Hmmmm think is possibly a suitable place to ask my question. I am going to purchase a dac and most the retailers are Chinese I believe.
Any thoughts which retailer provides the best customer service?
I was looking at HiFigo or Apos. Unfortunately my dac has an AKM chip so the unit it self is discontinued. Only a few retailers have it available
Which DAC are you looking at?
Apos is US based but does have a lot of their gear dropshipped from China. Headphones.com also carries a wide array of Chi-Fi DACs and Amps.
I want the 4499 chip, and I’m leaning towards the Gustard A22. I would definitely buy from headphones, especially since they have affirm.
Gustard doesn’t even have a website to contact them for more info. I am guessing HiFigo is an authorized retailer. They offer a 2 year warranty.
I see you guys do have the smsl m400 which looks pretty enticing. Just not sure which one really sounds better, guessing the dual chips in the Gustard plus class A design may have some advantages. Measurements aside, guessing the differences would be nominal
Edit: would actually have to take my smsl m400 back, the output impedance is really high and I’m not sure what my input impedance is on my power amp. This dac will be primarily used for speakers. I will keep looking before including this unit again
Hi,
my suggestion… just buy a Lector dac, I got one after tested Metrum and Topping D90… Lector is completely another league, my Digicode 704 is not cheap of course but once you have a machine sounding like that you can forget all the speeches about dac and concentrate on something else… maybe music?
by the way… the Digicode are the last dac you can find with R-2R chip inside… that is much different from R-2R circuits done with hundreds of resistors on a pcb, these are not as stable as the chip … here pictures inside of mine with Cesira investigating inside
Did Cesira gave it the PASS of quality control?
Cesira, and her brother Napo, pass the QC of my heart… I do love both… about the dac Cesira says it doesn’t smell as good as her food but good enough to sounds great!
here is Cesira testing my loudspeakers too and doing nothing together with her brother
Yes, they are Norwegians 
I love your dog’s behavior!! Cats are full of themselves!
That’s one of the things I like about them. My dog obviously feels the same as you do, though!
Was this a reply to me?
… not only to you… but yes, to you too
So with the Holo Spring 3 KTE, I’m still on the Ipad streaming qobuz with a USBe Perfect from Core Power Tech. With the streaming, I always am curious if there is anything better out there. So, I’ve heard the name Auralic come up a few times. They have an office here in Oregon, so I thought, why not since I’m in Oregon. Setup wasn’t too bad but the output was muted. I went through all the settings, learned the product pretty quick but no resolve. I called support, no answer and then it hangs up on you. Called several times, same thing. I started an RMA since it sounds worse with the Auralic Aries G1 than it does with the ipad, both connected to usb. Support finally got back to me and said they won’t support it since the RMA was opened and no software updates to the device. I guess my curiosity about Auralic is done.
I wanted to update this since I have a hard time letting things go, just the way I am. After messing with it again, I’ve found that instead of disabling volume control, I enabled it and turns out there is a software and a hardware. Setting it to hardware got the output where it should have been. I do hear improvements to detail, bass, lower frequency. Well done app integration with Qobuz. This resolution would have been simple to provide to a customer, why was I not given this information in stead of just “sorry, rma started, send it in”. The rma was a knee jerk on my side, kind of a panic. Anyways…
I do support myself with a professional level of customer, the customer is always right (sounds like mc donalds) or kind of always right. You do the best you can to help them resolve the issue. I can’t tell my customers (end users of IT) to forget it. I’m the type of support that will continue to look for a resolution. It was suggested that email is the best way of contact. I hope in the future, support will be a little better with this product or maybe I’m just that pain in the a** customer you really don’t want once in the while.
