FiiO Desktop Active Speaker Concept Design…
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… does not look impressive at all if I’m being honest. I’d rather wait to hear people’s impressions 
if you’re talking about that Fiio speaker…yeh. it’s looks turned me off from it immediately .of course, sound is what matters, but what the heck is that bar from top to bottom? some sort of physical DSP?
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I could be wrong but I think it s some kind of guard to protect the driver/tweeter. It’s a design choice that may not go over very well, but if they sound good enough perhaps it could be overlooked. Personally I’m not a fan…
yeh, that beam is more liability than protection as it will only work if it’s head head on.
no…it’s got to be something else me thinks.
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that is a much more appealing design… still weird, but hella more attractive.
El Amp II + Balanced
Only balanced input though, no output and RCA in is also missing.
https://blog.jdslabs.com/2022/03/introducing-el-amp-ii-balanced/
Depending on how the balanced input is done, you can just use RCA to TS adapters.
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I thought I can always do this but it will reduce the output power to 1/4 due to the incoming 2V instead of 4V. Except of course internally the 4V get transformed / reduced anyway. Like many Topping or SMSL amps that claim the same output power with SE and Balanced in. Not sure what happens inside, if the 2V RCA get boosted or the 4V balanced gets cut. Maybe You know more?
What’s next? A Fiio sofa?
I might be harsh, but they should stick to portable amps, DAPs, and IEMs.
The speaker world is no joke. I might be wrong, but I have low expectations for their speakers. Who knows, maybe this is something they have been working on for years and it comes out great
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time will tell whether they’re onto something…but here’s hoping they’re not trying to cash in on their name with an expensive but mediocre product and become a lifestyle brand.
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I’d leave a question on the comments on that announcement page. JDS labs are pretty transparent with details like that.
It’s definitely a niche product that is mainly a companion for an audio interface with an anemic internal headphone amp.
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Balanced or Unbalanced can be made to have the exact same output power.
One way to do this internally is like so:
The RCA input is put through a “line driver” which creates an internal balanced signal. The rest of the signal path is then done in balanced.
Alternatively, balanced input could be run through a transformer or Op-Amp to turn it into unbalanced, then run it through the various stages and have the output stage create a balanced signal again.
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For me, I just liked the notion of a balanced system, so I took on the project of building the desktop system to that spec. I love working with the XLR cables, how they feel in my hand, that nice feel and sound you get when you connect them, the look of the system with all XLR connectors running in the back, and how the system sounds… it’s all excellent!
Having said that, the other 2 systems in the house are not balanced and they sound amazing as well. I just wanted to try something different with the desktop. And since it’s original deployment, I strayed from the standard when I started using the TA-20 as a preamp to feed the SP200, which is not a balanced amp anyway. So all good! Maybe someday I will upgrade that chain with better stuff and get back to balanced.
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Rebandaged H1?
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Tripowin H1? Those were a dynamic, Tiger is a planar.
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wagh those are ugly!
ChiFi LCD-1 I thought
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