[Chopin75]

Supposedly the F1 can do DSD 512 but not tested by Magna. Also it may require software update which presumably has been uploaded to the new F1 like one I got. My audirvana’s 512 button is still not lit up. I suppose using USB 3 vs. 2 shouldn’t mak a difference. Anyway, I tried upsampling from 96Hz to 355 Hz, didn’t work well. Sound stage narrowed, less bass and maybe just a bit smoother top but not good enough to compensate the loss of sound stage. But then it was heavy organ music! Upsampled to DSD 64 was terrible! Got some air but no more bass and dynamics. Perhaps HQpalyer would do a much better job as it is supposed to be best in this stuff. Or maybe my computer is too weak for the job, not enough RAM etc. for now I don’t need upsampling. The vocals coming out of my Redbook CD source is simply gorgeous! If I had gotten the R2R7 before getting to computer audio, I may never have started doing downloads which I am just starting to collect. Again I know I would need a much better computer source and the R2R7 shows it nakedly. Poor recordings or sources are just so much worse compared with the nice recordings, this difference is much exaggerated now.

Also playing internet radio from Venice Classical radio is simply gorgeous at times with nice recordings, as good or better than my own downloads it seems. I wonder if that is because the music is actually not being played not from my computer but wirelessly transferred digitally to it, so no active processing from my computer. Or they also use CDs or some other real nice sources?

 

[DACLadder]

Sounds like too much of a good thing. Try SW upsampling in NOS mode for PCM playback. Otherwise the DAC in OS x8 is oversampling the SW upsamples. NOS plays whatever you feed it natively. And then apply upsampling on the SW side to move the R7s DSP anti-aliasing filtering to well outside the audio band. This allows you to adjust the SW digital filters without the DAC filters or OS being in the way. Anyway, oversampling an upsampled source sounds like a recipe for not great sound. And just to stress generally NOS demands a good source like your F1 on I2S.

And does S, SA, A have any affect on DSD playback? Or OS or NOS with DSD? Seems like these would be PCM only. I convert all my few DSD files to PCM. Sounds remarkably good.

 

[FredA]

I have new Osborn Eclipse speakers now. The r2r 7 with the accurate fw shines even more with them. They only have 70 hours of run time. I think they are great. They even beat my Gallo 3.1 for imaging! And on bass extension and musicality. I am so close to owning a reference system.

 

[DACLadder]

Congrats @FredA!

 

[FredA]

Congrats @FredA!

Thanks. I had to import them from Australia (no distributor in North America) and rely on on my nose, could not hear them before buying. At first, they sounded so so. On the next day, they were enjoyable on some records. Tonight, they are becoming awesone as bass has tightened up and as i nailed the postioning. Can't go to bed.

 

[Chopin75]

Sounds like too much of a good thing. Try SW upsampling in NOS mode for PCM playback. Otherwise the DAC in OS x8 is oversampling the SW upsamples. NOS plays whatever you feed it natively. And then apply upsampling on the SW side to move the R7s DSP anti-aliasing filtering to well outside the audio band. This allows you to adjust the SW digital filters without the DAC filters or OS being in the way. Anyway, oversampling an upsampled source sounds like a recipe for not great sound. And just to stress generally NOS demands a good source like your F1 on I2S.

And does S, SA, A have any affect on DSD playback? Or OS or NOS with DSD? Seems like these would be PCM only. I convert all my few DSD files to PCM. Sounds remarkably good.

Yes, I am currently in NOS mode. The SW should have little to no effect in DSD it seems as it does not use the R2R ladder, unless FW affects the analogue filter. Why would u want to convert DSD to PCM ?? Native DSD is best heard as is. Regards to oversampling an upsampled source, I also think DXD (native DXD recording, not upsampled) sounds better with NOS. It may not be necessary to do 8x OS for DXD anymore, even though the DXD is original recording. DSD playback does not use NOS or OS mode at all, those are exclusively for PCM. DSD upsampling needs a different mechanism I believe. PS audio does it with direct streamer and it can’t play PCM (chipless).

