Gadgetory

everybody's audio head here today bringing you another headphone review this time we have a deck and headphone amplifier combination from ADL Alfa design labs called the a1 the AE one retails for around six hundred dollars and is an upgrade or adjustment you could say to the company's previous one that looks very similar to this called the x1 no while the x1 had Apple compatibility directly so you could plug an Apple device in there any iDevice in and it would decode the sound for you in amplify it to your headphones this one the a1 is intended for and the Android platform that being said this time around they've also added on DSD and double D STD decoding from your computer so if you have a computer and you have a DSD collection which is a very typical audiophile file type typical net they like to see and use it in the products it's not so typical in that the files are actually quite hard to find very few tracks are actually offered in DSD but it's something that a lot of the guys use and they were and they like it for a file type for high quality high resolution recordings this one does decode that which is pretty cool pretty specialized does it through USB so it also can connect to your computer to act as an external deck and headphone amplifier to your computer I used our ivana plus and a couple other audio file type playback software on the computer and it worked just fine with those connects plug and play with Apple platform a Mac computer it's very easy to get that stuff set up and get going that being said this one does have quite a few inputs and outputs given the size while $600 is a little bit on the it would say mid to higher side of things for portable audio these days it does have a battery it has an optical in and an optical out headphone jack aligned in a light out combo USB for your computer as I said before charging and of course full compatibility now not for all Android devices as some of those who you guys are familiar with all the different Android platforms of varies a lot so not everything works but this one has an approval list if you check out the ADL site they'll show you what works what in a couple of things that don't work but for the most part a lot of the newest phones do work I connected my older Galaxy 3 no problem whatsoever which is to say that's pretty exceptional because frankly getting external devices from Android have been a chore it's not an easy thing to do that don't always work for audio playback but that being said the this particular device does come with a cable that helps that process along made for Android so if you have the proper cable that comes with this and like I said galaxy 3 plug-and-play which is really an exceptional experience considering all the other stuff set out there but you might not get that same experience for every device because it varies so much its follow as far as the way this particular device sounds it's not bad at all actually I found it to be very nice and even through the frequency range there's no bloated bass there is not an external bass booster or or treble boost in this case and also there is not a gain switch so those looking for really hard to drive headphones this one might not work out but I did get it to work fine within your monitors and regular I'd say regular but average to drive headphones so and that in that situation it's it kind of works well but just back to the general south so the frequency range kind of is nice and even across the spectrum no bass boost kind of like an audiophile flat sound the resolution is pretty good dynamics are pretty good it has a nice kind of general fine tone to it that you might expect from an audiophile device it's nothing too over colored in fact I'd say it kind of rains in more along and little lines than it does with anything overly textured or or warm or any of that I'd you know it kind of lands in the nice clean technical proficient kind of presentation when it comes to its sound so this is the a1 $600 it's on the market now from ADL a fun little device a lot of diversity a lot of ins and outs for your inputs and headphones digital source to act as an external attack a lot of extra goodies from the tech side including DSD and DSD DSD too so all in all a fun little package hope you guys enjoy it