[havagr8da]

I love Rock n Roll!!! Really really love it with Amazon Music HD on the SR25 with Thieaudio Legacy 3 iems. What a bargain!

 

[Luis Mad]

Reporting on my progress with the SR25:
- I have been using it as a dac with my Pc. I use foobar2000 and have installed the AK drivers. Foobar recognised Dreamus (A&K) as an asio driver. Works perfectly. Right now playing DSD64, I have tried previously with DSD128 with no issues. Connecting my Final E4000 iems through balanced, Janine Jansen Four Seasons sound sublime. I can control volume either in the pc or in the SR25. The SR player charges at the same time as it is working as a Dac.
Also I’ve been connecting to the home stereo through line out with excellent results. For that I use monkeymote to remotely control the foobar2000. The dac in the SR25 is clearly better than that of my streamer Yamaha wxc-50.
Anyboy has a recommendation as to which output to use in lineout, 1v, 2v? And why?
- I have connected my old Harman Kardon car stereo with cable and, even though Bluetooth sounded good, this is something else. My wife was truly impressed with the sound quality. Long playlists and our car trips will be so much better...
- Confirming wifi range is poor.
Still very happy with the product as a whole, small problems, but excellent. Also very happy with the combination with the Final 4000 iems.

 

[Tristy]

Little and large...

 

[robert766]

Thanks Luis Mad, just installed the AK drivers and Audirvana recognised the Dreamus immediately. Works lovely.

I have been enjoying this DAP with my also new Andromedas since saturday. Agree, wifi range isn't great but so far it hasn't been an issue for me. Now I'll have to find a decent 1tb disk.

 

[erich6]

Now I'll have to find a decent 1tb disk.

Check Amazon Deal of the Day

 

[erich6]

recommendation as to which output to use in lineout, 1v, 2v? And why?

Most amps look for 2V input

 

[pstefan98]

I’m having some issues regarding WiFi.

Recently I acquired a case made for the SR25 by Dignis with stainless steel heat guard on the back, this one.

For some reason when I put the case on my Wifi bars drop to 0. Not sure if it’s the stainless steel that’s causing an issue with the signal.

I’ve tested this around three times so l believe this is the issue.

 

[purplesun]

I’m having some issues regarding WiFi.
Recently I acquired a case made for the SR25 by Dignis with stainless steel heat guard on the back, this one.
For some reason when I put the case on my Wifi bars drop to 0. Not sure if it’s the stainless steel that’s causing an issue with the signal.
I’ve tested this around three times so l believe this is the issue.

Just a guess. Maybe isolating the metal plate from SR25's metal chassis (eg: pasting small bits of plastic tape between their contact surfaces) may improve signal strength. My thinking is this will reduce the grounding effect of SR25's chassis with the metal plate. It may not work at all, but it's also an easy test.

EDIT: Just had a discussion with my son, who's done some work with mobile antenna design. He thinks there is some chance that it may work. But also the likelihood that any large metal object in that position & proximity to SR25's internal antenna will greatly reduce it's signal strength. As such, please let us know you test result. Good luck!

 

[Neweymatt]

So I'm trying to use the SR25 as USB DAC, streaming Tidal to it via USB from my MacBook Pro, but I'm a little confused about a few things.

According to Tidal website, they recommend to enable "Use Exclusive Mode" when using external DAC. At least I think that's what it means here:
https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005773698-Optimizing-HiFi

That support article seems to suggest to use Passthrough MQA, which I took to mean that it would be the external DAC (SR25 in this case) that would decode/unfold/whatever to the MQA stream.

However, I've found in looking at the SP1000 and SP2000 threads that the A&K doesn't support this, don't really know why:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-tol-a-k-dap-the-ak-ultima-sp1000.850061/post-15127186

SO, my question is, what is the best settings to use from Tidal app when using SR25 as USB DAC to get best possible SQ? Spoiler alert, I've tried "Use Exclusive Mode", but for some reason, that kills the output volume so badly that I've got to go to 150 on the SR25 just to barely hear anything, and then I've got to unplug the USB cable and reboot the SR25 to restore normal listening with that "Use Exclusive Mode" disabled...

I could of course just use either the Tidal native or APK app on the SR25; but when I'm at my desk, using the Mac is a MUCH better experience to navigate Tidal, and the Mac gets a MUCH better WiFi signal for streaming...

What am I missing here?

