Audio-gd R2R DAC Thread
Dec 24, 2018 at 5:53 AM Post #768 of 1,265
Hello! Can you give me links to dsd files that make noise? I will try it on my volumio player
I've sent a few also.
The Ravel Bolero is building itself up from very quiet passages, this is a very good example. Please, check the others as well and make sure, everything is set to native DSD playback.
 
Dec 25, 2018 at 2:32 AM Post #769 of 1,265
I'm in shock!
Initially, such a noise, as if some kind of interference. Then it gets better, but I think there is background noise.
By the way, again when switching tracks there is a click (loud), and sometimes there is a squeak at the beginning!
 
Dec 25, 2018 at 3:18 AM Post #771 of 1,265
I'm in shock!
Initially, such a noise, as if some kind of interference. Then it gets better, but I think there is background noise.
By the way, again when switching tracks there is a click (loud), and sometimes there is a squeak at the beginning!
Ah, welcome to the joys of Audio-gd DSD. The click and screech remain on the R-28, but the noise is all gone.
 
Jan 1, 2019 at 6:53 PM Post #772 of 1,265
Happy New Year to all Audio-gd R2R DAC owners, and especially to all of you who are seeking for remedy of the native DSD playback issue. :)

Two days ago I've virtually sold my R2R-11, as a fellow member from my local forum has tested it, and left here a deposit also. We agreed, that I have a month to hand the unit over to him, so the time is ticking against me.

I've started an extensive search agai,, and my last but not least selection includes the following DACs
- Audio-gd R8 (1650 Eur)
- Armature Asterion (a somehow upgraded OEM Holo Spring I. from audiophonics.fr (1590 Eur)
- LKS-004 with double ESS 9038pro chips (cca. 1440 Eur)
- Audio-gd D-77 (1130 Eur)
- Audio-gd R1 (930 Eur)

I need balanced design and XLR outputs. Headphone amp is not required.

I lean towards the R1, as DSD issue seems to be occur ing with every Audio-gd R2R products, and I hope, the manufacturer can iron it out in the next few months with a firmware upgrade, but this problem still bugs me. I will be somewhat mad if the R2R-11 (2019 ver.) will be the only one with a sollution.
I prefer R2R over older D/S chips, but I don't have any source here in my country to test a double ESS 9038pro DAC. Do you know anybody who can describe the sound signature of the 9038pro compared to a good R2R DAC?
I prefer to stay within 1200 Eur, but I can stretch my wallet with an additional 500 EUR if there is a free of compromises DAC for me. I don't need the best of the bests, but a reliable, natural sounding DAC with XLR outputs, and problem free PCM and native DSD support.
Btw, does the R1 support DSD512 or 256 under Windows? I wanna try the on the fly upsampling to DSD under FB2K as well.

Thanks in advance for any useful opinion or suggestion. :)
 
Last edited:
Jan 1, 2019 at 10:07 PM Post #773 of 1,265
Happy New Year to all Audio-gd R2R DAC owners, and especially to all of you who are seeking for remedy of the native DSD playback issue. :)

Two days ago I've virtually sold my R2R-11, as a fellow member from my local forum has tested it, and left here a deposit also. We agreed, that I have a month to hand the unit over to him, so the time is ticking against me.

I've started an extensive search agai,, and my last but not least selection includes the following DACs
- Audio-gd R8 (1650 Eur)
- Armature Asterion (a somehow upgraded OEM Holo Spring I. from audiophonics.fr (1590 Eur)
- LKS-004 with double ESS 9038pro chips (cca. 1440 Eur)
- Audio-gd D-77 (1130 Eur)
- Audio-gd R1 (930 Eur)

I need balanced design and XLR outputs. Headphone amp is not required.

