@Dailydrive sorry if Im late to the party. I have an r28 upgraded with the 2021 inputs. I can confirm you that it still needs a ddc to get the best out of it. But with the 2021 version, the difference between direct usb and hdmi coming from my gustard u16 is subtle (more subtle than with the...

From my personal experience, audio gd dacs are not really made for critical listening, but for pleasure and musicality. As I mentionned in this thread, my schiit gumby was more detailed and less bloomy than my audio gd r28, however the gumby was not a good match with my speakers, it gave a very...

Also I forgot to mention, as you may know, the gumby was a more expensive gear, so it was to be expected that it performs better. It probably compare well to an audio gd r8, with a different flavor. I also tried the modi 3 delta sigma, was not impressed. The sound was clean, but it didnt sound...

With mine, at the beginning the highs were recessed and so it was less detailed and focused. Sorry I cant tell you more because I was burning in two devices at the same time so its hard for me to tell exactly what comes from the dac vs the amp. You can expect the sound to be more detailed and...

Parallel mode is not a filter but the way digital data is processed. In parallel mode, you can process all the bits of a sample in one clock cycle. In serial mode, which was the only mode in the past for audio gd r2r dacs, you need multiple clock cycles to process a whole sample. Now, some...

For the burn-in, give it a good 300 hours. You can let it run for few days if you want to accelerate the process. Im running the newest firmware, parallel mode, oversampling in 8x and I like it. Cant comment on the other firmware versions because havent tried any other.

@filip sebastian nobody will understand if you use other language than english

The R-28 is in fact a r1 dac plus a NFB-1AMP preamp and headphone amp. The master 19 is a better gear that the NFB-1AMP. Never heard the master 19 though, but it is supposed to be closer to the master 9, which is very well regarded gear.

@DecentLevi It is always tricky to say that a specific device will be better than another one for everybody. Schiit makes good dacs, and out of the box it performs well. If you use an R-1 out of the box, with no ddc plugged directly in the usb input, it will perform ok, musical, but not super...

Yes, the R28 has the equivalent of the R-1 dac and it is a good dac. Most of the people would tell you that the audio gd is more musical, while the schiit bifrost 2 is somewhere between a reference sound and a musical one. The usb input of the schiit might be better. I personnaly have an R-28...

I would be curious to see that comparison too. I know however that there is a complete comparison of the flagship models of each company: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-audio-gd-r7-r2r-7-r8-flagship-resistor-ladder-dacs.853902/page-383#post-15397134

Yes it will do a descent job connected directly from the usb out of a computer, but the usb input of the r28 is not built to manage all that noise coming from the computer. The usb amanero input is ok but relatively basic. The issue has nothing to do with the specific computer (mac or pc) bit...

@JoeDoe I have bought few months ago the upgraded brand new r28 with dual transformers and fully upgraded clocks. It is really good, I cant compare to the old one since I never used it. Also I found out you really gain from using a ddc like for example a gustard u-16 or the audio-gd DI-20. Using...

Hello @soundlogic Usually people first ask for a quote by mail, and then receive a detailed quote which includes everything: product, shipping and paypal fees, so you know in advance the total price. Thats what I did and everything went fine with my order. Now keep in mind that this is not a big...

Forgot to mention that I didn't consider the Master 3 and other bigger components because right now I don't have enough room to put those beast.