[DACLadder]

With my short experience using the R2R 7 the best advice I can give is if the sound is not working for you and your other system components try changing the cables. For instance NOS Mode 3 sounds big and glorious with MS Audio silver litz XLR cables but rather generic using Kimber Kable Heroes. The KK cables however sound really good with OS x8. Same with power cables and could readily detect a positive difference with Furukawa power cables.

But don't go chasing the dragon during the lengthy run-in period of the R2R 7. Allow time for the R2R 7 acclimate and settle. I had experienced this vicious cycle with the Schiit Iggy and it literally drove me crazy trying to dial in best sound.

Wish I had a closet full of cables to try out!

 

[DACLadder]

There are numerous places in US that offer cheaper or affordable OCC silver or any other types of silver. so I can DIY later on. It may be harder to get them in Europe/China? There is an option for US 110V at check out (or there is a switch button, not sure??); they said they have done shipping to US before. I don't believe there is a Tariff on Hi-Fi equipment yet, but apparently there will be for certain electronics like Washing machine, TVs, from China/Asia mainly. But who knows what will happen with the trade war started by Trump in the future!

I would definitely ask Magna Hifi prior to ordering. There is no 110/220V switch that I am aware. But usually the power transformer input wires are reconfigured for voltage. A larger current capacity fuse is generally required as well going from 220V to 110V.

Part's Connexion in Canada has affordable silver plated OFC hookup wire that I used with installing my F1 and HDMI I2S changes. AGD no longer uses connectors on the singularity DSP board so soldering new wires is a must. If I remember correctly Magna will most likely cut the existing ribbon cable at the daughter board leaving the board solder connection as is. Then they just redress the cable and solder the cable to the new board.

 

[FredA]

NOS Mode 3 is very dynamic in the bass. Much like to old Master 7 but with much better precision.

I think I still have some cable breaking in to go. Not everything sounds great with NOS Mode 3 in my current setup like synthesizers for instance. Acoustic type instruments are a winner though. Get the right recording and NOS Mode 3 is amazing.

This silver cable takes a lot of time but mine sounds perfect with any instrument as it is.

With my short experience using the R2R 7 the best advice I can give is if the sound is not working for you and your other system components try changing the cables. For instance NOS Mode 3 sounds big and glorious with MS Audio silver litz XLR cables but rather generic using Kimber Kable Heroes. The KK cables however sound really good with OS x8. Same with power cables and could readily detect a positive difference with Furukawa power cables.

But don't go chasing the dragon during the lengthy run-in period of the R2R 7. Allow time for the R2R 7 acclimate and settle. I had experienced this vicious cycle with the Schiit Iggy and it literally drove me crazy trying to dial in best sound.

Wish I had a closet full of cables to try out!

i do. Mostly diy ics and ebay power cables. It's very useful when burning a new gear.

 

[commtrd]

Question for whoever may have now or had both the Yggdrasil and/or the AGD R2R7: which dac tends to provide the best, rich but accurate organic musical output?
Kind of torn between these two. I think it might be unlikely to go far wrong with either one. Any advice or thoughts welcome.

 

[DACLadder]

Question for whoever may have now or had both the Yggdrasil and/or the AGD R2R7: which dac tends to provide the best, rich but accurate organic musical output?
Kind of torn between these two. I think it might be unlikely to go far wrong with either one. Any advice or thoughts welcome.

Have not listened to the Yggdrasil 2 which just came out this year I believe. I did own an Yggy 1 and was used exclusively for over 6 months. The Yggy was clean and rendered good vocals but was dry and lean in my system. After 6 months I reconnected my old Master 7 DAC and it was full, warm, and comforting. The old M7, with all its faults, sounded more like music instead of a recording. And I hated the Yggy’s long warmup period (1 week) and noisy mute relays that engage on sampling rate changes.

The three AGD DACs I have (M7, M7S, and R2R 7) are all more liquid, organic, and dynamic which makes music come alive. Part of the Yggy’s dry presentation IMO is that Schiit uses true 20-bit DAC chips and cannot resolve the minute detail a good 24-bit DAC may be capable. Schiit claims otherwise but I think it makes a difference in micro-detail, soundstage and especially depth.

The Yggy 1 had excellent engineering, ultra-low noise, and phenominal measured specs. Has a lot of fans but could never get into it completely. Hope some others comment as well. And how do Yggy 1 and 2 compare?

 

[DACLadder]

Oops! Please disregard my error.

 

[Chopin75]

Question for whoever may have now or had both the Yggdrasil and/or the AGD R2R7: which dac tends to provide the best, rich but accurate organic musical output?
Kind of torn between these two. I think it might be unlikely to go far wrong with either one. Any advice or thoughts welcome.

Didn't Currawong, who started this thread, owned or still owns the Yggdrasil and also made a brief review I think. He should be able to compare between R2R7 and Yaggy, even if from memory (if no longer having both together)
I did read/hear from him or others that the Gen USB is really great in Yggy, no need to use external DDC.

 

[aljordan]

Have not listened to the Yggdrasil 2 which just came out this year I believe. I did own an Yggy 1 and was used exclusively for over 6 months. The Yggy was clean and rendered good vocals but was dry and lean in my system. After 6 months I reconnected my old Master 7 DAC and it was full, warm, and comforting. The old M7, with all its faults, sounded more like music instead of a recording. And I hated the Yggy’s long warmup period (1 week) and noisy mute relays that engage on sampling rate changes.