I lean towards the R1, as DSD issue seems to be occur ing with every Audio-gd R2R products, and I hope, the manufacturer can iron it out in the next few months with a firmware upgrade, but this problem still bugs me. I will be somewhat mad if the R2R-11 (2019 ver.) will be the only one with a sollution.
I prefer R2R over older D/S chips, but I don't have any source here in my country to test a double ESS 9038pro DAC. Do you know anybody who can describe the sound signature of the 9038pro compared to a good R2R DAC?
I prefer to stay within 1200 Eur, but I can stretch my wallet with an additional 500 EUR if there is a free of compromises DAC for me. I don't need the best of the bests, but a reliable, natural sounding DAC with XLR outputs, and problem free PCM and native DSD support.
Btw, does the R1 support DSD512 or 256 under Windows? I wanna try the on the fly upsampling to DSD under FB2K as well.

Thanks in advance for any useful opinion or suggestion. :)

I personally dislike SD very much and would try to avoid it if possible but my experience is only based on ESS 9018, not the latest 9038 which is supposed to have made huge improvement. I think R2R DACs are the way way to go if one were to play only PCM. To illustrate how great R2R can be, I have just made comparison between LP an CD version of the same early digital 1982 recording (see below for detail)

In the past I felt that recording was so aweful on CD that I got the LP version instead. So now with R2R7 as the DAC for this CD recording, it sounds pretty damn good, no edge, no digitalis at all, all very refined and clear, and sound stage is pretty damn good for the early CD digital recording. Violin tones are silvery smooth, and viola/celos have the right rugged timber.
How is the LP compared with it, will LP still has the amazing sound stage and sense of being right there, and it has this "wildness" that really sends you it sit right at the edge of the seat.
The CD version, is more refined, gentlemanly and larger dynamics (obviously as LP has compressed dynamics) , super clarity without sounding clinical, making the LP sound fuzzy, and muddy. The CD soundstage is almost as good as LP, and maybe even better in terms of defining location of instruments. So despite the LP's superior musicality, the CD is sounding very close in both live-like, analogue, and musicality. It still sounds a bit more distant and cool compared with LP but by no means unmusical, and if I did not relisten the LP version again, I would have thought - "time to chuck away my LPs!

- Zemlinsky String quartets, LaSalle quartet (DG recording), LP - DG original pressing, CD - Brilliant reprint
Source: Michell Gyro SE/SME tonearm vs Sony esoteric SA-60---> DH lab optical cable --> R2R 7 audio-gd

Tonight LP still wins overall but I have not updated my R2R7 firmware to latest, and my CD player is at least 8 yrs old!

The Early DG digital recordings are quite awful in general so I am still quite amazed how much more musical these recordings have become with R2R7. Other early digital recording have become real treasure again, sometimes beating latest recordings (but then some post 2010 recordings are quite awful too)

Kingwa is supposedly working on resolving the noise for DSD. For DSD, as wonderful as it also is for the R2R7, the noise can be annoying for headphone listener. I don't do headphones much so it does not bother me much. But I still hope to have no noise even at beginning or end of track!
 
Last edited:
Jan 2, 2019 at 4:33 AM Post #774 of 1,265
Happy New Year to all Audio-gd R2R DAC owners, and especially to all of you who are seeking for remedy of the native DSD playback issue. :)

Two days ago I've virtually sold my R2R-11, as a fellow member from my local forum has tested it, and left here a deposit also. We agreed, that I have a month to hand the unit over to him, so the time is ticking against me.

I've started an extensive search agai,, and my last but not least selection includes the following DACs
- Audio-gd R8 (1650 Eur)
- Armature Asterion (a somehow upgraded OEM Holo Spring I. from audiophonics.fr (1590 Eur)
- LKS-004 with double ESS 9038pro chips (cca. 1440 Eur)
- Audio-gd D-77 (1130 Eur)
- Audio-gd R1 (930 Eur)

I need balanced design and XLR outputs. Headphone amp is not required.

