Wyred4Sound mINT Review (DAC & Amplifier)

[NTK]

They spelled integraDed instead of integraTed.

They seem to have finally noticed and corrected their spelling error.

 

[F1308]

I am shocked at how badly this measures. Ten years ago this was the DAC I would have bought if I'd had the money, at least based on reviews. I guess the financial crisis that left me unemployed at the time saved me from a bad purchase.

No hay mal que por bien no venga, they say in Spain.

 

[Walter]

Si, verdad.

 

[SMc]

I am shocked at how badly this measures. Ten years ago this was the DAC I would have bought if I'd had the money, at least based on reviews. I guess the financial crisis that left me unemployed at the time saved me from a bad purchase.

I feel a lot better about my NAD d3020!

 

[Atratusnex]

Smart companies making better than average gear will be sending Amir gear to test

PS we also have Wolf, hardisJ, solderdude and some others (sorry I can't remember you all) supplementing or corroborating the testing by Amir here on ASR. That too is a good thing as more and more people learn to look on ASR for results prior to purchases.

Some members on sbaf have measured drastically worse performance on topping, soncoz products than amir. I don't think that it is a good idea to let manufactures send Amir stuff directly anymore.
soncoz SGD1 and LA-QXD1
topping L30

to quote GoldenOne
For someone with as much swing as Amir, a better way to do it would be to tell a company that you're going to buy one yourself and have the company reimburse you, rather than them send one directly.
That way you know you're not getting a cherrypicked unit.

 

[amirm]

Some members on sbaf have measured drastically worse performance on topping, soncoz products than amir. I don't think that it is a good idea to let manufactures send Amir stuff directly anymore.
soncoz SGD1 and LA-QXD1
topping L30

to quote GoldenOne
For someone with as much swing as Amir, a better way to do it would be to tell a company that you're going to buy one yourself and have the company reimburse you, rather than them send one directly.
That way you know you're not getting a cherrypicked unit.

Careful. I have open offer from topping to buy any of their products in open market to test at their expense. Don't dishonor them without facts.

What he is showing for L30 routinely happens with both headphone and power amps due to poor quality dummy load. As current increases you get modulation effects that raise distortion. Everything from connectors to type of load resistor matters at these distortion levels.

Note that the effect is illusive in that how much feedback there is impacts the distortion level. I have put tons of effort in optimizing my loads or you would not see these incredibly low measured distortion levels.

Now, there may be a real issue there with the device but they first need to make sure they don't have instrumentation error before we go spend money on it.

 

[Atratusnex]

Careful. I have open offer from topping to buy any of their products in open market to test at their expense. Don't dishonor them without facts.

What he is showing for L30 routinely happens with both headphone and power amps due to poor quality dummy load. As current increases you get modulation effects that raise distortion. Everything from connectors to type of load resistor matters at these distortion levels.

Note that the effect is illusive in that how much feedback there is impacts the distortion level. I have put tons of effort in optimizing my loads or you would not see these incredibly low measured distortion levels.

Now, there may be a real issue there with the device but they first need to make sure they don't have instrumentation error before we go spend money on it.

First: thank you for your answer and some explanation. But my is one channel so much worse than the other one?
Second: Where did I dishonor topping? I never claimed anything about them.

If you got this offer from them, I think it would be best to expand it to all manufacturers and make this mandatory. Just to make sure that nobody sends cherry-picked units.

Any comment about the underperforming soncoz products? I found this one even stranger...

 

[JohnYang1997]

First: thank you for your answer and some explanation.
Second: Where did I dishonor topping? I never claimed anything about them.

If you got this offer from them, I think it would be best to expand it to all manufacturers and make this mandatory. Just to make sure that nobody sends cherry-picked units.

Any comment about the underperforming soncoz products? I found this one even stranger...

FYI, previously Topping had offered money to Amir to purchase from any shop.
And if you think something is suspicious, you are always free to send one to Amir to test.
This has always been the case.
From another perspective, cherry picking has very high risk. Any 3rd party with APx555 is able to perform measurements.
Oh sbaf. They don't understand the nature of 6.35mm plug/jack and how bad load can affect measured performance.
And you have to measure right at the output terminal.
Every L30 is measured twice (once bare board once completely assembled)by apx555 with 32ohm load. And it has to perform exactly how we want it.

 

[Atratusnex]

FYI, previously Topping had offered money to Amir to purchase from any shop.
And if you think something is suspicious, you are always free to send one to Amir to test.
This has always been the case.
From another perspective, cherry picking has very high risk. Any 3rd party with APx555 is able to perform measurements.
Oh sbaf. They don't understand the nature of 6.35mm plug/jack and how bad load can affect measured performance.
And you have to measure right at the output terminal.

