Since the cat is out of the bag, and there were discussion of our forthcoming USB DAC/Amp Dongle in multiple threads/forums/groups, we decides to start a new thread ahead of our regular schedule.
While we are busy working on our new flagship products, we have also devoted a lot of resource to pass down our new technologies to more affordable applications. Our R-2R based R01 Audio Motherboards for N6ii was well-received by the Personal Audio community. While a lot of users urged us to develop a high-end R-2R DAP with latest CPU and software technologies, our priority is to make the R-2R technologies we developed for N6ii more widely available before we move to another high-end R-2R DAP.
The RU6 is a scaled-down implementation of the R-2R resistor ladder network DAC from R01 Audio Motherboards. I don't have a lot of information at this stage but I'll update the thread and the first post regularly until we have the complete product announcement clarify all the details to our users. This is what I can share at this moment:
- First ever 24Bit discrete R-2R DAC in USB DAC dongle, with 48 high precision resistors per channel.
- Choice of NOS mode and Oversampling mode
- Build-in high precision Volume control
- 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced phone out
- Availability: Q4 2021
- Price: $2xx, to be confirmed
To be honest, R-2R is not a user friend technologies for USB Dongle application. To start with, the size of the RU6 is fairly big when compare to other USB dongle in the market: that the minimal price when we replace an off-the-shelf DAC chipset with 96 resistors. We have also run into a lot of compatible and operational problems during the later part of the project. At the end of the day, we have decided to go for best possible sound performance with some compromise in user operation. This is a tough call from business perspective because we know convenient and user satisfaction are indispensable factors for mass-market consumer electronic products. Putting sound performance over operation convenient will limit our users to a very niche group of customer based, but our passion to high quality audio performance drove us to do crazy things again.
I can only show you some rough photos on the engineering sample at this moment, I'll upload more photo when we completed our trail production run later this month.