 

[Whitigir]

The R2R boards must have something to do with the DSD conversion. Then that Cyclone FPGA too. Why ? Because both lks004 and r2r7 use amanero384. Regardless of upgrades in the Amanero, the differences should be relatively small. But comparing DSD512 between both with the same track that is upconverted to DSD512 ? The r2r7 performances is embarrassing where as lks004 shines so greatly and even dx200 as a portable player can outperform r2r7

 

[FredA]

The R2R boards must have something to do with the DSD conversion. Then that Cyclone FPGA too. Why ? Because both lks004 and r2r7 use amanero384. Regardless of upgrades in the Amanero, the differences should be relatively small. But comparing DSD512 between both with the same track that is upconverted to DSD512 ? The r2r7 performances is embarrassing where as lks004 shines so greatly and even dx200 as a portable player can outperform r2r7

Could be a little too fast for the da-7 boards, ask Kingwa. It's not an architecture made primarily for dsd. Maybe one should stick to dsd256, which i find very nice.

 

[Whitigir]

Actually, that. Cyclone can handles upto 8.3GbpS....that is very crazy for an FPGA. I bet it could handle upto dsd1-24 if proper firmware is made. The point is that if we think DSD just only bypass these components and parts, we are wrong. There are some level of processing involving. I do not know, but that is what my ears is telling me

I know that Amanero isn’t as good as Xmos, and that is for sure as I witnessed not only sound performances but also technically limitations. The newest XmosU216 is nice, but there are no DDC that is using it

 

[Chopin75]

The R2R boards must have something to do with the DSD conversion. Then that Cyclone FPGA too. Why ? Because both lks004 and r2r7 use amanero384. Regardless of upgrades in the Amanero, the differences should be relatively small. But comparing DSD512 between both with the same track that is upconverted to DSD512 ? The r2r7 performances is embarrassing where as lks004 shines so greatly and even dx200 as a portable player can outperform r2r7

I also find the converter DSD (non-native) on my signa delta is better than on R2R7 which sounds terrible. But I presume that is because the PCM version sounds so much better. DSD is tricky, as PCM —> DSD even by the recording company can be nasty. Perhaps Signa Delta likes high sampling stuff? Almost all SD DACs use upsampling, not NOS. As per Kingwa the DSD uses a different decoder for the DSD but he did not specifically say it never goes through the R2R. It is only possible to go to bit 1 of the R2R board and that is it as far as I am see if it is claimed by Kingwa that there is no PCM conversion, and I don’t know if FPGA for DSD (assuming he uses that too) will be affected by his FW or not.

 

[Chopin75]

Could be a little too fast for the da-7 boards, ask Kingwa. It's not an architecture made primarily for dsd. Maybe one should stick to dsd256, which i find very nice.

Good point, most dedicated DSD players are made for DSD256 except for the crazy PS Audio with DSD64 x 10 upsampling ! Maybe the analogue filters cannot handle DSD512 well? Certainly can ask him directly instead of guessing

 

[Chopin75]

Actually, that. Cyclone can handles upto 8.3GbpS....that is very crazy for an FPGA. I bet it could handle upto dsd1-24 if proper firmware is made. The point is that if we think DSD just only bypass these components and parts, we are wrong. There are some level of processing involving. I do not know, but that is what my ears is telling me

I know that Amanero isn’t as good as Xmos, and that is for sure as I witnessed not only sound performances but also technically limitations. The newest XmosU216 is nice, but there are no DDC that is using it

What components do u mean ? The R2R board or the DSP ? It cannot go through the entire multibit R2R ladder or sure.

 

[Whitigir]

I also find the converter DSD (non-native) on my signa delta is better than on R2R7 which sounds terrible. But I presume that is because the PCM version sounds so much better. DSD is tricky, as PCM —> DSD even by the recording company can be nasty. Perhaps Signa Delta likes high sampling stuff? Almost all SD DACs use upsampling, not NOS. As per Kingwa the DSD uses a different decoder for the DSD but he did not specifically say it never goes through the R2R. It is only possible to go to bit 1 of the R2R board and that is it as far as I am see if it is claimed by Kingwa that there is no PCM conversion, and I don’t know if FPGA for DSD (assuming he uses that too) will be affected by his FW or not.

