SW1X: A review of a new DAC from a new company

[hughandella]

Thanks for that Chris.

If Slawa joins he will need to join as a Trade Member, and since you have declared yourself to have an interest in the enterprise, you will need to change your membership status.

Regards
Barry

Hi Barry
ofcourse will do --- I'm off to see Slawa now and so will raise it with him ----- I'll still be buying and selling gear on here for purely personal use - I guess I should just flag that in the advert? I assume I can't have 2 profiles ?
I dont want to misrepresent myself to anyone needless to say

cheers
chris

[Marco]

Hi Chris,

Nice review

If you're buying and selling purely for private use, then you won't need an account, but of course with Slawa being in the trade himself, then he'll need one when he joins. Enjoy your DAC

Marco.

[hughandella]

Hi Chris,

Nice review

If you're buying and selling purely for private use, then you won't need an account, but of course with Slawa being in the trade himself, then he'll need one when he joins. Enjoy your DAC

Marco.

Thanks Marco --- I ve just been with Slawa and hopefully he will join this evening as a trade member --- and I am happy to put my association with SW1X on anything --- we've just had some new cases delivered for the Level 3 DACs and also now have a design for the USB/SPDIF and DAC in a single chassis ---- very exciting times ..... I hope to be able to (ideally) invite a few people over for a listening evening/bake off and for those further away I want to have a level one DAC & USB convertor available to audition --- I have our first dealer meetings planned for next week --- we know there is a lot of competition out there and we can never compete with their marketing budgets and we actually don't want to be a real mainstream product - we can only differentiate on quality and approach ...... I have worked for 30 years in the City and didn't enjoy the last 15 years ! so doing something I care about is important to me, and the same goes for sure with Slawa .... his hifi hobby was more serious than mine but we don't ever want to lose that enthusiasm ..... he's the only guy I know or buys a level 5 pair of monoblocks from a well known company and sets about rewiring them himself because he sees more performance ! he also collects pre war drivers for future speaker projects so it's a bit of an alladins cave chez Slawa .....we may be idealistic but it will be fun trying to achieve what we want to achieve and to be proud of our efforts and so far so good,but its very early days -- frankly I had no plans to become involved in a hifi business but to date I'm glad I have ---- the AoS audience is the type of customer base we want to attract and we simply say try us and see - our audition to purchase conversion rate has been v good so far --- our products wont be for everyone but we think there are more than enough enthusiasts out there to serve and the Level 1 equipment is a nice introduction we believe ..... enough waffle !
tks again
chris

[brian2957]

This looks very interesting Chris . It's nice to be doing something you're enjoying for a change isn't it .

Good luck with the new venture and I'll be watching developments with interest

[hughandella]

This looks very interesting Chris . It's nice to be doing something you're enjoying for a change isn't it .

Good luck with the new venture and I'll be watching developments with interest

Thanks a lot Brian --- yes it is a real relief and a very welcome change ! .... we live in hope !

[hughandella]

SOME BETTER PHOTOS

[SW1X]

Greetings!

Thank you to Chris for sharing your impressions.

The review is pretty much reflective of what we at SW1X have been aiming to achieve with the sound- that is to resurrect the spirit of a recording.

We are convinced that an elegantly engineered circuit only performs at its best if it is made of high quality materials and components. It is just like cocking a delicious dish: a good recipe (NOS TDA1543 + single Germanium transistor I/V conversion + class A no feedback valve output stage), the finest ingredients (AN Kaisei, AN Standard, Purism capacitors, Allen Bradley resistors, Silver wiring, special un masked PCB) and execution with lot of love by SW1X.
All what is left is to feed the DAC 1 with a recording and let it shine in your system.

A couple of pictures of inside of the DAC 1 for desert

[ReggieB]

Can we have a photo of the back, so you can see the connections?

[hughandella]

Chris, if you have a faster way of contacting Slawa, please inform him that he must arrange to open (and pay for) a trade account before he can advertise or promote his products here. Ta!

Marco.

sent him a message Marco tks

[hughandella]

Hi Rob

Slawa has the DAC at mom as he is changing the red bulb because it is too bright --- he also has a decent camera and so will be adding more photos especially of the internals --- and I've asked him to take some of the back too ...... I can tell you that the connections are a pair of silver plated rca outs and a single silver plated SPDIF/RCA in (I have suggested we consider having two SPDIF/RCA inputs so one can use the USB/SPDIF transport and also a CD player for example --- Slawa was concerned it would degrade the signal a little but think he can be persuaded ) the beauty is each unit is built by hand and so some small changes can be made e.g. intermediate capacitors between the standard and the signature which has black gates etc ...... I have a pretty terrible photo I can send you if you are desperate if so PM me with your email and I'll send it --- but I dont really want to post it on here because it was taken whilst unit was in a rack so one-handed from distance ( and all that implies about quality )


there are photos on the eBy listing showing the back too http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SW1X-Audio...IAAOSwsN9XBo0B