Audio-GD NFB-1 Head Amp Impressions

Yeah, you're right. China is indeed the biggest market and China does indeed have better wiring than some other developing countries around Asia. I'm probably just talking out of my arse then.

But... I know not every system in the world has ground/neutral. Some places still don't. Hell, not every home in the U.S. has ground/neutral either, though thankfully, it's easier to "get" ground/neutral simply by connecting to the grid in the U.S., as opposed to elsewhere where they have no central ground/neutral system.

The main problem, from my understanding, is not lack of ground/neutral per se but that due to poor wiring (and sometimes omission of ground/neutral), voltage spikes and other weird stuffs can happen, which means the mains in these places are dirty as heck. Having ground/neutral typically means something is "stable enough" and it won't spike up or fluctuate or do weird things.

Maybe there's some truth to this:
https://gizmodo.com/obsessed-audiophiles-in-japan-are-installing-their-own-1785291714

I can't claim to understand enough about electricity to really tell whether ^ that makes sense, but I can at least tell that to my ears, bad mains < battery power < good mains < well-regulated mains.

 

Yeah, the wiring out here can be pretty damn dodgy alright. I'm in Hong Kong, and even here I've seen some scary looking, bodged together stuff. Spaghetti mess mains boards, household wiring just plastered right into the walls without conduits.

I hadn't realised that some countries could have systems without a ground- to me that sounds a hair short of insane.

 

I think these things deserve a name befitting their status in the industry and sonic properties. As such, they should rename them after popular sex toys. After all, if you've use one, you know you've been fucked.

 

THE ULTIMATE HIFI PLUS ULTRA STACK


Seven inches, I didn't know they stacked shit that high!!

 

The shit stack you don't wanna get.

 

Wow, wow, wow!
I received the NFB-1 loaner yesterday. I promise I had forgotten @Bill-P’s comments. All I could remember was that poo piling had occurred after the first round of impressions. I got it set up and running for some brief listening. After a couple of hours of listening, I’ve been struggling with how to say the things quoted above. I get ready to start typing, read @BILL-P’s comments, and find he did it for me. I was thinking of a nozzle, where the sound goes through, the pressure builds up before exit, and then it all just squirts out, leaving a bit behind. (Edit - rereading that last sentence and it sounds disgusting. Oh well...) What seems to me to get left behind is whatever conveys emotion. What comes out just seems to fall a bit . . . flat?

I’m not sure I agree with @Bill-P’s comments on dynamics. It could be my Ether C v1.1’s. Not really known for bringing out dynamics. The NFB-1 seemed to have more impact than my Liquid Crimson, it’s just that what was impacting was not all that great in comparison. Probably That compression effect again. When it gets throug the nozzle, it has greater velocity. Unfortunately , some of the good stuff gets scraped off on the way. It seemed to hit hard enough, it was just missing something. Also - I’ve met@Bill-P at a couple of meets, heard an amp he built and a few headphones he’s tuned. It is a fact that Bill is more of a bass-head then I, and stands to reason he would miss any lack of bass and slam more than I do.

I did not quote @Bill-P’s comments on sound stage. I suck at hearing and describing the subtleties of sound stage. Add to my shortcomings the Ether C’s relatively compressed sound stage, and it makes sense to leave this part of the discussion to others better equipped.

Compressed - yes! The first thought I had when I switched to the NFB-1. Sure, the Cavalli is a pretty nice amp, arguably not a fair comparison. I’ve had several mid-fi amps that are a good price comparison to the NFB-1. I don’t recall feeling this with other amps. Hell, I don’t notice it from my Chord Mojo. The Mojo’s a nice portable DAC- Amp thingie, but should be no competition to an amp like the NFB-1. This just points to a lack of a basic competency that an amp should possess.

Smeared and blurry - yes. What I’ll describe as micro dynamics (and hope I’m using the term correctly) - the little ticks on the bell of the highhat and the chsh, chsh little percussion sounds in Dire Straight’s “Ride Across the River” (Brothers in Arms). They just stayed buried in the mire.

All in, I did not hate the NFB-1. In the absence of a good comparison, I probably would have thought it was “fine.”

Build is pretty nice, the shape is odd, and the attenuator and gain levels for high and low seem pretty useful. Heck, I run my Liquid Crimson through a Sys set at 12:00 just to get useful volume knob travel on low gain. Now, That garish BLUE display. The display is blinding, and kind of ugly with 3/4” tall, almost nixie like numbers and letters. Plus you can read by it. Or suntan. Let’s be nice and call it functional.

Summary - decent build, ok sound with a few glaring flaws, in comparison to a competent amp. If you didn’t know any better, well, you’d think it was fine. And you’ be missing . . . Something. Always something. And you wouldn’t even necessarily know it.

I’ll update with any changes in impressions as I listen. I’ll also give the SE outs a listen. I’ve just listened through the balanced out. My Liquid Crimson is SE, but has a 4 pin XLR wired as SE as a convenience, so it was easiest to bounce from NFB-1 balanced to my amp.

Oh - my rig, for the record:
2011 MacBook Air through Amarra USB (sheesh, how’d I get sucked into that one) or an AK100ii optical out (not that bad, really). Schiit Bifrost Multibit with USB v2. Cavalli Liquid Crimson with the stock tube (Genalec current manfacture?). Ether C v1.1 with one black baffle pad. No black pad when using Amarra as the one good thing about it is a decent EQ with a preset that does right by the Ether C.

Hah! @brencho - that photo is a stack I almost owned. I had the Dac19, and wanted the NFB-1 for a matching stack. To think my object of lust has turned out to be tarnished and flawed....

 

Quite a while back I had the Audio-GD Phoenix amp and it was definitely on the warm/smooth side of the spectrum, because of this it was actually not a bad match for the unmodded HD800 I had back then. I think the warm/smooth/flat/dark/"limpdick" sound is just the audio-GD house sound. The main reason I sold it so soon was that you could feel the heat coming off it by just looking at it, basically like sitting next to a radiator. And I imagine the powerbill would have been nasty if I had kept it. I'm not an expert but I believe a lof of hi-fi enthusiast in Asia actually want this overly smooth, warm, syrupy, velvet like sound. For them it's high-end and the perfect sound to relax to, or so I've read. US hi-fi in general is much more about dynamics and bass and attack, a sound that is impressive and stands out right away.

 

I have the PCB and all the parts right now. Building is going slow.

 

That's awesome, will be great to hear impressions and maybe even have a meet to compare some amps. Good luck with the build man!

 

Too busy motorboating

 

I threw up a little.

 

Or...

g). I pay SBAF $30 for the right to go all Office Space Party on the damn thing and video tape it.

Just saying.