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Review and Measurements of MARCH audio dac1

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derp1n

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Blind test it was chosen over a Chord Mojo ;)
Wasn’t that test conducted with the prototype dac1? Was that already the same internals as the production version? I remember it was USB Type B and you had mentioned using an ES9028 back then.
 

March Audio

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Wasn’t that test conducted with the prototype dac1? Was that already the same internals as the production version? I remember it was USB Type B and you had mentioned using an ES9028 back then.

You are correct about the picture but the same test was repeated with different board. So thats actually 2 boards I evaluated that beat the mojo, but then again many products appear to do that under more controlled test conditions.
 

Wombat

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bunkbail

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I can sympathise with some people who think wrong doing has taken place here, what @March Audio should of done is not tell amir about the tone board . He should on discovery of its performance just made a great product out of it and kept it all to himself.
Willow of Khadas/WesionTEK already approached Amir and forum members back in June and posted a list of measurements using APx555 on his original thread here. He sent a sample to Amir during the same period so it was bound to be tested anyway.
 

March Audio

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Willow of Khadas/WesionTEK already approached Amir and forum members back in June and posted a list of measurements using APx555 on his original thread here. He sent a sample to Amir during the same period so it was bound to be tested anyway.

Amirs comments on that.

Let me give you a bit of serious news. Had it not been because of Alan and his March Audio venture, I would have never reviewed the Khadas Tone Board. Yes, the company had made an offer to loan me one earlier but I basically ignored it as I could not make heads and tails out of their website on what this was. But once I heard Alan has tested it and gotten excellent performance, I decided to get samples to test it and here we are
 

graz_lag

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john-lennon-jealous-guy-753451.jpg
 

Zoide

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I think what bothers people can be best understood by means of comparison:

1) The price. Take for example the ODAC. The assembled board (analogous to the Khadas Tone Board) costs $99, but you can buy it in a nice case for $169 with support and a 2-year warranty from US-based JDS Labs. That's a 70% markup for "just" putting the board in a case, but I happily paid for it some years ago. If they had charged $449, though...

2) The coyness and hints of a secret design not to be stolen by "the Chinese", which turned out to be a (now) well-known Chinese board. In contrast, JDS Labs has full transparency and attribution all over their page about what's inside the DAC and how to get the standalone board if you so desire.
 
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Graph Feppar

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I think the price is not problem becose even with quadrupled price the Khadas is giant killer. I think the problem is that March Audio should have revealed right from the beginning that its Khadas in nice case. I think if people knew from beginning and it wasnt revealed in this way, if there was no "cant open it becose muh chinese thieves" only to show latter that if was in fact chinese DAC whose pictures were already posted online, then I think this situation would not happen.

Nice case and better customer support is very valuable, but at quadruple the price, you can just buy another one if the first one breaks and still have half the money left but no case. That minimalist black aluminum case is very sexy though, just the way I like it, I think thats much better quality case than ODAC, I appreciate quality cases, I dont think this is bad deal.

Moral of the story - dont hide crucial facts about your product, always make it clear from the start what it is.
 

Thomas savage

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member @Audionut has been banned and his posts removed, this was a second account setup by @Mivera or mike as some of you know him, he has also been banned for this behaviour.

If you’d like to remove any of your posts quoting his contributions please feel free.
 

Veri

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Well that's another sour turn of events. Well spotted.
 

invaderzim

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The irony is that ASR is just a bunch of peddlers just as everyone else. Lesson learned, for which I am thankful.

I have saved a lot of money after throwing up my shields against going "Wow, that looks great. Now I need one" on products. I have had a few in the shopping cart before common sense hit me but at least it hit me in time.
It can actually be just as easy going "Wow, those specs are amazing I have to try that" as going "Wow, jim5882 said it was the best power switch he's ever heard; I need one"
 

Thomas savage

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I think the price is not problem becose even with quadrupled price the Khadas is giant killer. I think the problem is that March Audio should have revealed right from the beginning that its Khadas in nice case. I think if people knew from beginning and it wasnt revealed in this way, if there was no "cant open it becose muh chinese thieves" only to show latter that if was in fact chinese DAC whose pictures were already posted online, then I think this situation would not happen.

Nice case and better customer support is very valuable, but at quadruple the price, you can just buy another one if the first one breaks and still have half the money left but no case. That minimalist black aluminum case is very sexy though, just the way I like it, I think thats much better quality case than ODAC, I appreciate quality cases, I dont think this is bad deal.

Moral of the story - dont hide crucial facts about your product, always make it clear from the start what it is.
Well the inquisition here has resulted in full disclosure and Khadas has credit on his website I Believe. You live and learn .

There’s a thread on here about a $30k CDP that was nothing more than a fairly cheap device in a fancy case, that’s a bit of a crime. £300 ish for a great performing DAC in a beautiful case offered as part of comprehensive hifi range of products all matching and offering great performance I think is absolutely fair and reasonable.
 

invaderzim

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Now can we finally address the real elephant in the room?

The static logo that takes up too much room on March Audio's otherwise beautiful website.

It is a great logo but having it not scroll away leaves much less room to see the actual product information. I'd have it scroll away and a small version stay in the top menu bar.

But then again, I just became the person I hate, the "you should change your site because I say so" person. So I apologize.
 

wadec22

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Well the inquisition here has resulted in full disclosure and Khadas has credit on his website I Believe. You live and learn .

There’s a thread on here about a $30k CDP that was nothing more than a fairly cheap device in a fancy case, that’s a bit of a crime. £300 ish for a great performing DAC in a beautiful case offered as part of comprehensive hifi range of products all matching and offering great performance I think is absolutely fair and reasonable.

value is very subjective. the entire forum following is likely to be split down the middle on whether the pricing here is "fair and reasonable". you have to use a $30k example or extreme to get everyone on the same side of that line.

Bummer this spun out of control but easy to see how it did so. Really sad folks got banned over it.

At the end of the day, the tone board was a product I would never purchase, for the hurdle of the case alone. March Audio has now made it an option for me. While I will not be choosing it, I get why others would and commend them for bringing it to market.
 

Pillars

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Exactly the same. Speaker driver placed in box = no value to some and how many actively advertise what driver (or its source) that they are using.
Not really. Say Khardas uses caps from Nichi.. that's using a part. The manufacturer designed the porting, put effort into a design. You took a whole speakerbox and put it in another box. You made an aluminum box with standoffs and put a Khardas board into it.
 
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