I'm in Germany, i don't send my stuff around the world for Amir to test it. If i want something tested, i send it to oratory 1990 because he lives in the EU. Or i ask solderdude if he kindly wants to test it. (if it is a headphone / don't know anyone for DAC/ amp testing here)
But I don't get why this is a problem at all. Why isn't every company doing what you and Amir...
I mean, it wouldn't be that much more expensive, right? If they get clean and doubt free publicity with good measurements on ASR.

Do you have any idea why the soncoz products measure so much worse?

 

[JohnYang1997]

I'm in Germany, i don't send my stuff around the world for Amir to test it. If i want something tested, i send it to oratory 1990 because he lives in the EU. Or i ask solderdude if he kindly wants to test it. (if it is a headphone / don't know anyone for DAC/ amp testing here)
But I don't get why this is a problem at all. Why isn't every company doing what you and Amir...
I mean, it wouldn't be that much more expensive, right? If they get clean and doubt free publicity with good measurements on ASR.

Do you have any idea why the soncoz products measure so much worse?

If you read carefully it's very often either the members or the resellers/dealers are sending the units. Sure we do send our unit to Amir but mostly it's because we send to Amir before the dealers have them. EX5 for example is sent by SHENZHENAUDIO.

And sorry I don't have any idea why Soncoz products measure worse.

 

[F1308]

Si, verdad.

Nice try...
Much better would be " Sí, es verdad " or “ Sí que es verdad, sí ".

 

[Atratusnex]

If you read carefully it's very often either the members or the resellers/dealers are sending the units. Sure we do send our unit to Amir but mostly it's because we send to Amir before the dealers have them. EX5 for example is sent by SHENZHENAUDIO.

And sorry, I don't have any idea why Soncoz products measure worse.

I know that most of the testunits here aren't send by the manufacturer. Some are, schiit for example does this nowadays. I don't see much benefit in this. Seems quite risky for me.

 

[Walter]

Nice try...
Much better would be " Sí, es verdad " or “ Sí que es verdad, sí ".

Those are grammatically correct and quite possibly what would be said in Spain, but when I lived in Mexico, I heard "Si, verdad" far more than either of them. I always took it as sort of the slang equivalent of "true that" or similar expressions. Getting badly off topic, however. Sorry.

 

[F1308]

Those are grammatically correct and quite possibly what would be said in Spain, but when I lived in Mexico, I heard "Si, verdad" far more than either of them. I always took it as sort of the slang equivalent of "true that" or similar expressions. Getting badly off topic, however. Sorry.

Never been to Mejico lindo, speaking from Spain...while jumping off topic with you.
Wait...jump...ers could probably have any relationship to Wyred4Sound mINT Review (DAC & Amplifier)...?

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I almost bought one of these in 2015 when I was putting together a new, compact system around my LS 50s. For some reason (the class d amplification, I seem to remember) I demurred.

Whole lot of money for that level of performance. Would be nice is someone could put together something with levels of performance in line with the expectations of this community and price it under $2k. MiniDsp Shd Integrated, maybe?

 

[Standingstones]

This case design has to be one of the ugliest I have ever seen.

 

[amirm]

First: thank you for your answer and some explanation. But my is one channel so much worse than the other one?

Each load has an independent path to the amplifier and its own dummy load (resistor) so the problem is usually channel dependent. I just ran into this with my power amp testing and saw one channel go much higher in distortion. Checked the screws on my terminals and one had come loose. Tightening it and 90% of the deviation went away (the other 10% was in the unit itself). Dummy load resistors are tricky to pick as they don't come with the specifications for this type of distortion. You really have to test them to make sure they don't add their own distortion. I went through this extensively with Benchmark AHB2 when I initially could not get the same results as them. Benchmark sent me their dummy load which made it clear mine were the problem. I had not seen the issue prior to that due to amplifiers not being as good as theirs and feedback level differing.

 

[amirm]

Whole lot of money for that level of performance. Would be nice is someone could put together something with levels of performance in line with the expectations of this community and price it under $2k. MiniDsp Shd Integrated, maybe?

This is the idea behind the streamer project we have created. My hope is that once we get that, then someone can marry it to an amplifier and give us an all in one package with great performance and functionality.

 

[amirm]

I don't see much benefit in this.

The benefit is that you get independent measurements by me the day the product is announced. You don't read the announcement, then wait weeks for independent tests. People have to buy blind otherwise which is a much higher risk than hand picked units.

To be clear, I have black listed at least one company and won't measure their gear if they attempt to send it to me. And there are others who are in my gray list. But in general, I don't think this is a serious problem as the risks for manufacturers is quite high. And the amount of "gaming" that could be done is quite small.

 

[JohnYang1997]

For us using 1 to 2 adapter at headphone output terminal is good enough for -140dB distortion for headphone amps.
For power amps, I use EBG UXP 800W thick film resistors. They work very well.
The AHB2 situation should be that the output coil is adding output impedance so the resistor voltage coefficient induced distortion pops up. Purifi 1ET400A EVAL1 has feedback right at the output terminal even without cable. This distortion is minimized/eliminated.