I lean towards the R1, as DSD issue seems to be occur ing with every Audio-gd R2R products, and I hope, the manufacturer can iron it out in the next few months with a firmware upgrade, but this problem still bugs me. I will be somewhat mad if the R2R-11 (2019 ver.) will be the only one with a sollution.
I prefer R2R over older D/S chips, but I don't have any source here in my country to test a double ESS 9038pro DAC. Do you know anybody who can describe the sound signature of the 9038pro compared to a good R2R DAC?
I prefer to stay within 1200 Eur, but I can stretch my wallet with an additional 500 EUR if there is a free of compromises DAC for me. I don't need the best of the bests, but a reliable, natural sounding DAC with XLR outputs, and problem free PCM and native DSD support.
Btw, does the R1 support DSD512 or 256 under Windows? I wanna try the on the fly upsampling to DSD under FB2K as well.

Thanks in advance for any useful opinion or suggestion. :)
Happy New Year to all Audio-gd R2R DAC owners, and especially to all of you who are seeking for remedy of the native DSD playback issue. :)

Two days ago I've virtually sold my R2R-11, as a fellow member from my local forum has tested it, and left here a deposit also. We agreed, that I have a month to hand the unit over to him, so the time is ticking against me.

I've started an extensive search agai,, and my last but not least selection includes the following DACs
- Audio-gd R8 (1650 Eur)
- Armature Asterion (a somehow upgraded OEM Holo Spring I. from audiophonics.fr (1590 Eur)
- LKS-004 with double ESS 9038pro chips (cca. 1440 Eur)
- Audio-gd D-77 (1130 Eur)
- Audio-gd R1 (930 Eur)

I need balanced design and XLR outputs. Headphone amp is not required.

I lean towards the R1, as DSD issue seems to be occur ing with every Audio-gd R2R products, and I hope, the manufacturer can iron it out in the next few months with a firmware upgrade, but this problem still bugs me. I will be somewhat mad if the R2R-11 (2019 ver.) will be the only one with a sollution.
I prefer R2R over older D/S chips, but I don't have any source here in my country to test a double ESS 9038pro DAC. Do you know anybody who can describe the sound signature of the 9038pro compared to a good R2R DAC?
I prefer to stay within 1200 Eur, but I can stretch my wallet with an additional 500 EUR if there is a free of compromises DAC for me. I don't need the best of the bests, but a reliable, natural sounding DAC with XLR outputs, and problem free PCM and native DSD support.
Btw, does the R1 support DSD512 or 256 under Windows? I wanna try the on the fly upsampling to DSD under FB2K as well.

Thanks in advance for any useful opinion or suggestion. :)

R1 supports DSD256 as max, both under Windows and Linux.
 
Jan 2, 2019 at 6:06 AM Post #775 of 1,265
Thank you very much Chopin75.
I have a huge CD collection which includes around 2000 recordings, and I use my Sony CDP XA20ES as a CD transport very often. Therefore PCM handling is very important to me.
On the other hand I have many DSD albums as well, and I'm interested in the "on-the-fly" DSD 128-512 upsampling method. For a few days I evaluated that with FB2K - even though it was DSD128 only, as R2R-11 can't handle higher upsampling - , and found the result pretty interesting.
But I have to mention that many PCM tracks suffers from the same symptoms -digital noise over quiet passages- not only with headphones but with my HiFi rig as well - even if it is less articulated -, when FB2K transforms PCM stream to DSD128. Gerge Szell's, Mahler Symponies are a typical example of the problem.

R1 supports DSD256 as max, both under Windows and Linux.
Thanks Stefano74! Then somebody has to inform Magna Hifi as they state DSD512 in the technical summary:
https://www.magnahifi.com/en/webshop/product/agd_r2r1
  • "High Res support: DSD64 - DSD512 & DxD"

I would be glad, if somebody were able to summarize the differences between the R1 and the R8. Right now I don't think, R8 worth the Eur 700 difference in my case, but maybe I'm missing something important.
 
