Reviews by a Snakeoil Salesman. Trust the Snakeoil Salesman 
. Unless otherwise specified, all reviewed gear are either owned by myself, or loaned from friends. Contact me if you want me do a paid review - if you dare (who in their right minds would want their products be promoted by a Snakeoil Salesman?!
Music should not be a thing one can only be enjoyed at home, music must be enjoyed everywhere - at home, outdoors, or at work. Especially work!
Music brings a lot of joy, and everybody loves a happy workplace. With my new job, I no longer have a fixed office/desk. In the morning on every work day, I take all my work equipment from a central area and take it to an unoccupied desk in the “office pen", where I will work from for the the rest of the day. In the morning I’d unload my equipment, set it up, work and then pack everything up when the day finishes. Everything has to be packed up, no personal belongings can be left on the desk at the end of the work day.
This system is called hot-desking. I love the flexibility this system brings, and my employer can reduce its operating costs (Don’t have to maintain 1:1 staff/equipment ratio).
Win-Win! Except a hot desking environment is not ideal for an audiophile.
This environment is suited for a normal audio system because it’d be too time consuming to setup and dismantle every day. Headfi is the way to go. Previously I’m using a Teac UD-501 DAC. While that unit is already a compact DAC/AMP, the size is still impractical for a hot-desking environment. I need something smaller and lighter, something ideally suited for a hot desk office. Something that don’t require a audit every year. The Teac UD-501 is totally unsuitable in this environment and has to go. The fact that it’s a terrible sounding DAC really makes this a no brainer.
So off I go looking for the 501 replacement - the newcomer must satisfy the following:
Did not have a lot of time to do my research, so I randomly searched e-bay and basically purchased the only product that meet all the above requirements: xDuoo XD-05 DAC. All at a princely sum of AUD$212.41 (with 10% e-bay voucher applied).
So what’s in it? Let’s take a look and see what a $212 product brings.
Accuphase released it’s latest flagship DAC in September 2016 - the DC-950.
With the release there is now a number of Accuphase DC-37 available in the second hand market as existing owners move to the newer DAC. And I got one of them! Yeah, I cannot afford a DC-950
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This is a review of a well run in second hand Accuphase DC-37. I took ownership of this unit sometime in Sept 2016, so already have a good 3 months to get to know this.
And so far, I’m loving it! Credit goes out to Tasso for loaning me the PS3, allowing me to rip my SACDs to DSDs. Credit again goes to Tasso for selling me the DC-37 reviewed right now. 
No prizes for guessing what Tasso ended up with.
Audiophile grade fuses, what are they and what are they used for?
In a nutshell a fuse is:
an electrical device that acts as a sacrificial device to provide over current protection.
i.e. a fuse is something that will blow itself up when electrical current exceeds a pre-defined threshold.
This act of self sacrifice breaks the electrical circuit and this prevents everything behind the fuse from catastrophic damage (i.e. certain death).
An audiophile grade fuse simply put is an item constructed from components and materials with a single goal in mind - uncomprosing audio quality. The term “Fuse Rolling” involves replacing the stock fuse with a different fuse (not necessarily an audiophile grade fuse) to influence the sound signature of the audio system.
An example of an audiophile grade fuse is the TF Series Fuse from Furutech, pictured here.
Whether fuse rolling is something you should consider is subjective. Read on to find out if audiophile fuses is a thing for you.
The review for the Uptone JS-2 has been delayed multiple times due to issues beyond my control. A series of unfortunate events that included my primary DAC developing a fault at the worst possible time. The fault turned out to be a dry joint in the high voltage transformer. Kudos to the Don for the diagnosis and fix!
Unfortunately this long run of bad luck means my perspective on things will be cloudier than usual - any positives I write in this post will be over amplified, likewise the negatives under amplified. The JS-2 was also modified during the system down time. I have spent more time listening to the modified JS-2, and way less time with the stock JS-2. Most importantly, I havn’t auditioned all the PSU that’s available out there - the only PSUs I have tried are an ebay 12V5A SMPS, the HDPlex and this Uptone. Therefore please make sure you take all these into consideration when reading this article.
First up I’d like to show what modifications are made. Local DIY guru Don cut up the top plate of the JS-2 with his trusty CNC machine: