[seaice]

But like you have the S7 to enjoy while we wait. And, I was thinking, if the R2R 7 is clearly better we could also upgrade the analog boards in the future as well. I am going to wait on that for reviews and possibly R2R 7 2.0 or next improvements.

Exactly my thoughts. I will wait for a R2R 2.x or HE-R2R version... The HE7S is sooo good anyway, I feel like I am in a sound paradise with my headphones and speakers. I spent many night hours listening to music instead of going to bed It is really that toxic. .... I tend to buy a HE-1 preamp to complement my A-GD DACs. Does anyone have any experience? I still owe the old Phoenix and assume that the HE-1 must be much better.

BTW, regarding the dropouts I mentioned in the R7R thread: The issue is gone. It was not HDMI-related, I faced them via AES too. So I disconnected and reconnected all cables and moved my DAC a bit and everything is OK. No dropouts since then. I probably had a bad connection somewhere.

 

[mivarpet]

For people with the Singularity 7, what are your recommended / preferred jumper settings?

 

[seaice]

I have default settings on my HE-7 Singularity and I am absolutely happy. But I will try other settings sometimes.

I tried many settings on my old M7 and my preferred combination was PLL OFF and other settings unchanged (default).

 

[DACLadder]

For Singularity DSP jumpers I have been using default 8x OS. Have not felt a need to try others. But that may change soon.

 

[FredA]

For Singularity DSP jumpers I have been using default 8x OS. Have not felt a need to try others. But that may change soon.

Just turned the pll off on my r2r 7. So far so good. I got more directness and the sound became more real. Those Crystek clocks are something really. No side effects so far, but i am sure i will loose something with the other inputs. I'll see after a couple of days.

I hear that there is less slam in the bass now. But i just turned my dac back on. As i said, i'll see in a couple of days but it sounds promising.

 

[DACLadder]

My Singularity digital board is currently heading back to China for Kingwa to check out. But I still have the Singularity 7 enjoy. What nice sound from the S7! The Master 7 upgrade is close but the S7 highs are bit more refined. The Master 7 always has a little upper midrange/ lower treble glare that is not present on the S7. The S7 is smoother in this area while the Master 7 a bit more raw sounding. But I always like the Master 7 and the upgrade helps tremendously on sound quality. Enjoyed my time with the upgrade (when it worked correctly).

 

[seaice]

Magna Hifi is out of stock of the Singularity ugprade boards at the moment but they have a list of people wanting the upgrade. So if anyone is interested, send them an e-mail and they can add you on their upgrade list. They can request new Audio-GD boards if they have enough people for the upgrade. I am on the list and hope for more people...

 

[bButcher]

The Master 7 always has a little upper midrange/ lower treble glare that is not present on the S7.

Since I fixed the digital board last year, this is the only left major complaint I have with my M11. I've long been suspicious its related to analogue boards, thanks for verify it for me.

Four months ago I shoot Kingwa an email asking the possibility of providing a "push-pull output stage daughter boards" to fix this problem, unfortunately the answer is negative. I guess that's because I'm the only person having this request. So is there anyone else who experience the same issue? please speak out. Hopefully with enough request it will motivate AGD to provide this upgrade.

 

[mivarpet]

@bballas Where did you source this I2S board please?

 

[bballas]

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.103.AZbxIf&id=543590971891&ns=1&abbucket=20#detail

 

[mivarpet]

@bballas Thank you!

 

[enigmus12]

Since I fixed the digital board last year, this is the only left major complaint I have with my M11. I've long been suspicious its related to analogue boards, thanks for verify it for me.

Four months ago I shoot Kingwa an email asking the possibility of providing a "push-pull output stage daughter boards" to fix this problem, unfortunately the answer is negative. I guess that's because I'm the only person having this request. So is there anyone else who experience the same issue? please speak out. Hopefully with enough request it will motivate AGD to provide this upgrade.

I was also wondering if there is a way to upgrade the analog out. Not because of the glare but to be up to date with the S7 wich will be probably the last PCM1704UK TOTL DAC of Audio-Gd.

Few month ago, I've asked Kingwa to send him back to update the whole unit but the answer was the analog boards are too expensive because of the 1704 and that unsoldering is not an option because they may become not steady. It would have been perfect to get two boards without the 1704Uk and to solder the old one on the new board.

The idea of a daughter boards is interesting but they'll have to design this for us and we are probably not that much to want this done.

 

[bButcher]

Desoldering of delicate IC like 1704 need strict control of temperature and heating duration, and even if it functions normally after the whole process it still could experience performance degradation due to thermal stress it went through. So I understand why Kingwa won't do it.

As to the daughter board, if implementation of p-p output drive is same as in "http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB132/NFB1.JPG", the whole board will be less than one square inches and only have 5 connection pins/wires. Then upgrading of one board will probably take about 10~15 min, which I will say is only a minor surgery.

 

[Fujak]

My Singularity digital board is currently heading back to China for Kingwa to check out. But I still have the Singularity 7 enjoy. What nice sound from the S7! The Master 7 upgrade is close but the S7 highs are bit more refined. The Master 7 always has a little upper midrange/ lower treble glare that is not present on the S7. The S7 is smoother in this area while the Master 7 a bit more raw sounding. But I always like the Master 7 and the upgrade helps tremendously on sound quality. Enjoyed my time with the upgrade (when it worked correctly).

I recently got the Singularity Board for my HE-7. Today I replaced it. Soldering and rewiring was no problem. The problem is: No sound comes out. Switching between inputs is working, but no matter what input I feed with signal, no sound. I carefully checked the connections several times without noticing any mistake.
You recently mentioned replacing the MCU chip (as you illustrated by picture). In my package of the upgrade board there wasn't any chip. Did you get one from Kingwa? Background of my question is, that it may be the reason for the "sound of silence".

Edit (some hours later): The reason for the sound of silence was inside of my brain: Of course Kingwa and his guys had carefully packed the S-upgrade kit. It was my fault that I didn't checked the package in the same carefully way as it was packed. So after a third searching I finally found the MCU chip. How embarassing!

And it didn't take long time changing the MCU chip and the finest sound I've ever heard is coming out of my HE-7 resp. HE-7S. More to be told after some listening.

 

[DACLadder]

Glad you got it working!