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Review and Measurements of New JDS Labs Atom Headphone Amp

Roen

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-Schiit magni has a poor knob that tends to get scratchy
-Schiit support is a total shitshow
-Schiit has the same price as the Liquid spark and the Atom in order of performance..
-Monoprice support is very slow and overall rather poor...
-Atom has world class support, JDS Labs deserves a freaking award for their friendliness and speed, really impressed me
But yes, it is a decent device if you like the looks of the magni and would not call someone crazy to buy one, not at all;

To call it "much better value" than the JDS Atom though? Doubtful
Doesn't the premium metal housing have grounding issues?
 

Roen

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I have learned more than a little bit from economy, thank you. Not that you are right literally ("greed is good" is literally the encouraging argument of modern market philosophies) at all, or even semantically. You literally defined greed yourself. The issue here seems to be your problem with the word "greed", which has negative connotations (for obvious reasons). He IS being greedy. But lucky for him, greed isn't outlawed. Only frowned upon, which is what we're doing by criticizing him now.



Performance only matters relative to other products on the market. Products like, you know, the Khadas DAC.

Also, it costs $420, not $300. Though it needs to be said that the really ever so generous and 100% non-greedy March Audio are currently providing it for an introductory price of $350. What a bargain!
You should totally sell it for $325. Easy money right there.
 
D

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As @amirm said, if people are so convinced that this is absurd, and that it would not be difficult to sell this at $200 for a complete tone board + case, thus generating a $100 profit, they are welcome to do so.

But I doubt there will be any takers. And until there are, there really is no argument for the state of the retail market, since no one else seems to want to make easy money.

$200, or rather $220, not $100. The $350 price is an introductory sales price. Of course you purposefully omit to mention that.

Also, your argument is pretty terrible. So, I'm not allowed to criticize any product or their price, unless I can sell them cheaper personally? I guess I can't criticize a movie, without directing a better movie, criticize a football player without playing football better, or criticize a smartphone without engineering a better device. What are all us users in here doing on this forum, shitting on Schiit and their products, when we haven't gone out made our on products, proving that we can do a better job?

As @amirm You seem to conflate being able to build a DIY product at a cost much cheaper than an assembled product sold at retail with infrastructure, support, warranty

Ok, fine. Then we should also mention that the thing retails at $420, not $350, as you claim. That's an additional $70. Or that the Khadas board itself is being sold for a $100 consumer price; that's considerably more than what the supplier costs are. So here alone, $100 has been omitted by me, in my generous calculation of production cost. I am confident in speculating that it more than makes up for the supposed undervaluing you think I was doing...

As @amirm You know what I did? Bought the board and a DIY case. Because I talk with my wallet and find that product overpriced for what its worth to me. But I don't, in 100 years, think that it's close to a scam. It's just priced for someone who doesn't want to assemble it, wants a good looking case, and wants the convenience of it shipped to them, and is willing to pay for that convenience. And there exists a market for such a convenience.

TIL a case smaller than your hand, and putting a finished DAC (which they also make profit off of -- don't forget) in it, is worth the cost of $300. Apparently that's reasonable for people not bothering to do it themselves.

I better call my domestic PC hardware store, who took $80 in payment of putting together my desktop PC (that's up to 10 different components needing to be carefully put together by an individual, taking far longer time). $80 for the work + $70 for the ATX case I bought (hint; its size is much larger than a hand-sized case, and also more complex). Apparently I'm getting a bargain here. They guys should ask several hundreds more for their work! Also, I should note that "support, warranty and a brand name" are included in the their costs as well. Because, you know, stores usually never do that!
 
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daftcombo

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Why does the March Dac1 have a SINAD of 111 and the KTB only of 110?
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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I'm new-ish here and not a mod but I don't think Khadas Tone Board case discussions and March Audio DAC-1 price discussions need to be in the JDS Labs Atom review thread.
Correct. Let's stay on JDS Atom Labs please.
 

Roen

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Correct. Let's stay on JDS Atom Labs please.
Perhaps your mod powers could move the posts to their appropriate threads? Truth be told, I'm not even sure how this topic came up, I joined in midway.
 
D

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Why does the March Dac1 have a SINAD of 111 and the KTB only of 110?