All S/D does upsampling, none of them has NOS mode.

Even with DSD bypass on AKM4497EQ, it still processing the DSD that it got from a DOP as in Multibit language flowing into itself. The ESS pro lines does even more processing. I have yet to hear anything from AKM4497EQ, but the reason why many DAC you have known is made for DSD256 is because it was the limitation of the last generation DAC chips, which could only handle that much. The newer generation AKM4497EQ can do DSD512, and crazy enough both ESS Pro lines can do DSD1024.

It is obvious that DSD256 or DSD512 are very poor performances on R2R7 which is out done by both of my devices that has ESS9028Pro (Dx200) and ESS9038Pro (lks004). The only differences is that DSD256 has no weird noises with Amanero on R2R7.

What components do u mean ? The R2R board or the DSP ? It cannot go through the entire multibit R2R ladder or sure.

R2R Resistors Board are 26 bits. So it is multi-bit and is IIS Native. It gotta be doing DOP (DSD over PCM), how else would it handle 1-bit by pass ?

Unless the Cyclone FPGA is involved before the R2R boards, then it is possible to encode the Cyclone to act as a 1 bit DAC bypass all of the DSD into Analog filters.

Perhap Kingwa meant that there is no PCM conversion at the Cyclone and R2Rboards, but the Amanero and I2S is already DOP (DSD over pcm). Therefore, the Cyclone must be the main culprit, and if so, the Cyclone task at this moment is more complicated with server steps such as :

1/ realize the Multibit DOP in DSD conversions

2/ Processing and applying DSP

3/ Compensating and merging into 1 bit original DSD signals

4/ Act as a 1 bit DAC and bypass into Analog filters

This is the only way that R2R7 handles DSDd without conversion into PCM, because it is already DOP from the modules to the inputs. If I am correct, then the firmware needs to be perfected for DSD, otherwise, anything cheap shot at those steps would degrade the sound

There is no reason that analog filters can not handle DSD.....analog filters is analog filters, it is the same regardless of what DSD rate. What matters is the processing conversion in the chain.

 

[FredA]

All S/D does upsampling, none of them has NOS mode.

Even with DSD bypass on AKM4497EQ, it still processing the DSD that it got from a DOP as in Multibit language flowing into itself. The ESS pro lines does even more processing. I have yet to hear anything from AKM4497EQ, but the reason why many DAC you have known is made for DSD256 is because it was the limitation of the last generation DAC chips, which could only handle that much. The newer generation AKM4497EQ can do DSD512, and crazy enough both ESS Pro lines can do DSD1024.

It is obvious that DSD256 or DSD512 are very poor performances on R2R7 which is out done by both of my devices that has ESS9028Pro (Dx200) and ESS9038Pro (lks004). The only differences is that DSD256 has no weird noises with Amanero on R2R7.



R2R Resistors Board are 26 bits. So it is multi-bit and is IIS Native. It gotta be doing DOP (DSD over PCM), how else would it handle 1-bit by pass ?

Unless the Cyclone FPGA is involved before the R2R boards, then it is possible to encode the Cyclone to act as a 1 bit DAC bypass all of the DSD into Analog filters.

Perhap Kingwa meant that there is no PCM conversion at the Cyclone and R2Rboards, but the Amanero and I2S is already DOP (DSD over pcm). Therefore, the Cyclone must be the main culprit, and if so, the Cyclone task at this moment is more complicated with server steps such as :

1/ realize the Multibit DOP in DSD conversions

2/ Processing and applying DSP

3/ Compensating and merging into 1 bit original DSD signals

4/ Act as a 1 bit DAC and bypass into Analog filters

This is the only way that R2R7 handles DSDd without conversion into PCM, because it is already DOP from the modules to the inputs. If I am correct, then the firmware needs to be perfected for DSD, otherwise, anything cheap shot at those steps would degrade the sound

There is no reason that analog filters can not handle DSD.....analog filters is analog filters, it is the same regardless of what DSD rate. What matters is the processing conversion in the chain.

Dsd256 sounds really well though my Singxer f-1.

 

[Whitigir]

Dsd256 sounds really well though my Singxer f-1.

Have you compared to any other yet ?