Fingers straight into the lens, shaky, out of focus and blurred vids - all the goodies in spades.
I do hifi / associated stuff reviews and modding guides (trying to hide and smuggle some technical knowledge for you inside).
No intros, no outros, no fancy animations and miniatures with me making faces to equipement.
Just the important stuff: build quality, engineering perspective, sound quality.
Over the years I've usually shared back to community on head-fi and other audio forums, but it's 2024 and I think YT is the best way to reach and help you out.
If you think you have something interesting, that I could review in my channel, feel free to reach me via my mail.
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Another great review. have the Fake Vodka, firebird, and Thunderbird. With them all sound so similar thru my Martin Logan’s I’m starting to think that they are all the same internally🤔 It would be interesting to see what’s inside of the Vodka as you mentioned, Since you have 3 of them and they are only $16 bucks each it would neat be to see what they got going on inside of them. Anyway keep up the good work. I’m really looking forward to your final power cord shootout and Dragon XLR thoughts. Have a great day👍🏻🙂
@@JohnB-pw8wz Thanks!
I came here just for the comments, lol
Halo , sir ! Can show the whole process and what material to use ? Tq
Seriously??? Okay lets be rational ... If you hook a chain to your back bumper and leave the other end on the ground, how many cars will move when you drive away? A chain going to nothing... does nothing. Same here... a chunk of wire going noplace does nothing.
Actually stray currents induced in shielding or cases are real. same goes for internal components, though its debatable if the scale there is large enough to let you hear the change. This would work as a sink for free flow electrons BUT not the same way as grouding this as this would not close the circuit. On the physics level I buy this as I can understand the rules and this sticks to my professional knowledge. However as I said, there is just one system that I have that is transparent enough to have any effect. If youll read comments below one of the guys says these are AA batteries with + connected, that would be even better as a sink. You can try this for like 1 usd on your setup.
Even after auditioning 3 separate AVR's, the same ambient sound of the room was still present! That told me the unwanted faint background signal noise I had been experiencing had nothing to do with the actual units. Therefore, my attention changed to the cables. And even then It was only on the third occasion after I finally purchased shielded cables that the noise floor within my small room finally came down to satisfactory levels. Cables often act as antennas for attracting RF, and the longer the cable, the better the antenna. Probably explains why when I used to disconnect my heights and surrounds within 10 minutes, the faint background signal noise (RF/EMI) within my small room used to disappear/dissipate. Trying to achieve a totally silent room sadly has turned into a bit of an obsession for me. Doesn't help when ones 2-channel stereo also entails an extra 7 channels that are externally amplified (5.2.4) The more cables I shield, the quieter my room becomes, and the better the shielding, the more the chance the cables are likely to disappear. If one has similar sensitivities as myself and is looking to address this matter, but is also hoping to notice the incremental differences, I would suggest analogue cables of length first before moving on to digital and power cables. When friends or guests come over, I used to show them how loud the system goes. Now I prefer to press mute and show them how my quiet it goes. None of them gets it, of course 😂
There is a proper way to ground something in a system. Ground it to the chassis of a grounded device in your system. In any case there is ONE SINGLE way of making sure something is doing what is supposed to do or not and that is MEASURING the system with and without the gadget. Otherwise, blacker backgrounds and all the rest of such subjective impressions can be placebo and are worth nothing in my book. How long will it take for audiophiles to get in line with the rest of our technical civilisation?
why it need 5? lol
Ok, for that low of a price I bought the castors just to see how they compare to the nothing ear 2024 and the liberty 3 pro. I will hopefully be able to report on it once they arrive.
Please do! Im buying them to see how far have we got with cheap headphnones lately, Im used to hiend stuff and Im surpirised how good these (and other KZs) are. 5y ago something for 5 bucks would sound butt ugly :)
As long as you KNOW it’s fake, how can you recommend that?!?
Its a wire, a cable. Branding aside, on technical level, this is just bunch of isolated wires. But I do not and I will not link to any shops selling these
All you need is an RCA shorting plug. None of this BS.