The three AGD DACs I have (M7, M7S, and R2R 7) are all more liquid, organic, and dynamic which makes music come alive. Part of the Yggy’s dry presentation IMO is that Schiit uses true 20-bit DAC chips and cannot resolve the minute detail a good 24-bit DAC may be capable. Schiit claims otherwise but I think it makes a difference in micro-detail, soundstage and especially depth.

The Yggy 1 had excellent engineering, ultra-low noise, and phenominal measured specs. Has a lot of fans but could never get into it completely. Hope some others comment as well. And how do Yggy 1 and 2 compare?

I don't own an R2R 7, but do own the Reference 7 and the Master 7. I compared the Reference 7 to the Yggy version 2 for about five weeks. I also compared the Yggy to the Master 7 over a period of a few days at a friends house. While I prefer the Yggy compared to some very expensive delta-sigma DACs I've heard, I find it sounds thin in comparison to the Audio-GD 7 series. Instruments through the 7 series have more body and are more palpable than through the Yggy. The Yggy is good when wanting to peer into the details of dense musical passages, but listening to it was more of an intellectual experience as apposed to the experience of groove and joy I get from the Audio-GD DACs. While I wouldn't call the Yggy strident, I felt the Audio-GD DACs draw me in to the music much more.

Incidentally, I've listened quite a bit to both versions of the Yggy, but never side by side, so I can't give an accurate description of their differences.

 

[commtrd]

Thanks for the info. I am thinking I may just try the R2R7 dac and a Master 9 amp package in the near future. Hopefully the tariff stuff does not interfere with acquiring this gear.

 

[Chopin75]

I finally sent money to Magna HiFi so R2R7 is on the way ! Can’t believe I just spent almost $3000 on a DAC, most costly buy of a transport ever for me in a single one time investment. (My turntable is >$4000 but was bought in 2 stages, table + tonearm separately). Though it is thought that the transport I.e the source component remains the most important in the chain. In a way I am glad I got from Magna instead of Kingwa directly. They seem to have better communication skills and customer service than Kingwa team, but it could also be language barrier (I wish I can type Chinese but I am not fluent enough!) and the grammatical errors of the Chinese English (Chinglish) is rather annoying.
I buy this now partly worried about the Tarrif on China as well, but I don’t think this will be affected right now until electronic equipments become targets. But almost no common household electronics are made in US anyway so a Tarrif would mean all electronics would be affected!

 

[DACLadder]

Thanks for the info. I am thinking I may just try the R2R7 dac and a Master 9 amp package in the near future. Hopefully the tariff stuff does not interfere with acquiring this gear.

Certainly don’t want to steer you into a purchase that you may regret. Many people love the Yggdrasil. It was just a totally different soundscape from the AGD Ref 5 and M7. My whole system was tuned around those DACs and the Yggy tonally was not a good fit. It worked flawlessly and the USB input was the best though AES/EBU serial was very good as well.

 

[DACLadder]

I finally sent money to Magna HiFi so R2R7 is on the way ! Can’t believe I just spent almost $3000 on a DAC, most costly buy of a transport ever for me in a single one time investment. (My turntable is >$4000 but was bought in 2 stages, table + tonearm separately). Though it is thought that the transport I.e the source component remains the most important in the chain. In a way I am glad I got from Magna instead of Kingwa directly. They seem to have better communication skills and customer service than Kingwa team, but it could also be language barrier (I wish I can type Chinese but I am not fluent enough!) and the grammatical errors of the Chinese English (Chinglish) is rather annoying.
I buy this now partly worried about the Tarrif on China as well, but I don’t think this will be affected right now until electronic equipments become targets. But almost no common household electronics are made in US anyway so a Tarrif would mean all electronics would be affected!

Congratulations and I think you will ultimately be very pleased. May take a little trial-and-error, patience, and time to reach sonic nirvana but well worth the journey.

 

[S Crowther]

Anyone compared the R2R7 with the Chord TT or Dave. I realise they have integrated amps, but just the DAC side?

 

[DACLadder]

!!! NEW ALTERA FIRMWARE R7V2 (Smooth 2) !!!

Kingwa ask me to distribute new Altera firmware for the Singularity DSP to those who would like to try it. It is very new and a significant change that several of us forum members have had the privilege of trying for the past few days. With the firmware change Kingwa said he is addressing timing and transparency while improving upon Accurate's brightness/ quasi neutrality and Smooth's too laid back attitude. The new firmware has a lot going on and much more complex. Kingwa said this new version has 10,000 lines of code which is huge for an FPGA. The starting point for the code base is Smooth and Kingwa expanded and built upon that. The firmware is called officially “R7V2” and informerly as simply “Smooth 2”.

All the standard DSP jumpers apply to the new firmware: OS, NOS, etc...

You may find the file on my Microsoft OneDrive called "R7S2.jic". Requires Altera Quartus programming software and Altera JTAG programming cable. There are instructions on Audio GD web site for location of Altera SW and programming steps. http://www.audio-gd.com/R2R/DSPupdataR2REN.htm

Go here to download the Altera firmware files. Right clicking the file icons will launch a popup to download.
https://onedrive.live.com/?id=636DC4E8060D66A1!172&cid=636DC4E8060D66A1

If you have any operational issues please post here but most importantly report to Kingwa so he can address. Have fun!!!!

 

[DACLadder]

I am not going to comment (yet) on the new firmware. But it is major and well worth your time and effort to try it.