I'm working on my Rocky Mountain Audio Fest Day #3 Sunday impressions in the meets forums, but wanted to briefly throw out that I compared my R2R2000 with JH Audio Roxanne custom IEM to the Astell and Kern SP1000M with dual AK4497EQ DACs today. That's about a $2400 DAP and since it's in the same price I targeted that one. I'll start by saying both sounded very nice.
I was using my JHA Roxanne with my Moon-Audio Black Dragon 2.5mm balanced cable, and I don't have my adapter to use it with the pentagon jack yet. But I do have the Black Dragon V3 pigtail to use the balanced cable on the R2R2000 3.5mm SE output. In my listening, I found that the R2R2000 was every bit as good with lossless music via the SD card as the A&K, with subtle differences in their character. I actually thought the treble on the SP1000M was slightly more stiff sounding while the R2R2000 was a little more organic and smooth sounding, without giving up any detail.
I was disappointed that while the A&K and R2R2000 music library's shared about 20 different artists, that in every single case I didn't have the same albums and songs on my R2R2000 as the A&K had. So, I had to find similar songs, in genre and style, to compare.
With careful listening I could likely identify which player to which I was listening blindfolded, 8 out of 10 times. But the differences weren't enough to make me dislike one or the other. Both are quite capable, and enjoyable. But I think in the end the R2R2000 would be less fatiguing, or not at all, with long listening sessions. Obviously I could not try the A&K for a long listening session at the show.
I have not used the R2R2000 as a BT DAC for several months, since my CEntrance BlueDAC weighs about 1/3 what the R2R2K weighs, and therefore mostly use the BlueDAC if my iPhone will be the source. Instead I mostly use the R2R2K as a DAP with microSD card, or as a USB DAC for my Macbook, saving the battery on my iPhone or BlueDAC. The R2R2000 vs A&K SP1000M is hard to describe, other than saying the R2R2K just sounds real to me. In other words, the R2R2000 sounds closer to being a musical instrument than something that's used to recreate the sound of a musical instrument.
My BlueDAC's and HiFi-M8's tone and character would be closer to the sharp and attentive A&K DAP, but I will NOT use the word analytical, because some people think of that as cold and clinical, which they are not. The A&K SP1000M fell in between the BlueDAC/HiFi-M8 and the R2R2000 in that regard, in terms of character and tone, and they all use a similar DAC as well. So, the others when held in comparison to the R2R2000 made me think of them as being a sharper tool that sheds light on the music's detail and structure, more than making me "feel" a part of the music and lose myself in it like the R2R2000.
So, as for the Bluetooth - since I hadn't used it in a long time, I thought why not launch the HiFiMan app and stream Tidal to the R2R2K via the hi-res BT connection, so that I could listen to the same songs on the R2R2K as with the A&K's preloaded music. I connected the R2R2K to my iPhone Xs max via Bluetooth, and launched the HiFiMan app, and... nothing. The app would launch and hang at "Checking Device". I disconnected devices, rebooted, reconnected, and nothing allowed the app to finish loading except launching the HiFiman app without the R2R2000 being connected.
By this time I was out of time (RMAF ending with 5-6 more booths to visit), and had to just stream music from Tidal app on the iPhone to the R2R2K via AAC Bluetooth, and it did not fare well vs the A&K. The only way to really get the R2R2K to sound amazing via BT is through the HiFiMan app, so I'm going to remove the app and re-install it and play with again tomorrow (without the A&K player to compare with).
I absolutely love the smaller size of the R2R2000 and the rich organic musical tone, and absolutely loved the touchscreen interface of the A&K DAP but not the larger size. I could be happy with the sound of both, but would not get rid of the R2R2K for the A&K at this point. The sound is more important I think, and the versatility in being able to use it with the microSD card, with iPhone wirelessly (even in low res mode without SDHC mode), and with my MacBook as a portable DAC.
I'll be spending some time listening to R2R2K with the current Sennheiser HD800s with pentacon balanced jack in a couple of weeks, and I'll post my thoughts. As you know, with the HE-1000se it's like those headphones and the R2R2K were made for each other.