Mine will be here in 2 days. Im excited!
Please do share you thoughts here, ok? Thanks!
Description from ebay : Ultra-high density semiconductor wafer, isolation sealing epoxy resin The photo shows the resin inside...still a quest whats really inside 🙂
I have cut them open... AA battery in black epoxy... Lead solder to + terminal. Uses positive pole to attract negatively charged electrons
@@TheDocAudioShow So this actuallu would be different from regular grounding boxes: I think I need to cut one of mine open. Or use magnet, charged AAs should react.
You can't use sand it has to be a piezo electric cristal, they convert electrisity to heat/vibration. They all contain a charge and from fysic's we knov that electrons want's eqiliberty (tha same way a batery discharges) but if you apply current to a ctistal it start's to vibrate like a crystal ocilator in a watch or a dac (quartz). you should try the bigger boxes they have a big impact om dac's (conect to signal ground on rca)
Yes this is easy to try - just a big box, bowl , or aything really filled with sand
@@k4syx Sand will not work!! It has to be a piezo electric cristal like tormaline or quartz!!! There are several U-tube clips on the prppretys of piezo electric cristal watch them. Just stop caling it sand it willl not work.
I made my own ground box. In a wooden box I put iron dust, aluminium dust, glass, ceramic, charcoal, rock salt, tourmaline and sand. I made some kind of copper pattern inside this cocktail and solder it to speaker terminals behind the box. You can connect all your equipments.
I did this too, but you can make it so much better. The trick, see my content it shows my systems sound, run from this box some big 300+ farad ultracapitor connect + to this box and negative to true ground, then do the same with a big kemet 100,000uf or bigger hook it up the same and use kemet the best for low esr ripple for under 100hz... Those two things added to your setup now will blow you away
@TheDocAudioShow I think your approach is different than mine. I think both work...
@@barskuleli8612 no it's not, I've gone to the end of the end with my grounding system. I also used Oscilloscopes to verify and test everything, including listening. You have a lot of noise remaining on your system I guarantee it. Trust me, the caps will shunt the nosie to ground and the polarity won't allow back feed. I guarantee you are blown away with a maxwell s19 325F cap and 150,000 kemet 25v cap + to your box negative to wall ground. You will be truly blow away... You can do more than this. When you see how much better this sounds, reach out and I'll tell you how to take it farther. Guarantee
You forgot to add salt 'n pepper.
@razisn I added salt don't worry about it..
If you want to do this for cheap, and better, take 7-8 AA batteries, use copper double sided tape that is conductive in both sides and connect all the + poles and - poles together. Then attach the POSITIVE terminal to your equipment ground points. Leave the negative pole unconnected OR to enhance the effect connect the negative pole to true ground at your wall. Trust me, I have the most extensive ground system around.. This plus many other things.
Thats actually interesting thing to do, and easy to try, looks safe too. I'll try that sometime in the summer! This would work better as a "sink"
They are not sand or crystals. These are AA batteries encased in black epoxy trust me I have like 10 of them. They work but you can make your own very easily. You can see my system, I use them, they do work.
Hi Doc, can‘t see this in your Videos? Make a Video and open one. Tell us more about your capacitors? Thanks greetings Dirk
Why did you remove my comment? I cut these open. They work for sure. They are AA batteries... Using the + terminal to attract negative charged electrons...
very interresting, i will sacriffice mine and see
@@terriludolf6101 I cut two open... Trust me they are AA batteries
I did not, I never touch any comments under my videos (Ive actually answered a bit above)
If you'd like to recondition the DBS case, just wipe it down with Rubbing Alcohol ;~) I wonder how it compares to the fake Water cables, which I have seen on Ali recently.
Yes I know it will loose all rubber coating and everything:) Same story with Cambridge Audio remotes. I haven't seen fake Water, only Earth, Fire and Sky
@@k4syx And the alcohol won't remove the coating, it will recondition it and make it not sticky.
