Hi All,
My first post here as I jut acquired the R2R2000.
Apologies if my comments are not too technical as I am only a casual listener.
I hesitated quite a bit between this and NW-WM1Z. Decided to take the R2R2000 after multiple rounds of testing, mostly because it sounded more natural to me with more separation between the instruments.
The Good
· The sound feels very natural and organic. After I listened to it for few hours, I understood what people means by digital veil which I never really noticed before on other DAPs but now I do.
· Includes both 4.4 and 3.5 balanced outputs which is nice as I had previous 3.5 balanced cables from previous use with other HM DAPs.
· The sound is excellent even where the source is Bluetooth.
· Despite its pocket size, it is very powerful. It appears to be more powerful than NW-WM1Z or HM-901S.
· USB DAC function with USB C is very convenient, charging at the same time as playing. With the pocket size of the DAP, it can easily be bundled with portable battery charger if needed during long travels.
· There is a super low gain mode which works fine with my Andromedas.
· It has enough power to drive my Utopias without any need for additional amp.
· This is subjective but I find the design to be beautiful and more special than most TOTL DAPs which look more like large smartphones.
· Makes an excellent combo with my XDP-300R in Bluetooth mode, the XDP-300R having the best UI I have tried among various DAPS. I basically carry the R2R2000 in my pocket and use the XDP-300R as a source in Bluetooth which feels very close to have the best remote control you can hope for except that indeed the files are stored and played initially from XDP-300R.
The Bad
· The absence of real touch screen makes it difficult if not impossible to navigate in long list of files or folders. there is only the lower portion of the front glass (under the screen, hereafter the "touch pad" portion of the screen) which is used to navigate. The UI is very slow and requires great caution in its use due to its conception. It can take 1 to 2 seconds on average (sometimes more) between the time you tap on the "touch pad" portion of the screen and the time the action is implemented in the UI. This, combined with the functions being very close to each other due to the small size of the "touch pad" portion of the screen, results in a risk that by touching multiple times the same area of the touch pad you may end up changing the settings inadvertently which can lead to serious problems e.g. when you change gain setting by mistake.
· The screen definition is too low to display in full at once the title of files named by the artist plus the song name. This is not new, the problem already existed on HM previous DAP such as HM-901s. Hence depending on the naming of the file you may need to wait that the full name finishes to scroll throughout the screen to see which file you want to select in the list.
· There is no proper locking function of the volume knob. There is a software option to lock it but it only prevents the volume to go above 25 in the scale of power which goes up to 32 if the volume was lower than 25 that when you locked the screen and screen lock button is very easy to unactivate by accident in any case. The problem being with my Andromedas, I only need to use the volume up to 13 or 14 max on the scale which is already very loud. The volume knob being very easy to turn in a pocket by accident, the solution I found is to carry the DAP in a special hard case which prevents the knob to be turned by accident.
· The absence of body work around the volume knob looks cool but it also may raise some concerns in terms of durability. Once again, having a good rigid case to protect the knob is helpful.
· I tried a 400 GB Card on the R2R2000 and the time to update the database was reasonable (about 5 min) whereas the card was full. Scrolling down through the folders it appears that all the data from the card could be read. However only 600 files where shown to be present when trying to read all songs in shuffle mode. On this point it seems that the UI only take in consideration the first folders up to a content in aggregate of 600 files to feed the all songs shuffle play mode. It does not mean that not all files could be accessed based on my experience but further testing would be required to determine the scale of the issue.
- The battery is not very long lasting but indeed it depends a lot on the settings and as aforesaid it's very easy to have it extended on the go with portable battery pack.
- While the 4.4 balanced outputs works perfectly fine, the 3.5 output behavior is more difficult to predict which I believe is a software issue due to fact it can be selected to either normal or balanced through the UI. I noted that sometimes the normal mode does not work properly on 3.5 (i.e. no sound coming out) and you may have to restart the device to have it work again. In addition in normal mode, only High Gain setting appears to work fine (both low gain and super low gain show distortion) - which is not a big issue for me as I mostly use normal mode to feed in my WA8 eclipse.
- The super low gain mode only works on the 4.4 output.
- The lack of physical buttons makes it impossible to operate directly from pocket. This is not an issue however if you use it as a streaming device like I do with the XDP-300R.
Conclusion
The R2R2000 sound is the best to my ears compared to any other DAP that I tried before (including but not limited to NW-WM1Z, HM-901s, AK SP1000, LPG). Even though the sound may be slightly less detailed than on the Hugo 2, I do prefer the R2R2000 as it sounds more natural to me. I did not have the opportunity to try the Tera Player.
To be honest however, the first time I listened to it I was not impressed because I felt the vocals were too laid-back and initially I thought that the sound of my HM-901s (which now retails for a third of the price of R2R2000) was more balanced. I went back to test the R2R2000 a second time in the shop and it was night and day. I do not know the reason for that. This said the device which I bought sounds equally good as the device which I tested the second time.
Overall, I don’t regret taking the R2R2000 over the NW-WM1Z even though these are very different piece of gear and I may consider again buying the NW-WM1Z later on.
I will try to post a few pics with the DAP and additional comments on the sound once I have the opportunity to spend more time listening.
Best regards
DK