is cost reduce reference designs at the expense of "something". That variable could be components, trace material quality, labor, casing, assembly, and circuit board design. The good manufacturers (in audio) still use 4-layer designs where many cost-reducing blow out the 2-layer designs which are prone to noise and lower MTBF (mean time between failure). I love how Amir shows the boards - you see the solder flow, component choice, board design, etc. Right off the top, a physically well designed board has the advantage prior to testing.

Also, consider they do all this on a fractionalnlabour cost compared to JDS. So considering the selling price points and product specs to be similar, if JDS Can provide warranty,topping should also be able to provide cheaper support !

I got excellent support from Topping, they fixed a faulty DAC at no charge and I wasn't even the original owner, I was out $22 for shipping the mainboard from the USA and wait time, so yes that's there. Support was a bit slow to respond but communication was good. I understand if you go with Apos they will help you out for a faster turnaround. Sure, it is easier with JDS but it is unfair to bash Topping for no reason.

yeah, 22$ to ship in warranty period? Also, where did you buy it from ?

 

[TheSacredSoul]

Atom DAC just arrived, replacing my 5 year old Standalone ODAC RevB.

 

[3125b]

But jds is no longer sold in Germany by any resellers

Were they ever? A friend bought mine for me in the USA, so incl. shipping I paid only 100€ for it - couldn't let that pass me by. Let's hope it doesn't break, but it's probably among the more solid offerings in that price range.
Topping is also sold by audiophonics.fr (they sell a lot of Chi-Fi), not a big deal to ship it there. I certainly wouldn't buy it in China.

 

[Objectivist01]

Were they ever? A friend bought mine for me in the USA, so incl. shipping I paid only 100€ for it - couldn't let that pass me by. Let's hope it doesn't break, but it's probably among the more solid offerings in that price range.
Topping is also sold by audiophonics.fr (they sell a lot of Chi-Fi), not a big deal to ship it there. I certainly wouldn't buy it in China.

It was sold by headsound.de previously but the store is closed now

 

[3125b]

Right, I forgot all about that. Headsound used to be pretty cool for niche products.