Have received RS2 (thank you
@nc8000 )
Some *very* brief impressions:
- Very nice build/feel. Love the compact feel. Sturdy in the hand. Knobs and volume feel good. Packaging quite nice. Accessories also quite nice, especially the 3.5mm IC.
- Use: the screen is tiny and has a sort of washed out appearance, I guess consistent with the "retro" theme
. That said, the basic play screen functions well.
- Navigability is a bit of an ordeal. I understand the recent FW raised the track limit from 20,000 to 50,000. IMO you should not go beyond 20,000 tracks on this DAP. I have two 1TB SDCards, both running perfectly, but the scanning time will take a good 20 minutes or so. I've not had the issues others have mentioned in terms of opening up genres and it freezes. But I could see how more than 20,000 tracks or so would lead to issues. I'm currently running about 17,000 tracks - 24/192, 24/96, DSD, WAV - and it will take about a minute for a genre to open with 600 albums in. Not a huge deal, but you need a little patience when using the RS2.
- Actually finding one's way around is mixed. It reads tags/album covers perfectly. No issues there, everything is neatly organised. But because everything is so miniature, finding an album deep in the alphabet takes time. There's an A-Z on the right hand side that one could scroll in theory, but it's so small that's basically useless. If you have this DAP only for shuffle purposes, it works supremely well.
- Best feature: Twin SD-Card slots which merge into one library. Love this. Worth getting for this function alone. On the Hugo2Go, you can have two memory cards, but they have to be activated individually and only one at a time.
- Otherwise, GUI is quite well thought out. I never stream and only use my own library, but the inclusion of Bluetooth so that one could control the interface from a phone would have been ideal.
- Brief sound impressions: warmish but not muddy or rolled off. Mids are bordering on "lush" without being overly thick. Treble is airy but not overly crispy. Somewhat reminds me of my old WM1A but with better definition. Nothing like RU6 or RU1. Forget about comparisons with Mojo 2, not even close. Technically, the RS2 is a bit soft. Imaging and detail are a bit blurry - relaxing you might say, charitably. Soundstage is intimate. Dynamics are not really the strong point, it has to be said. Overall presentation is rather laid-back.
- Ampage. My sense is that the performance is rather held back by the amp stage. Paired up with a Mass Kobo 428 via the LO, the DAC performance begins to shine. Impact/dynamics are much faster, overall presentation has more authority. Also nicely surprised by how well the DAC scaled with my Bakoon amp.
- Pairings: just very briefly, no problem with IEMs. Everything sounds engaging and musical. For headphones, again not the forte for the RS2 but I have to say Meze 109 and 99 sound very good direct. MSR7B also sounds oddly excellent. Alas, not really feeling the WP900 right now. 600 Ohm Beyer DT990 sounded pretty good via Mass Kobo. Main recommendation would be 99 Classics or 109 Pro for headphone usage.
I bought this mostly to use as a coax transport for Mojo 2 - which it does very well - but can also see myself easily using IE400/IE900 for out and about usage. The stock tuning is not really my thing, but I knew this in advance and wanted an alternative to my go-to Chord sources. To that end, it works well.
