[Silverlinings]

Well, color me impressed! VE did a great job finetuning RS6 presets for their IEMs, and I can definitely hear it working with VE7, Elysium, EXT, and Erlkonig, having a wider soundstage, enhanced 3D imaging, faster transient of notes with improved definition which also makes the sound tighter and the background blacker. Not a very drastic change, more of a subtle finetuning, but enough for me to stick with these presets without a desire of going back to a default RS6 sound.

So I want to get this straight..I thought for the presets to work that NOS has to be off. In that pic it appears that NOS is on and the preset is engaged..which way is correct?

 

[twister6]

So I want to get this straight..I thought for the presets to work that NOS has to be off. In that pic it appears that NOS is on and the preset is engaged..which way is correct?

Very good point and I asked Hiby the same question. If I understood their explanation correctly, and @Joe Bloggs please correct me if I'm wrong, bud. So, when you look at the diagram:



NOS only bypasses FIR Filter (256-tap adjustable Impulse Response filter) and Oversampling (to remove sound aliasing artifacts), while Harmonics and Linearity Compensation is still intact.

 

[emilsoft]

I've been having issues with the unit when connected as an External DAC to the PC. There's a slight delay in the Audio and video output which makes it out of sync when watching movies and other consumer content.

I've tried to reduce buffer size in windows to reduce the delay but to no avail - I reduced the buffer size to the smallest value already. Is there a workaround in the Android OS?

Most daps have lag with usb dac. The only one that apparently doesn't is the Fiio M15 as it has xmos chip I believe.

 

[littlexx26]

Not at this degree no, usually I've heard plenty of bad cheap Chinese DAPs even back as early as early and mid 2000s that just sound bad but at least it's consistent bad across the board.

RS6 isn't bad in any stretch of the imagination in terms of technicality if you separate each frequency range, the problem with my unit that I've heard is it's disjointed and and incohesive. This isn't so much an issue if you have the right pairing (ie mest mkii) and you enjoy mid bass slam and female vocals AND you are just enjoying the music; it's under critical listening that the disjointed nature becomes prevalent. That and IEM pairing is too much of an issue to be universally recommended IMHO.

Somehow it manages to be warm with a lot of slam....and bright (and shouty with a suboptimal transducer pairing) all at the same time...never thought I would put the first and second half in the same description but here we are.

I have read your detailed post. you mentioned iems tested but did not mention cables. so you tested the iems with stock cables? do you believe cable thing? do you think changing cables can fix (maybe to certain degree) the shortcomings of rs6 you mentioned (overwhelming amounts of mid bass. the overly warm tonality muddles the lower mids. slow decay bass. digital texture treble. thin female vocals. incoherent frequency range. shouty. metallic tinge)?

 

[snowy8171]

I have read your detailed post. you mentioned iems tested but did not mention cables. so you tested the iems with stock cables? do you believe cable thing? do you think changing cables can fix (maybe to certain degree) the shortcomings of rs6 you mentioned (overwhelming amounts of mid bass. the overly warm tonality muddles the lower mids. slow decay bass. digital texture treble. thin female vocals. incoherent frequency range. shouty. metallic tinge)?

Lol

 

[ayanachibi]

I have read your detailed post. you mentioned iems tested but did not mention cables. so you tested the iems with stock cables? do you believe cable thing? do you think changing cables can fix (maybe to certain degree) the shortcomings of rs6 you mentioned (overwhelming amounts of mid bass. the overly warm tonality muddles the lower mids. slow decay bass. digital texture treble. thin female vocals. incoherent frequency range. shouty. metallic tinge)?

No.

While I do believe cables can make a difference in sound it's not going to correct a DAP behavior. If a cable affects sound enough it will affect the full FR spectrum not specific regions I experienced from my RS6 unit.

I actually did a blind test with 2 friends with 2 self made "8-wire" cable (one was untampered and properly with 2 wires per signal [4.4mm balanced, 4 wires per channel/2 to + 2 to -] and a second cable braided 8 wires BUT 2 of the wires not actually soldered so it looks the same in appearance [4.4mm balanced, left channel only one wire per + and -, right channel had 2 wires per + and -]). Both friends pointed out they didn't sound the same on the same IEM, one was a bit more descriptive than the other. This suggests at least that wire gauge does impact sound even for an IEM (the wire used was from the same reel, 25g per wire, but the tampered cable had a gauge imbalance). They were not made aware of any tampering, I just told them to try it out.

Obviously this is just a curiosity attempt and not to be taken as scientific fact and it does not prove or disprove any cable material impacts on sound, only gauge.

 

[GiullianSN]

This thread is reminding me EE thread and some of its “dramas” @gLer @aaf evo lol

 

[Joe Bloggs]

I've been having issues with the unit when connected as an External DAC to the PC. There's a slight delay in the Audio and video output which makes it out of sync when watching movies and other consumer content.

I've tried to reduce buffer size in windows to reduce the delay but to no avail - I reduced the buffer size to the smallest value already. Is there a workaround in the Android OS?

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a cure for this, just too many things for the signal to go through in the Android DAP* compared to a dedicated USB DAC, for latency to ever be good for lip sync much less twitch gaming. Sorry about that.

*Not that the bits are never changed**, they just have to go through the system
**Unless you (want to) engage one of the systemwide audio processing options (of which they are plenty on the RS6)--which is only possible if the data actually goes through the system. Not if you have a separate XMOS chip plugged directly to the DAC.