@@barryecohen that's interesting as I was always using isopropyl alcohol to remove such sticky coatings. What kind of alcohol are you using?
I see some fake audioquest wild digital and some dragon rca and for and was curriuosi if you will be reviewing these ? And perhaps some fake audioquest sky from years baxk?
I have lined up for review dragon XLR and thunderbird RCA. I don't think I'll be buying more of them, especially the older series fakes.
I ordered one of the "vodka" hdmi cables from Ali express a couple years ago for like $18. Works good.
hi. again very intresting. how much is this power cable on ali? thank you!
About 60USD for 1.5m
Hi, thanks for the honest review. I took two of these and tested them heavily for a month after 200 hours of burn in period with Sparkos OPAs. I really give them a chance and my conclusion is the same like yours. They are good for the money and good for the desktop application. So, don't expect the miracles from these amps especially if you are used to bigger solid state Class A or similar amps. On one amp I went a one step further and I have replaced the power capacitors and signal capacitors with same values but it totally messed the sound picture of amp. The quality of installed components is questionable, including factory installed OPAs. The quality of PCB, trace lines and pads is really poor. BTW, I have Aiyima A07 Pro amplifier and I prefer the sound of Aiyima more.
Yes these are good value for the money, but the hype is not real. BTW thats interesting what you're saying about A07 Pro. For some reason I find A07 Pro with better opamps one of the amps I want to keep, souds really good though the build is not as simple as others and it has dreaded bass and treble controls ;)
@@k4syx I use A07 Pro in combination of OPA1612 and BB OPA2604 and to me A07 sound neutral and natural. Even with affordable TI LME49720NA A07 Pro will sound transparent. Pair it with warm sounding DAC (e.g. AKM bases) or in my case DIY tube DAC and you have everything for good start. With Fosi's I always have feeling there is something around music and it not part of original recording (i.e. some kind of noise is present).
One thing for safety... please... do not go inside the amp with a metal pointer... use chinese bamboo sticks or something... no metal... something may stil be charged inside depending upon how long it was disconnected....just saying..
It was ok, as long as Im staying away from caps or pcb. But yes I should give any ideas about that :)
I think this is the "original" cable ,but rejected for small production imperfection or made in "night shift" for a grey market 😮
Absolutly not!!!! Other materials dielectric, others wires and geometry! Fake - its Fake, illusion great quallity thing...nothing more....
This is possible!
Im still testing the one I purchased right now
Sound demo starts at 1:01(Jonas Blue - Fast Car), 2:02 (London Philharmonic - Messiah Hallelujah Chorus), 2:26 (Stairway to Heaven Female Vocal Cover), 4:53 (LP - Night Like This), 6:27 (Terry Evans - Get Your Lies Straight), 8:17 (Michael Patrick Kelly - Roundabouts), 9:16 (Sonata Arctica - Letter To Dana), 10:09 (Scorpions - Still Loving You)
Do you use subwoofers with your ELACs?
Nope. I have one for my AVR & Ascents, but this was recorded without sub
Why no sound test? Is it that bad?
I'm recording these with my phone and then it goes through KZread compression. And the most of the viewers watch it on mobile. That's recipe for shitty sound with a hint of additional shittines :)
Excellent review!!!
If its just a power amplifier and there is no pre amp are the knobs on the front purely decorative?
It's power amp with two pots added in line right after RCAs to attenuate input signal, so no preamp stage :)
@@k4syx Good to know, thanks. Do you think it might pair well with the SOUNDARTIST LS5/9 its 86db at 8ohm?
@@zenboy2000 should be fine, but remember this is just 20W per channel so no disco listening levels with less sensitive speakers.
Nice mod. I had an acrylic cover made for the amplifier. The interior is too beautiful to hide behind metal.
Cool idea!
I got one on ebay, but the version with more expensive transformer. I regularly check it with my oscilloscope, and I have to say I was stunned to see it was as good as my $900 audiophile pro-ject power supply.