 

[purplesun]

So I'm trying to use the SR25 as USB DAC, streaming Tidal to it via USB from my MacBook Pro, but I'm a little confused about a few things.
According to Tidal website, they recommend to enable "Use Exclusive Mode" when using external DAC. At least I think that's what it means here:
https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360005773698-Optimizing-HiFi

Tried the DAC setup on a Win10 machine, the volume in exclusive mode seemed OK.

It may be psychological, but a couple of high sample rate (352khz) songs that I tested (Quiet winter night album & Polarity - An Acoustic Jazz Project album) sounded more natural and airier playing from SR25's built-in Tidal player than as a USB DAC from Tidal(exclusive mode) on win10.

But I am with you, in that, it's much more pleasant browsing Tidal's catalogue from a big display monitor than a phone or DAP screen.

 

[Luis Mad]

Sorry for telling the same story to anybody following the Senn H599 thread but I think this is relevant here as well. Today I received a balanced cable for my Sennheiser HD599. I ordered it from Aliexpress a few weeks ago after the good experience with Final E4000 iems and a balanced cable with the SR25. The Senn shines with my A & K SR25, truly excellent sound. The volume is of course a lot louder but, to my ears it also sounds better than the 3.5 unbalanced. I know this is a controversial subject. As to volume, what used to be 100 is now 85, but the quality of the sound has also changed.
i know quite well the sennheisers after intensive use the last months and I believe they sound better out of the balanced output. More detailed and better bass I would say. They already sounded amazing but now it is even better. Anyway, continue improving the experience with the SR25. This voyage of discovery of audio goodies is wonderful!

 

[Neweymatt]

Sorry for telling the same story to anybody following the Senn H599 thread but I think this is relevant here as well. Today I received a balanced cable for my Sennheiser HD599. I ordered it from Aliexpress a few weeks ago after the good experience with Final E4000 iems and a balanced cable with the SR25. The Senn shines with my A & K SR25, truly excellent sound. The volume is of course a lot louder but, to my ears it also sounds better than the 3.5 unbalanced. I know this is a controversial subject. As to volume, what used to be 100 is now 85, but the quality of the sound has also changed.
i know quite well the sennheisers after intensive use the last months and I believe they sound better out of the balanced output. More detailed and better bass I would say. They already sounded amazing but now it is even better. Anyway, continue improving the experience with the SR25. This voyage of discovery of audio goodies is wonderful!

Luis, thanks for sharing your experience with balanced cable! Mind letting us know who from/which cable you purchased for the Senn? and for the Final for that matter, thanks!

 

[erich6]

SO, my question is, what is the best settings to use from Tidal app when using SR25 as USB DAC to get best possible SQ? Spoiler alert, I've tried "Use Exclusive Mode", but for some reason, that kills the output volume so badly that I've got to go to 150 on the SR25 just to barely hear anything, and then I've got to unplug the USB cable and reboot the SR25 to restore normal listening with that "Use Exclusive Mode" disabled...

I could of course just use either the Tidal native or APK app on the SR25; but when I'm at my desk, using the Mac is a MUCH better experience to navigate Tidal, and the Mac gets a MUCH better WiFi signal for streaming...

What am I missing here?

Use exclusive mode with TIDAL. Also, make sure you set your volume to "fixed" this will max the output voltage from the computer and allow you to control volume from the DAP. The volume range should then be similar to what you get when playing straight out of the DAP. Whether you use passthrough MQA or not shouldn't matter much. If you select this option then TIDAL won't do any unfolding and the DAP will unfold and render. If you don't select it, TIDAL will unfold and the DAP will render. I will test this later when I get home and see but don't expect to make a difference.

 

[erich6]

But you don't need to use FAT32. I'm using with a 1 TB card exFAT without any problems.

Interesting. In my case, when I used the SD card as exFAT I could see the music in the DAP but the DAP couldn't play any of it (I was getting an error code in the player). I was only able to get it to work after I reformatted to FAT32. I used a 512 GB card....

 

[Luis Mad]

Luis, thanks for sharing your experience with balanced cable! Mind letting us know who from/which cable you purchased for the Senn? and for the Final for that matter, thanks!

Of course! The Senn cable is this https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32843066350.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.3e1963c0UmKc2p
gongheyfacai Store, model Earmax 2.5 black, 26,08 euros. Works very well so far but looks a bit delicate, I hope it lasts.

For the Final I bought the Linsoul Tripowin Zonie MMCX-2.5mm from Amazon 25,95 euros https://www.amazon.es/gp/product/B07ZQCH9CN/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Looks and feels stronger, initially had a funny smell that fortunately disappeared.
My only experiences with balanced so far have been very positive.