 

[emilsoft]

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a cure for this, just too many things for the signal to go through in the Android DAP compared to a dedicated USB DAC, for latency to ever be good for lip sync much less twitch gaming. Sorry about that.

It's a design thing, and technically feasible if incorporated in the DAP hardware design - for example Fiio M15 uses XMOS chip for dac mode, so no discernible delay. Other DAPs like rs6 stream it via non optimal path (they don't have dedicated xmos chip)

 

[emilsoft]

Honestly I find the ZX507 a bit too colored and boring. I'm just not a huge fan of Sony tuning. It's like the guy that aims to please everyone but doesn't quite excel anywhere. Not that I dislike coloration but it doesn't fit the music I generally listen to. However the tonality between ZX507 cannot be more different between RS6.

That said the R2R IS supposed to sound more analog (less digital) compared to delta-sigma based chips, the organic part is more on the amp I personally believe.

Unfortunately I personally can't recommend the RS6 as a good representation of a R2R being (1) overly colored in a niche way and (2) what I hear an uneven treatment of presentation within various frequency ranges.

The P6P would be a excellent representation...but I can't unconditionally recommend it as well on basis of it's price (it's a whooping 3899...3199 on sale), plus the user interface is from the 90s (my god FAT32, and just trash playlist support can't even add a whole folder into a playlist, have to add tracks one by one.)

The final possible option is the cayin N6ii R01 motherboard....except the player is almost 3 years old, low powered, AND does not have a LO option.

P6P black is probably the closest choice out of all of them to the ZX507 at this time...but only if you can swallow the price tag and the almost non-essentant GUI.

It seems that I can align to how you hear some things - I agree about the ZX507 somewhat, it's cohesive but nothing stands out really it's jack of all trades master of none. I guess I'd better stand down from taking the RS6 plunge; it's a significant cost and it should offer cohesion and excellent technicalities rounded off with a pleasant analogue tone. I will take a punt with the Cayin RU6 dongle however, just to see if some r2r goodness can be captured there with a gentler hit to the wallet

 

[loplop]

I’m about a week in now, and I am not preferring NOS mode on this player. I personally tend to like NOS sound (having experience with Audio Note and Metrum in the speaker-based hifi world) but here it’s not working for me. In NOS I am struggling with a disjointed soundstage, particularly a lack of “air” that knits a performance together, and something about transients that seem to fatigue my ear-brain.

While I’m personally not preferring NOS, your mileage may vary and if you like it, stick with it

Speaking of Sony ZX507, that’s my other DAP at the moment. I like it’s presentation quite a bit, as I listen more to music and far less to “sounds” when listening to it. But I tend to prefer it with some of the DSP on (heresy!) and there it lacks resolution, ultimately, compared to stuff I’ve had in the past (DX220, for sure, but also N6ii).

@Joe Bloggs I know I’ve asked about this multiple times before, but perhaps it got lost in the noise over the last few days. I’m going to page one last time and ask: would you mind listing out what the FIR filters are, from “Darwin Default” through the “Darwin 1-10” filters? I originally asked if you could ask to have those descriptions added in the software, but I’d be perfectly happy if you just typed them out here.

 

[littlexx26]

I’m about a week in now, and I am not preferring NOS mode on this player. I personally tend to like NOS sound (having experience with Audio Note and Metrum in the speaker-based hifi world) but here it’s not working for me. In NOS I am struggling with a disjointed soundstage, particularly a lack of “air” that knits a performance together, and something about transients that seem to fatigue my ear-brain.

While I’m personally not preferring NOS, your mileage may vary and if you like it, stick with it

Speaking of Sony ZX507, that’s my other DAP at the moment. I like it’s presentation quite a bit, as I listen more to music and far less to “sounds” when listening to it. But I tend to prefer it with some of the DSP on (heresy!) and there it lacks resolution, ultimately, compared to stuff I’ve had in the past (DX220, for sure, but also N6ii).

@Joe Bloggs I know I’ve asked about this multiple times before, but perhaps it got lost in the noise over the last few days. I’m going to page one last time and ask: would you mind listing out what the FIR filters are, from “Darwin Default” through the “Darwin 1-10” filters? I originally asked if you could ask to have those descriptions added in the software, but I’d be perfectly happy if you just typed them out here.

what iems you listen with rs6？

 

[14christ]

I sure wish there was a way to listen to the RS6 with my MEST mk2 before I buy it. Does anyone know if there are any distributors in Louisiana, perhaps New Orleans?

 

[loplop]

what iems you listen with rs6？

Right now I’m mostly listening to Solaris LE, although I had a bit of fun with the Vega 2020 yesterday :0

I should also mention: redbook only sources, at the moment. Haven’t really listened to much hires on the Hiby.

 

[senseitedj]

Unfortunately I don't believe there is a cure for this, just too many things for the signal to go through in the Android DAP* compared to a dedicated USB DAC, for latency to ever be good for lip sync much less twitch gaming. Sorry about that.

*Not that the bits are ever changed**, they just have to go through the system
**Unless you (want to) engage one of the systemwide audio processing options (of which they are plenty on the RS6)--which is only possible if the data actually goes through the system. Not if you have a separate XMOS chip plugged directly to the DAC.

Noted. Appreciate the honesty and explanation. I will just use my other DACs for this specific application

It works very well for everything else tho