Fidelice by Rupert Neve Designs - Official Thread

Review soon:

First impressions - yes this is very good.

Stream of consciousness to follow:

I can immediately tell a difference between the 4pin out on this and the 4pin outs on both the IHA-6 and the iCAN Pro. There’s perhaps more of a difference between this and the iCAN Pro than on the IHA-6, but it’s still distinctly noticeable. It sounds really ‘fast’ with the RNDAC, but importantly not as lean as the IHA-6, whatever that means. Also, when listening to higher end gear, there’s always a risk of the brain noticing things because we’re specifically looking for them - or listening for them in this case. But if I’m willing to risk running afoul of that framing effect, I’m noticing the details of plucked instruments more. Like the slap of an upright double bass, or the pluck of a string. I wonder if this has more to do with the DAC portion just being that much better than the burr browns in my iDSD Micro BL? Higher end AKM maybe.

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Open the case and take pictures!!!

Haha

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I don’t know if they’d let me haha! It’s also really pretty.

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I think it’s this. :thinking:

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More seriously, I do believe it has to more to do with the circuitry design than the AKM chipset. Several dac/amp manufacturers use AKM chipsets but they’re probably not giving the same level of detail and resolution that you’re hearing on the RNDAC.
I’d like to see a comparison between this unit and the RME ADI-2, as they both use AKM and are both pro equipment manufacturers.

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There are surprisingly few details about the thing around. The closest thing to an actual “review” I’ve seen so far is so superficial as to be less useful than a typical PR release. And the published specs need a bit of interpretation for the consumer market.

I don’t know if the details I gleaned on the thing previously are still current (it was a while ago), but beyond the raw construction - i.e. layout, isolation and internal architecture, but they were, well, “interesting” for a unit at this price point.

DAC chips were to be AKM 4497.

At $4,995, and shipping when it is, I’d honestly have expected to see 4499’s in there. Maybe that’s what is actually present. Or maybe they’re running parallel DACs, or the different power supply ahd output architectures of the 4497 makes it easier/possible for them to do things the way they want to on the analog side of the DAC output.

That said, the best chip-based DAC I’ve heard is still the latest Linn Klimax DS (Katalyst) (and the accompany Katalyst-equipped Exakt modules for Linn’s speakers). And that’s using the 4497 too, albeit with all five power-supplies into the IC being Linn’s own design, not the on-chip distribution, and using Linn’s own FPGA-implemented filtering.

I was a bit surprised at the power-rating for the headphone amplifier, also. 1W @ 16 ohms, for both balanced and single-ended outputs. Which is more than their new standalone headphone amplifier, but not exactly a power-house (half what you’d get out of a JDS Labs Atom).

Of course, what matters it the end result, and I’ve only heard very positive things there. And I’m pretty keen to hear it for myself.

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I’ve run into something odd with the DAC, unless there’s a driver update or something I’m missing. It looks like it only has 32 bit playback options on my system.

Not only that but there’s occasionally a weird popping sound that interrupts the music. It doesn’t sound like distortion or anything from a performance front - in fact that all sounds amazing - just occasionally this weird little pop or click artifact creeps in, almost like it’s missing a buffer. I’m confident that it has to do with the DAC section because I’ve gotten it both from using the main unit on its own but also using it just as a DAC to my other amps. I’ll be spending some time trying to figure out the issue by using it on my other systems and I’ll report back. My hunch though is that this requires a driver update.

EDIT: Final update on the popping issue.

Switching to optical works perfectly, confirming my suspicion that it’s a windows USB driver related issue (likely buffer). The manual also says to download the driver on the website, however this is still pre-release so it’s understandably not there yet.

EDIT: Last update - the Windows USB driver is now available on the Fidelice website, as well as the manual. Installing the driver has completely fixed the issue I was having, as I suspected.

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It might be driver related.

Or the 32-bit only sample-depth may simply be down to the USB interface they are using. DragonFly units always show 24-bit, for example, with or without drivers.

It shouldn’t have any effect on sound, as the remaining bits are all just padded with zeros anyway (8 or 16, depending on the source material).

Do the clicks/pops occur mid-track or only when changing tracks? If it’s the latter, are the tracks different sample rates?

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That’s why I wanted to see the inside of the thing.

Ok, ok… I’ll let it go. I don’t expect anyone to crack the thing open. Just curious. Thanks fellas

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I’d like to get a peek at the internals as well, though I’d never crack open a unit I own! The photos I posted earlier were pulled from the web. :laughing:

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Mid-track as well. Yeah I wonder if I should reach out to them and see what’s up. Trying it with my laptop now to see if that helps.

Are both machines Windows based? Curious if you had a streamer to used, ie; Bluesound, or Sonos, etc.

Edit: If it’s not driver related it may be a ground issue with the power supply. I ran into something similar with my RNHP and it turned out to be the power strip it was attached to. I changed some things plugged into it and the issue went away.

I know that was the issue because I placed the same unit at my computer and there was no issue whatsoever. I even ordered a second unit to see if there was a defect and I was able to repeat the results on both units.

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Very interesting. Yeah both are windows machines, but I do also have a few other options to test as well.

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I didn’t have any issues with popping or being stuck on 32-bit playback on a new iMac running Catalina. It also played nicely with Roon.

Let’s get in touch with Rupert Neve and troubleshoot.

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I was about to report that it hasn’t happened on my laptop but then as of this second it just happened. It’s usually more noticeable in the quiet moments of songs, like fade-outs, or quieter sections in the middle.

But apart from that, this is the best I’ve yet heard my Verite sound haha.

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The unit we received was SN 0003 so there aren’t any units out there. I know @andrew was talking to Tristan yesterday and there is a unit on it’s way to Guttenberg as well.

We will also be launching the DAC exclusively. Looks like next Wednesday will be the launch date! So there will be more units out there very soon!

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Congratulations. Looking forward to these units getting out and into peoples hands.

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Pretty sure it’s an AK4497 and not 4499, because the latter is 4 channel and the former is 2 channel. Getting confirmation on that soon though.

Here’s a preliminary photo:

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Gorgeous. I’m curious if the led’s are as bright as on the RNHP. At night they’re almost distracting.

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They don’t look all that distracting to me but they could be for some depending on where it is in your field of vision. I also I think the bokeh balls from this lens make them a bit bigger than they are normally.

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