Last edited:
Jan 5, 2019 at 5:42 PM Post #776 of 1,265
I personally dislike SD very much and would try to avoid it if possible but my experience is only based on ESS 9018, not the latest 9038 which is supposed to have made huge improvement. I think R2R DACs are the way way to go if one were to play only PCM. To illustrate how great R2R can be, I have just made comparison between LP an CD version of the same early digital 1982 recording (see below for detail)

In the past I felt that recording was so aweful on CD that I got the LP version instead. So now with R2R7 as the DAC for this CD recording, it sounds pretty damn good, no edge, no digitalis at all, all very refined and clear, and sound stage is pretty damn good for the early CD digital recording. Violin tones are silvery smooth, and viola/celos have the right rugged timber.
How is the LP compared with it, will LP still has the amazing sound stage and sense of being right there, and it has this "wildness" that really sends you it sit right at the edge of the seat.
The CD version, is more refined, gentlemanly and larger dynamics (obviously as LP has compressed dynamics) , super clarity without sounding clinical, making the LP sound fuzzy, and muddy. The CD soundstage is almost as good as LP, and maybe even better in terms of defining location of instruments. So despite the LP's superior musicality, the CD is sounding very close in both live-like, analogue, and musicality. It still sounds a bit more distant and cool compared with LP but by no means unmusical, and if I did not relisten the LP version again, I would have thought - "time to chuck away my LPs!

- Zemlinsky String quartets, LaSalle quartet (DG recording), LP - DG original pressing, CD - Brilliant reprint
Source: Michell Gyro SE/SME tonearm vs Sony esoteric SA-60---> DH lab optical cable --> R2R 7 audio-gd

Tonight LP still wins overall but I have not updated my R2R7 firmware to latest, and my CD player is at least 8 yrs old!

The Early DG digital recordings are quite awful in general so I am still quite amazed how much more musical these recordings have become with R2R7. Other early digital recording have become real treasure again, sometimes beating latest recordings (but then some post 2010 recordings are quite awful too)

Kingwa is supposedly working on resolving the noise for DSD. For DSD, as wonderful as it also is for the R2R7, the noise can be annoying for headphone listener. I don't do headphones much so it does not bother me much. But I still hope to have no noise even at beginning or end of track!

I never actually compared multibit digital to vinyl, but have vivid memories of an all vinyl/analog system (vinyl has a slightly phasey, open sound w/effortless depiction of recording space...totally unique). IMHO, multibit digital is easily the first digital implementation I've heard that avoids the trad digital sonic pitfalls ("digititis," nail-on-chalkboard treble, hyped edges of notes, overly "dry" bass, etc). And I've found non-oversampling multibit to be the very best. The tradeoffs (a bit less amplitude of soundstage and dynamics) are well worth it.
  • And important for me, the 2 multibits I have (Audio GD DAC-19 & NOS 19) sound excellent for just a fraction of the cost of big/bad delta-sigma DACs that're over-designed so as to sound quite good.

So I'm a real Audio GD fanboy (also own their SA-31SE HP amp/preamp; had an NFB-15.32 combo, very nice). And I'm interested in the R1--not only because it has 3 outputs, all usable simultaneously, but also because it has FGPA & easy-to-switch OS & NOS modes (multiple options for each). I'm curious about the sound of this unit vs either DAC-19 or NOS 19 (there have been a few, widely scattered comparisons here, but I hope to see more).

PS: those early DG digital recordings sounded gruesome even in the LP version (ie, digital master).
 
Jan 5, 2019 at 5:55 PM Post #777 of 1,265
I never actually compared multibit digital to vinyl, but have vivid memories of an all vinyl/analog system (vinyl has a slightly phasey, open sound w/effortless depiction of recording space...totally unique). IMHO, multibit digital is easily the first digital implementation I've heard that avoids the trad digital sonic pitfalls ("digititis," nail-on-chalkboard treble, hyped edges of notes, overly "dry" bass, etc). And I've found non-oversampling multibit to be the very best. The tradeoffs (a bit less amplitude of soundstage and dynamics) are well worth it.
  • And important for me, the 2 multibits I have (Audio GD DAC-19 & NOS 19) sound excellent for just a fraction of the cost of big/bad delta-sigma DACs that're over-designed so as to sound quite good.

