Audio-GD Singularity 19 DAC - Comprehensive Review and Impressions

I dunno, xRELICx has some unresolved anger issues and becomes somewhat abusive via PM on occasion- just try not liking a Chord product around him. Maybe that is his version of excitable, though.

It's amusing to sic Jude Squad on one of the acolytes, when they cross the line like that, though.

 

Now we're past the 24 hour of the S19 continuously being both powered up (and having a signal run through it in this case). There has been no discernible change to how this thing sounds since I last listened. And there wasn't much difference from initial power-on to the eight-hour mark. I think the biggest changes occurred in the first half an hour.

I do not like this DAC.

It is a bad DAC.

And it is rapidly running out of chances to improve ... playing with the jumper settings, where I can actually hear a difference, is just an exploration of slightly different flavors of really-rather-rank. I'm doing my best to save my most apt descriptions of what I'm hearing for the full write-up after giving it the extra warm-up time - but I think it might take @Psalmanazar to give a suitably fitting literary description that'll capture the essence of this thing as vividly @Hands' first post ...

 

Maybe it will turn white if you leave it out in the sun for a few days.

 

My full-impressions can be found in the "Life after Yggdrasil" thread, here (or as "full" as they're going to get as I can't deal with spending any more time listening to this thing).

It's almost tempting to post that full copy here, just to make sure it gets read by potentially interested purchasers, but generally I don't double-post stuff.

 

Because apparently I have nothing better (or worse) to do on a Saturday night, given what we know about the S19 I decided to document the lying, the shills, the deaf, the mentally ill, and Kingwa...


heliosphann

Astral Abyss

Kingwa

beano bomboozo

plesman

gk2013

TurbOSquiD67

 

Notice something in common? Most of them came from AudioGD gears. Hmm

 

Thank you to all who have suffered to save us from thing!

 

The Kingwa poster says you need 15 days 24 hours a day for burn-in...I wonder if he means 15 day before you tire of it and want to burn it up in a bonfire!

 

It's very seasonally appropriate, all this self-sacrificial suffering.

 

And it got more than that, starting with a claimed 100 hours at the factory*.

15 minutes is probably closer to reality ...

 

I am not as eloquent as Torq nor as succinct as Hands. The following is a visual analogy for my personal perception of my auditory experience with the S19.

For reference this is how I perceive the yggdrasil:


In comparison my visual analogy for a Bifrost MB:


Yet another comparison is my perception of a Concero HD (remember this includes my preferences - YMMV)


Now the Audio-gd S19:

 

I guess this is a good moment to quote Kingwa again, as he likened the S19 to the Master 7 in the past. What's more, apparently he was afraid that once released customers wouldn't like the PCM1704 designs anymore...

 

I don't think he needs to be too concerned there ...

Well, except for when he finds out that no one* likes the Singularity stuff and he can't get anymore 1704s.

That, and @atomicbob's graphic, are not encouraging.

--

*May exclude the clinically deaf, mentally ill, fully paid-up shills, fanboys, cloth-eared gits, people that had their ears surgically removed at birth, the stupid, frequenters of certain other audio-fora, retroactive abortion candidates and/or Belcerebon refugees from Kakrafoon Kappa's last Disaster Area concert.

 

Listening to just a few songs on the Concero HD, as a pre-audition check-in across the Ross Martin PCM1794A, Concero HD and Mousai MSD 192, while still not necessarily encouraging, shows that it is not the complete horror-show that is the Audio-GD S19*.

--

*Unfortunately I now read this as "Audio GOD DAMN SHIT 19".

 

For a few hundred dollars more than the S19 alone this entire system would provide infinitely more enjoyment:
System Synergy - Special Sound

 

I liked the original concero (so much that I bought it after trial), disliked the HD but didn't dislike the HP as an dac+amp, go figure...

 

That is useful to know. I have access to both the HD and HP. I should measure them and see if I can identify what attribute(s) of the HD bothers me so much. This is probably a personal preference attribute. @Tyll Hertsens found the HP to be an a great sounding unit.

 

Actually that would end that 3 or 4 year old doubt and confusion. It always mind-scre...boggled me since I've used 3 different amps (2 ss and 1 tube) with the original and the HD and the last always sounded so so digital to the point of being awkward.

 

We'll see how long this lasts ... before it gets deleted or the fanboys (aka "Audio-GD Defense Force") show up.

The first post is polite.

Any follow-ups won't be.