Fugaku DAC / AMP
The pitch of Fugaku, the amplifier. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the amp is where most of Fugaku’s magic is happening. Let’s first check the exterior features. There are two 7-pin Fugaku plugs for L/R connection and 4.4mm/3.5mm for the source player. At the bottom sits a built-in suede cushioning to prevent the amplifier from slipping or catching scratches on the amplifier surface. The volume knob rolls smoothly with good weight and offered detailed volume adjustments for finding the right volume.
Fugaku amplifier does get quite warm when played for an extended time, though it’s manageable compared to the flagship DAPs that come out nowadays. The battery life is decent enough – unless you’re planning to listen all day at one go, you should be fine. The battery life wasn’t ‘outstanding’, but not lacking either. Considering its output power and performance, I’d say Brise Audio has done quite a great job achieving good battery life and performance for its compact amplifier size.
Now for the technical side. Fugaku is powered by a fully analog multi-amplifier system, by: 1) externalizing the filters that used to be housed within the earpiece chassis, and 2) changing from the conventional passive filter to an active filter. The conventional sound transmission for IEMs when hooked up to an amp is [amplifier → passive filter → driver], though for Fugaku, it’s done [active filter → amplifier → driver].
Fugaku amplifier is built based on the feedback and learnings earned from Tsuranagi, Brise Audio’s flagship amplifier product. To minimize the amplifier size, Brise Audio applied a double-panel structure, a 4-layered circuit board for the lower panel (power supply), and an 8-layer circuit board for the upper panel (amplifier). There are 10 channels for the active crossover and 12 channels for the power amplifier. The BA and MEMS drivers are single-ended driven, while the DD is driven with balanced output. Lastly, the same flagship wires used for the earphone cable are applied for input/output and the mainboard for peak performance. For further technical details and behind-the-scenes of developing Fugaku, I suggest checking out Brise Audio’s Fugaku description page. It’s time to move on before getting too wordy.
Fugaku-Exclusive 16-wire ‘Shirogane’ Cable
The accompanying cables that are provided are just as unique as Fugaku itself. Brise Audio built a 16-wire version of the ‘Shirogane Ultimate’ flagship cable, doubling the braiding from the original 8-wire structure. The original 8-wire Shirogane Ultimate is priced at $3799, and the 16-braid is so far only available for Fugaku, so it’s clear that Brise Audio didn’t hold back the pricing when it comes to showing the peak of their abilities.
Shirogane uses pure silver conductors, and both ends are terminated with exclusive plugs for connection. Due to both weight and thickness, the Y-split and plugs are finished with shrink tubes. Even still, the cable itself is quite weighty – yet thanks to the unique wearing style (which is quite comfortable), the cable weight doesn’t negatively impact the user experience once fitted into the ears. Besides, early-bird purchasers who’ve made a downpayment before its official launch were offered a free Shirogane Ultimate IC cable (retails for about $2000), connecting the dedicated amplifier and the DAP.
So far, it’s been a mouthful to cover about Fugaku! Let’s now finally move on to talking about the big elephant in the room – so, how does Fugaku sound after all? Head to the next page for the in-depth sound impressions and thoughts.
Next Page: In-Depth Sound Impressions of Fugaku / How Does this Actually Sound?