So I'm a real Audio GD fanboy (also own their SA-31SE HP amp/preamp; had an NFB-15.32 combo, very nice). And I'm interested in the R1--not only because it has 3 outputs, all usable simultaneously, but also because it has FGPA & easy-to-switch OS & NOS modes (multiple options for each). I'm curious about the sound of this unit vs either DAC-19 or NOS 19 (there have been a few, widely scattered comparisons here, but I hope to see more).

PS: those early DG digital recordings sounded gruesome even in the LP version (ie, digital master).
I can comment about diff. between r-7 and master-7, which is the equivalent comparison for the higher end.

The m7 is more euphonic and laid back, the r-7 has a more forward sound, cleaner, with liquid treble and awesome soundstaging. Both dacs are great, one could prefer the m-7 or Singularity 7. But, the r-7 is overall more accurate. All these dacs deserve/need the best possible transport.
 
Last edited:
Jan 6, 2019 at 2:23 AM Post #778 of 1,265
I would be glad, if somebody were able to summarize the differences between the R1 and the R8. Right now I don't think, R8 worth the Eur 700 difference in my case, but maybe I'm missing something important.

Sound - Wish I could give you reliable comparisons in the difference in sound using the same gear, but I can't. They were hooked up to very different things. However, when I very briefly subbed in the R-8 for the R-1, I was happy I got the R-8 vs. another R-1. If you're still considering after a while when all my gear gets moved (about 3 months), I'll gladly A/B them with speakers or headphones. Overall, if budget is a concern, and you're not looking to eke out that extra teeny bit - I think the R-1 is the better value.

Build - Primarily they use different DAC modules and power configurations. Think of the R-8 as a "baby" R-7. The R-7 and R-8 use the the same DA-7 DAC modules and both are full class-A throughout with 3 separate transformers for L/R analog and Digital. The R-8 was built using some surface mount tech compared to the R-7 and a different chassis along with some other things. The R-1 (to the best of my knowledge) is the top model for their DA-8 DAC modules. It is not full Class-A and does not use separate transformers for L/R/Digital. Check out the website for pics of both. The R-8 is quite big, so check the dimensions if that matters to you.
 
Jan 6, 2019 at 2:29 AM Post #779 of 1,265
Sound - Wish I could give you reliable comparisons in the difference in sound using the same gear, but I can't. They were hooked up to very different things. However, when I very briefly subbed in the R-8 for the R-1, I was happy I got the R-8 vs. another R-1. If you're still considering after a while when all my gear gets moved (about 3 months), I'll gladly A/B them with speakers or headphones. Overall, if budget is a concern, and you're not looking to eke out that extra teeny bit - I think the R-1 is the better value.

Build - Primarily they use different DAC modules and power configurations. Think of the R-8 as a "baby" R-7. The R-7 and R-8 use the the same DA-7 DAC modules and both are full class-A throughout with 3 separate transformers for L/R analog and Digital. The R-8 was built using some surface mount tech compared to the R-7 and a different chassis along with some other things. The R-1 (to the best of my knowledge) is the top model for their DA-8 DAC modules. It is not full Class-A and does not use separate transformers for L/R/Digital. Check out the website for pics of both. The R-8 is quite big, so check the dimensions if that matters to you.

Can you give a deeper explanation of the differences you heard?
 
Jan 17, 2019 at 1:02 PM Post #780 of 1,265
I’m so glad you mentioned this. I heard this ‘squeak’ with my R2R-11 when switching from PCM to certain DSDs. First time I heard it I thought my headphones had blown! Unfortunately this ‘bug’ is still there when switching to certain DSDs with the R-28, even though the DSD noise is gone in the R-28. I always set volume to zero or very low when switching to DSD now, especially with speakers. This has never been acknowledged before, let alone fixed. I don’t believe AGD does much if any testing with DSD unfortunately, else they surely would have picked up these issues.
Hi!
Kingwa say

kingwa.jpg


I think this is another bluff from them.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top