[FredA]

Tonight is great sounding night and the r2r 7 is a couple of notches better than it has ever been before. Did i mention the perfecty grainless treble?
Yes i did. A few times. For my defense, it's the first time i have a digital gear that sounds so perfectly analog.

 

[barbas]

Tonight is great sounding night and the r2r 7 is a couple of notches better than it has ever been before. Did i mentioned the perfecty grainless treble?
Yes i did. A few times. For my defense, it's the first time i have a digital gear that sounds so perfectly analog.

Which jumpers settings are you using Fred?

 

[Chopin75]

Do you guys mind testing DSD as well. Preferably original DSD recordings but conversion from PCM is fine if not available .

 

[FredA]

Which jumpers settings are you using Fred?

No jumper. I trust Kingwa's default settings. Tonight, i was doing 2x oversampling in Audirvana however.

 

[Wynnytsky]

Ah you meant left-right channel are inverted.

nope -- not what I meant

JRIver let's you choose all the channels for phase inversion


absolute phase inversion on both channels is pretty much impossible to hear. It was only evident to me with audience clapping and finger snaps

 

[FredA]

Do you guys mind testing DSD as well. Preferably original DSD recordings but conversion from PCM is fine if not available .

I don't expect much change with dsd. Could be wrong. i will give it a try soon. Time for bed now.

 

[FredA]

nope -- not what I meant

JRIver let's you choose all the channels for phase inversion


absolute phase inversion on both channels is pretty much impossible to hear. It was only evident to me with audience clapping and finger snaps

If you are sure, report it to Kingwa. It will get fixed in a breeze. I am not sure i see much of a difference with polarity inverted. You must have great hearing.

 

[Wynnytsky]

I'm hearing a slight static sound on the right channel, but only with simple music that showcases a black background. Swapped channels in JRiver and the static stayed on the right. Swapped DAC RCA outs and the static moved off the right speaker over to the left speaker. Like @barbas I'll have to go back to accurate to confirm this is a new thing. I don't think you'd hear it from low-90s efficiency speakers.

I'm using the coax input with all jumpers on accept s2/dither/bypass

I hope to hell this firmware works out. It is otherwise lovely!

 

[FredA]

Using no jumper, i have no issue. I am assuming it's dependent on the mode.

Through hp, i can see how resolved the sound has become. On the old classic The Girl from Ipanema (Getz/Gilberto) there is a ton of artefacts. Each of these recording defects are revealed to nakedness, while not being exagerated which would make the record unlistenable.

 

[FredA]

Now listening to Tres Lindas Cubanas from Introducing Ruben Gonzales, the track never sounded so good. The fw upgrade sounds like a hardware upgrade. As DacLadder and i mentioned, the da-7 are very accurate and i think they were not used to their full potential with the old fw. I believe one reason for this is they can operate In the Mhzs to support dsd, so they are really fast boards. This speed should help with reconstructing a faithful signal. Linearity also has to be top notch. It sure sound like it is.

Before the update, the da-7 board was assumed to have a slight resolution advantage over the pcm1704k. We will not know what this fw would have done for the 1704 dacs but it sure allows the da-7 to show its true potential. And it's huge IMO.

Their are perhaps some glitches to fix before an official release but still, congratulations to Kingwa. It seems like this dac will be up against the big guys. Beware Mr Dave.

Give the fw a few days before making a call. For some reason, i like it more and more with time.

 

[FredA]

Listening to dsd (converted on the fly to dsd256 using an 8th order filter in audirvana) now to report to @Chopin75: it seems like it is the same as before i.e. better than any delta-sigma i owned before, but frankly, pcm is on top. Just better attacks. Better timbres. Piano lacks authority with dsd. As for the soundstage, dsd might still have a very slight edge, not even sure. I would say dsd sound the same as before while pcm is improved a couple of notches. The story could be different with actual dsd recordings, but i doubt it would be so different. It's not that it's bad, i would call is excellent. Only, pcm is better. Plus dsd is not even smoother anymore. I have to give the smoothness prize to pcm. It has become grainless and dsd is just beaten, sorry.

 

[barbas]

After flashing again last night the new .jic file that Fred kindly sent to me, I did not have any issue at all with BNC. The thing is that the noise is not always present and have no apparent logic, so I will not discard some random noises again.

Optical is not working at all though. It's not for music purposes but it's the only digital out I have from my TV.

Thanks again Fred.

 

[barbas]

Using no jumper, i have no issue. I am assuming it's dependent on the mode.

Through hp, i can see how resolved the sound has become. On the old classic The Girl from Ipanema (Getz/Gilberto) there is a ton of artefacts. Each of these recording defects are revealed to nakedness, while not being exagerated which would make the record unlistenable.

I'm with no jumpers at all right now. While the noise was present I've tried different modes and the noise was still present.

 

[barbas]

I'm hearing a slight static sound on the right channel, but only with simple music that showcases a black background. Swapped channels in JRiver and the static stayed on the right. Swapped DAC RCA outs and the static moved off the right speaker over to the left speaker. Like @barbas I'll have to go back to accurate to confirm this is a new thing. I don't think you'd hear it from low-90s efficiency speakers.

I'm using the coax input with all jumpers on accept s2/dither/bypass

I hope to hell this firmware works out. It is otherwise lovely!

In my case the light static became unlistenable after some minutes, and with my 87db Gallo 3.5. Right channel also.

Have you tried your optical input?

 

[barbas]

Ah you meant left-right channel are inverted. Not for me though. I have my favorite test track telling me it's ok.

Well, from what i hear in my highly transparent hp set, i think i now need the best speakers 5k can get me.

I don't think you'll do that much better than your Gallo 3.1 with 5k. I encourage you to try a second hand pair of 3.5.