asliarun wrote:I highly recommend audio gd DACs. You should ignore the bad English on the site. However, kingwa who is the brains behind the show is very forthright and gives good advice too. I have a lower end model that I run as a DAC and preamp and my next upgrade will certainly be a audio gd too.
I mentioned I was going to stay out of the DAC discussion for lack of experience. But I own the Audio GD Fun.
I really like that it is flexible. It functions as a DAC, preamp, and headphone amp. Or any combination of the three. It makes a really nifty desktop computer headphone unit, but then I end up using it as my monitor control and signal selector for my audio engineering equipment. And then I end up borrowing it for my listening room.
It is a very fine unit for two channel headphone listening. I have a dedicated headphone amplifier that can come after it, but I don't see the point in plugging it in.
However, I'm not completely convinced the Audio GD Fun is a superbly sounding unit. The primary complaint I have in my listening room is that the sound seems to come out of the left speaker or right speaker or center, not a wide selection of in-between. I'm suffering from poor imaging.
My friend Don, who was building amps with me, said that getting a new amp would fix that right up. My friend Oliver said that was nonsense, and that I need a new DAC. Well, the amp is finished and hasn't solved it. So maybe it is the DAC to blame. But I don't have another to test with. Maybe I should invite someone over with a different DAC to see if the Fun is indeed my weak link.
Another hypothesis is that my poor imaging is due to how Windows handles audio output. I've read a tremendous quantity of material on the subject, but it does still seem to be a bit of a mystery to effectively and conveniently bypass all the damage Windows does and any unnecessary sample rate conversion.
Asliarun, which DAC do you have by Audio GD? Have you noticed poor imaging? Have you been able to compare it with other DACs?