The significant price tag of the incomparable and supreme case, as well as the massive amounts of quality work to put everything together and quality control the DAC itself, made the costs too big to handle. There’s only so much they can do with a $320-per-unit working budget to integrate the DAC in a case, after all. Thankfully, though, it’s an insignificant difference, and one still ends up with a TOTL unit that provides “excellence in unit” on an exceptional price/perf ratio. It’s even currently on a $350 practically giveaway sales price. I'd be surprised if it didn't sell in droves.
 
D

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Anybody got any good recommendations for (very) short and cable management-friendly RCA-cables to use for the JDS Atom, along with an external DAC (like the Khadas)? Burned myself too many times on buying RCA cables that are either utter crap, or turn out to be, online.
 

Roen

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Anybody got any good recommendations for (very) short and cable management-friendly RCA-cables to use for the JDS Atom, along with an extern DAC (like the Khadas)? Burned myself too many times on buying RCA cables that are either utter crap, or turn out to be, online.

I personally use Blue Jeans Cables for both the D50 and the KTB. Pretty good quality for $30?
 

daftcombo

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Anybody got any good recommendations for (very) short and cable management-friendly RCA-cables to use for the JDS Atom, along with an extern DAC (like the Khadas)? Burned myself too many times on buying RCA cables that are either utter crap, or turn out to be, online.

Now that's an appropriate question for this thread! ;-)

I think that any RCA cables will do unless they are broken.
 
D

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I personally use Blue Jeans Cables for both the D50 and the KTB. Pretty good quality for $30?

Nice, thx. How short are yours -- or, how short can they reasonably be customized to work for stacks without issue?
 

Roen

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Shortest that they'll build, 1 ft I believe.

The stack is a bit offset, you may need longer. I don't mind the imperfection. It's due to how stiff the cables are.
 

milw50717

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I just made some 1 foot RCA cables (using Belden 1505F) for my Atom and KTB. I felt that I could have comfortably gone down to about 8" as 1505F is quite flexible.

Actually, I just checked and the BJC LC-1 is less flexible than the 1505F, but at least you can visualise a 1' cable on the atom and a small DAC.
 

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NemoReborn

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At least 6 different studies have shown that 73% of statistics are made up...


:) Sorry a little levity. Back to lurking.


it was totaly made up !!! i called 50% because the difference for me was night and day , obvious ... so i said 50% , but yea , words are maths , but not everybody are that clever.
 

ngs428

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Anybody got any good recommendations for (very) short and cable management-friendly RCA-cables to use for the JDS Atom, along with an external DAC (like the Khadas)? Burned myself too many times on buying RCA cables that are either utter crap, or turn out to be, online.

Just buy the Monoprice one they are selling on the JDS website. It is linked in the Atom product page.
 

maxxevv

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If it was that easy to make money selling a case for $50, one should try doing it commercially and report back on the results.

The price point is what it is, and it's (currently) very transparent as to what the product is.

It would be a scam if you didn't know what you were getting, but right now, it's (arguably) just a poor value.

Not all poor values are scams.

That is correct.

Its not as easy as people simplistically think it is. It requires a fair investment of time, material and money to get one done. Not to mention the background sunken costs such as a decent CAD software and CAD workstation.

$300 (300% increase) for a simplistic case, and the awfully easy work to get the khadas in it? Are you being serious, dude? That's probably one of the closest things to a scam that isn't a scam.

Its not the so cheap as you think it is without significant quantities. I am qualified to speak for that as I have actually made my own CNC case that's very similar to the one on March's DAC offering. As a one off sample, it costs as much, if not a little more than the KTB itself. And that is not counting the man hours I put into designing it. Mind you, I have been doing mechanical design for close to 2 decades, and I charge my clients for my man hours to do such work. How much specifically, depends on job and value of project.

Not to mention the software and computer hardware I use that amortizes over 3~4 years and costs in the range of US$25k in total.

In business, you charge what the client is willing to pay and adjust the deliverables accordingly. Not what you think are willing to take for what the customer wants from you.

The proof is in the pudding:
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Added a temporary Blue LED for aesthetics as well as power/function indication as original KTB LED was obscured.

20190227_235403.jpg
 

Mimizone

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Anybody got any good recommendations for (very) short and cable management-friendly RCA-cables to use for the JDS Atom, along with an external DAC (like the Khadas)? Burned myself too many times on buying RCA cables that are either utter crap, or turn out to be, online.
I have a 0.5ft cable and 1ft cable from WORLDS BEST CABLES
they cost less than $20 and very convenient if you stack your DAC and amps closely on top of each other but don't want too much slack in the back.

0.5ft cable
1ft cable
 
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