I am interested to see if you need further mod to make it better. Or what further mod you will do later
It's not like it needs modding, it's great straight from the box. But it can be better. Bypassing the pots, using real preamp, later maybe soldering some nice silver plated solid cores between RCAs and PCBs, that would be my choices
I purchased both, the DartZeel D5 Pro clone and the MF A1 clone. As both continue to “burn in” -here are my first impressions. (For reference, I have about 25 receivers/amps in my collection; my reference amp is a vintage Marantz 2252b that you can purchase for ~$USD 1600. This Marantz is exceptionally musical, open and clear. My reference speakers include an 8 foot tall set of Voigt Pipes and and Open Baffle’ (18 inch bass driver, 12 inch mid and two asd1001 tweeters): Compared to the Marantz both the the D5 and A1 are significantly more veiled ~40% less “open-transparent-clear” (mid range and tweeters). The D5 is about 10% better than the A1 - making the A1 clone the better purchase. I would say that both offer relative value, given the price. Sonically they both compare well to the Schiit Vidar. They are not giant killers. I would be looking at both as platforms for experimentation e.g. replace capacitors etc. Please share your experience with these!
I purchased both, the DartZeel D5 Pro clone and the MF A1 clone. As both continue to “burn in” -here are my first impressions. (For reference, I have about 25 receivers/amps in my collection; my reference amp is a vintage Marantz 2252b that you can purchase for ~$USD 1600. This Marantz is exceptionally musical, open and clear. My reference speakers include an 8 foot tall set of Voigt Pipes and and Open Baffle’ (18 inch bass driver, 12 inch mid and two asd1001 tweeters): Compared to the Marantz both the the D5 and A1 are significantly more veiled ~40% less “open-transparent-clear” (mid range and tweeters). The D5 is about 10% better than the A1 - making the A1 clone the better purchase. I would say that both offer relative value, given the price. Sonically they both compare well to the Schiit Vidar. They are not giant killers. I would be looking at both as platforms for experimentation e.g. replace capacitors etc. Please share your experience with these!
That's not exactly fair to compare them to 1600usd Marantz:) Yes they have great modding potential and when compared to something with similar or even somewhat bigger price they win hands down. For me the interesting thing is that these basically scratch the surface of the clones market, as there are copies of different brands going for as much as 2k USD. Thanks for sharing!
Give the reason why you need to bypass the volume control.
1. It's made with very cheap pots 2. It's very hard to match the volume level setting by hand with two separate pots
You should try the A1000 Clone
Can you share a link?
Dear Sir, i am seriously considering Firebird or Dragon fake AQ cable... when you were ordering yours - did they came from Europe center by Ciaoniao (or soemthing like that) or did it actually went through customs and you payed customs charges?? please let me know... (i am worried that customs might recognize a fake and burn them like they did with some of the goodies i tried to import from ALi before)...
They came straight from China. I don't see how they could tell a fake if I barely can ;) Besides, this is speaker wire. Who sane would fake a CABLE? :D
@@k4syx that is correct, i agree ... but, our customs are crazy... they will check the price of the cable and want to charge the customs charges for it - if i tell them it is costing way lower, they will assume it might be a fake........ have seen that before..... so, comming straight from China and not through Hungary or some EU Ali distribution center, might raise a red flag at customs......
@@DanielMustran_ND-Pipessorry to hear that... Where are you from?
@@k4syx.... Croatia..... i would really love to get that Firebird.... but for me it would be to take a risk and potentially loose the money if they stop it there....
@@k4syx i managed to get some feedback if guys are sending to Croatia with success.. it seems they do no problem. do you have any clue how Firebird is going against Dragon speaker cable.... from your standpoint... thank you
Вы случайно не из россии?
Hi! English please, ok? I don't speak russian..
Using a PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP Integrated and have installed KT-170's). As for the grease on the Audio Tubes, clean your hands, wear gloves but, grease ONLY effects (short bulb life) Halogen Lightbulbs.
Wish i have known this amp before i bought the Rotel Michi X5 for my Dynaudio Heritage Special speakers. Then again the X5 is dual mono and looks the part with the digital screen. You can control the bass and treble to.
