The output wiring harness that comes with the unit is a simple 3 pin plug on one end with 3 bare wires at the other end (one L, one R, one ground to be shared). I believe they are silver or silver coated copper based on the overall sonic character. I just took some short pieces of slender stranded copper wire (21 gauge maybe?) I had laying around from an earlier project and attached single push on terminals to one end of each so I could plug it in to the pins on the board... and voila. The sound seems nicely balanced with the copper wire, but the original wire / harness is included so the new owner can experiment and system match.
The Audio GD DAC I got is an NFB 17. It uses a fairly large and sophisticated power supply, and has multiple adjustments for upsampling and setting the Anti Aliasing filter. It uses Wolfson DAC chips rather than the ESS Sabre chip set. In general I would say that the NFB has more authority in the bass, is very similar in the treble, and manages to extract a bit more detail through the midrange. I find it easier to understand lyrics, and I can more easily listen to harmonies and background singers or instruments with the NFB 17. Now, keep in mind that a new NFB 17 (with shipping to the US) would cost about $550, whereas I spent less than $100 on the Hifimediy DAC, including shipping and the cost of the IEC inlet and the RCA output connectors. So, perhaps not a fair comparison? None the less, I am happy with the sound of the NFB, which I would argue is a bargain at the current retail price, and was an ever better deal at the used price. There is lots of competition in the 'under $500' DAC market right now which I think is a great thing for those of us who are not CEOs.
I hope this helps.
Happy listening!
Neil
