Leckerton Audio UHA-6S.MKII Portable DAC & Amp Review

[amirm]

The panther was hired a while ago. But took a long sabbatical and is back now....

 

[GeekyBastard]

We seriously need a "…WTF" vote option for rubbish like this.

 

[suttondesign]

I bought one of these many years ago and soon thereafter threw it away. I had hoped to use it when traveling to boost headphones played from an iPod. As I recall, it didn’t seem to do anything. I remember corresponding with the owner of the company, who I think at the time was building these as a side-hustle from a regular engineering job.

This was after I had bought a similar little doodad at the very dawn of the iPod era from Ray Samuels Audio, also not effective, and a PITA because the tiny battery cover retaining screws would easily be lost. It sits in a drawer somewhere with a loose backplate. Also, it had a loud, scratchy volume knob that grated, and which the maker informed was normal behavior. Well, okay, but it still sucked.

I gave up buying portables for years afterwards until Fiio came around, and theirs was far better for a fraction of the price. Soon thereafter, though, I could get a bedside Topping unit which blew the portables away, and iPads powered IEMs well enough to let me skip the portable outboard amp when traveling.

 

[AudioSceptic]

I can see this as a rationale for a device like this. But . . . from a Marie Kondo standpoint; wouldn't an external battery pack for your phone reduce the in hand clutter?

That makes much more sense to me. There are many good ones out there, from Anker and others.

 

[phoenixsong]

As the younger ones would say, who let them cook?

 

[ICantHearYou]

Looks like an old model with micro USB, no?

Yes. I bought one of these over 10 years ago. Accidently left it on a plane long ago.

 

[martin900]

Should've been mentioned in the original post that it's a legacy model imho.

 

[CedarX]

From the product manual;

View attachment 394484


JSmith

+/-6 V supply rails > consistent with the 55mW @ 300 Ohms spec. But only 30mW @ 16 Ohms ???
Are the op-amps that limited in current capacity? Is it an hyper-aggressive internal protection?
Seems rather strange…

 

[CedarX]

Micro-USB… Must be an old design…

 

[tomtoo]

Thats strange!

On there page they have a forg above there name. Amir comes up with the cooking panther. And lecker is german and means good tasting. What kinde of conspiracy is this?

 

[Multicore]

Ha, a new panther.

Yes, and one that's not in the polling list. Where does Bad Cook Panther fit in the ranking? I need to know.

 

[ssashton]

Hmm.. high performance (fast) op-amps tend to be very fussy about decoupling supplies and input / output capacitance buffereing. I wonder if putting these op-amps on DIP converter boards without on-board components is causing instability.

Amir, if you feel like it, perhaps try putting a good old NE5532 or LM4562 DIP op-amp directly in there and it might run as intended? Just a guess.

 

[Azathoth]

This brings me back to my early days of my audiophile journey... What a throwback! I remember small portable devices like this and the Kingmax UD384 back one the Head-Fi forums. It's pleasant to see that it measures well for the time.

 

[SoundsGood2Me]

Thank You Amirm!

You've really been putting in overtime lately.

And on DAC/amps, the most interesting subject!

Pic not related.

 

[mash]

With an iphone the battery is not really needed as you can just use a magsafe battery while using a DAC running from the port/OTG cable. I use this setup for listening to music or streaming stored video on planes.

 

[sssn]

I did some research, it was harder than expected, but this DAC/amp was released in 2012. Considering that, I think it offered great performance and utility back then. And I think the review should include that info.

 

[Hart]

I think it would be really interesting to have interviews with the people making class leading products, as well as maybe the people producing less so. I am curious what their culture is like internally, what are their goals and current wisdom? Would that dilute the integrity of ASR? There is something sacred about absolute honest testing.

 

[Robbo99999]

I did some research, it was harder than expected, but this DAC/amp was released in 2012. Considering that, I think it offered great performance and utility back then. And I think the review should include that info.

2012 is important, but I can't speak for whether it was great performance back then.

 

[AnalogSteph]

2012 was a much different time for portable DAC-amps. Some of the most popular models were the likes of FiiO's E7 and E17, but otherwise there weren't nearly as many mass-market options. The only USB options readily accessible to DIYers and small-scale builders were TI's dated PCM27xx which are limited to 16/48. Remember how the ODAC was not open source as an NDA was required. Modern high-performance DAC + HPA chips didn't really take off until about 2016 (AK4376A, CS43130).

The AD8397 was quite powerful with near rail-to-rail output but a bit of a finicky part if memory serves, and could get unstable unless you gave it some 10 ohm output series resistors.

 

[amirm]

Should've been mentioned in the original post that it's a legacy model imho.

It is for sale now which is all that matters in my book. I am not a historian to go and check for what you say.