This is also beautiful dual mono setup, though no tone controls as this is pure power amp. You can still get it as it's really cheap and compare them - let the best one stay, sell the other one :)
This one for the summer and the Fidelity a1 for cosy winters.😊 Do you remember the Dussun V6i and V8i? Also the multi channel D9? I owned V8i and D9 for home theatre. It was a clone from the Red Rose from Mark Levinson. Then again the V8i was a beast for power hungry speakers. On other speakers the D9 was more musical?? Sold these amps but it was a mistake. Got a class D instead. While the class D with some speakers was great it didn't work out with other speakers.
These are better than class D. I'm following developments in class D because there's a lot of things going on, quite rapidly. But it's still not comparable in SQ to such beasts. Yes, class D will use less current (way less current) and it's great for the money, but soundwise this is better. I had no idea that there are multichannel clones, seems like good idea (vs stacking 3 D5PROs one on top of another :))
There is still a video of the V6i and V8i from 1 year ago from Christian Schwarzbeck that shows the insides of the amps. I guess you can still buy these. I paid 1200 euro for the V8i 10+ years ago but i see the V6i is 1500 euro nowadays so it has gone up in price wich is reasonable. Dussun D9 you can use as a stereo amp but you need a surround processor for the other channels. Correct me if i'm wrong it is to long ago.
I just saw a video of the D9 with Linn Espec speakers. I realise for a home theatre you only need a surround processor like an Emotiva or a receiver that has the outputs to do so and have a multichannel setup that rivals the best sound for compared to the best commercial home theatre receivers that are out today and do stereo better then these.
@@GentielioGaming that's good idea, getting three of them would give better quality for less money than f.e. my Azur 751Rv2
Dear Sir.. i much appreciate your reviews... they are great... right now i need a speaker cable but i am not willing to invest an arm and a leg in it... Seems you are in Europe... did you have any problems with customs entering EU???
Nope, nothing really. Customs judge the value based on the invoice value (for stuff over 150Eur) so there's no problem because the value there is always lower. And you know, these are cables. Who sane would pay for them more than 150Euro? ;)
I agree... i am just worried because in Croatia they are super crazy at customs
@@k4syx i am considering to get Firebird speaker cable... that is well over 150Euro.... so, i am worried if it does not arrive from EU center of distribution but directly from China to my address, then cutoms will stop the order and aks for the receipts and if they conclude it is a fake, they will try to "destroy it"... on the other hand, i can see you ordered and got so many of them and others from Europe are getting them - so maybe it will go through normally....
I ordered a pair after this video since I've always been interested in just trying out some IEM's. Normally my ear canals are just to small for anything in-ear, but for that price it's worth the shot. They arrived today and holy hell they have no business being that good for that kind of money. I normally use HD800S, so I've the rest of my system is catered to them and I didn't notice the harshness (I've picked gear for less sibilance like akm velvet dac etc). If I disregard the HD800S has a lot better extension above 10K and soundstage, then they are not too far off in detail and better low base (although a bit elevated). So thank you for the recommendation, these will be my new office/travel headphones! :)
Yes! And let them play for like 200h hours (yes that's one long burn in!) and you'll hear what they are capable of. They have no right to be that good for that price :) I've also ordered Symphony, that's combination of planar and dynamic, we'll see how this one will turn out :)
That's why I don't shop Ali. I got my genuine Cardas Parsec RCA and Cardas Clear USB from Amazon, supplied by Cardas distributor Audio Advisor. =================== Yep, I hear an improvement with my GoldenEar BRX speakers (AMT tweeters) , Cardas Parsec RCA cable, Cardas Clear USB cable, Denafrips Pontus II 12th-1, Denafrips Iris 12th (DDC), and Parasound pream, Parasound amp, NAD C298 amp. You have to have a great system and good hearing to perceive a difference (or in my case an improvement). My video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/Y4Z60JmKhLG3aLw.html