[DACLadder]

@BearlyPizza Congrats on the new R8! Let us know if the sound changes (hopefully for the better) as the R8 runs in toward 1,000 hrs. The R2R 7 was notorious for changing quite a bit during this period.

 

[FredA]

Yes, I did try S/A many times. It is a good blend of Smooth and Accurate. I just like Accurate (OS 8x) a bit more after the dust has settled.

I find these firmware loads help fine tune a system for your tastes and liking. There is really no right or wrong on what you eventually choose.

Soon perhaps we will get a v3. At least, i will if i finish my r-7 faceplate mod. This time, it should work. V3 is supposed to be an overall upgrade. I read the release notes quickly last night.

 

[FredA]

From Kingwa's V3 release notes:

There are 3 version firmwares built with V3 codes.
The different to V2 as below:
1, Improved the accurate on Accurate firmware .
2, Improved on all firmwares NOS modes,keep the mode 3 as standard, made other modes sound flavor different larger

 

[FredA]

My understanding from reading 1. this is the accurate fw gets an OS upgrade.

 

[DACLadder]

Thanks @FredA Are the same V3 firmware files compatible with both the R2R 7 and R7?

Took me 3 months to get used to V2 but looking forward to an update to V3 Accurate. At least my system hardware has stabilized. And also trying V3 Accurate on the M7S.

 

[FredA]

Thanks @FredA Are the same V3 firmware files compatible with both the R2R 7 and R7?

Took me 3 months to get used to V2 but looking forward to an update to V3 Accurate. At least my system hardware has stabilized. And also trying V3 Accurate on the M7S.

I guess the firmware would work but the jumpers are remapped. The s0, s1 and s2 jumper are not used with the r-7.

 

[Toni-Mang]

First short comparison between the r2r-1 and the r8. Wider soundstage, more presence/emphasis and more base....the image is a bit more colorfull...im very impressed.
The case is a bit deeper than my master one...acss connect, as the r2r-1 in comparison. The r8 has not burned in yet...but the image is much more forced, vocals and details have more energy.
My r2r-1 is burned in and has the same resolution, but less juice and image body....what a great deal the r8 is!

 

[Tango Sierra]

My final installment about cable comparisons used with my Singularity 7.

I retrieved my brother's Audio Sensibility Impact USB cable and Testament SE power cable to compare to my new AS Statement USB and power cables. If you haven't been following my comparisons of power and USB cables you may want to go back in this thread and read posts 3283, 3290 and 3298 before continuing with this post. I increased the number of tracks in my reference playlist from 3 to 16 which is two hours long. It's a broad group of genres that includes Pop, Rock, Blues, Jazz and Classical but not exactly up to date culturally. Not counting the Classical tracks the rest range from the 1950s through the 1980s. An exception is Blues and Ballads by The Brad Mehldau Trio released in 2016 but even most of those compositions are considerably older.

Starting with the Impact USB cable and Testament SE power cable I ran my playlist and became so drawn into the music I forgot I was going to take notes about the details of the sound and just closed my eyes and listened to the entire playlist for two hours. After I finished I said "Wow!" and went to bed. The next day I listened to the entire playlist again without taking notes but this time I used the Statement USB Cable with the Testament SE power cable.

Day three I went back to the Impact USB / Testament SE PC combination and took the following notes while listening to the two-hour playlist. Day four I listened again to the same combination while taking notes. Some of my comments may be a repeat of observations I made in a previous post when I compared this power cable against others.
Brad Mehldau's piano from his Blues and Ballads album is miked like they stuck your head inside the grand piano and closed the top but each string comes through clearly (though somewhat overpowering which isn't the cables fault) whereas, with some other cables I used, the piano sound is very smeared. I just love the natural sound of a double bass with this cable combo. The quite things the drummer does in the background can be heard clearly. Cymbals sound pure. Attack and decay are palpable. The three classical orchestral tracks I listened to were Movement one from Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado, Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No.2 played by Cecile Licad backed by the same Orchestra and conductor as the last track and finally Dvorak symphony No.9 performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein from a remaster by Chesky Records. The tiny reverberation differences of the concert halls used for these orchestral recordings can be distinctly heard. You can place the different sections of the orchestras right where they should be. Strings are smooth and the horns are crisp without harshness. From the Famous Blue Raincoat album, Jennifer Warnes' voice comes through so clear and beautiful. Leonard Cohen's baritone is smooth without any harshness in the Joan of Arc track. Sibilants are pretty much gone compared to lower quality cables. The treble glare of the Singularity 7 is almost eliminated. Another beautiful female voice is Annie Ross and from Sings a Song with Mulligan that voice harmonizes so nicely with Gerry Mulligan's baritone saxophone despite the contrast in tones. Again, the double bass sounds natural. Chris Frantz's drums in Television Man from The Talking Heads album Little Creatures have a strong impact and punch like you are in the recording studio with him. Other recordings I enjoyed were Fallin' Rain by the Neville Brothers, Nothing I Would Not Do by Tony Joe White, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl by Muddy Waters from the Mobile Fidelity remaster of Folk Singer (a knock-out CD) and I Still Believe by The Call. Human voices are wonderful with these cables. I am never going to be able to go back to lesser cables.

Next, I tried the Statement USB cable with the Testament SE power cable. I am borrowing the following terminology from posts made by BengaminBore in his reviews in other sections of Head-Fi Forums. Improvements over the Impact USB could clearly be heard in the Clarity, Air/Presence, Texture (detail within individual sounds), Overall Detail, Speed, and Tactility, but the Statement USB cable also points out more strongly the weaknesses of my components.
Milt Jackson's vibes on Cannonball Adderley with Milt Jackson's Things are Getting Better album sounds so detailed that I wondered if my Singularity wasn't in NOS mode anymore. After listening for a while to the music I began to wonder if the sound was too intense and that maybe I needed a listening break. So I plugged the Impact USB cable back in and listened to Tchaikovsky Symphony No.5 and it clearly lacked the energy the music had with the Statement USB cable, also the hall reverberation details were dimmed somewhat compared to the Statement. Art Pepper's alto sax on Holiday Flight had less Tactility with the Impact cable. The Impact cable sounded great but the Statement USB just takes the music experience to a higher level. On a scale of one to six with a cheap accessory USB cable being a zero, I would give the Impact a 3.5 and the Statement a five. I did not give a six because I know there must be something better out there, I just haven't experienced that many upgrade USB cables.

Last, but not least, is the combination of both Statement USB and Power cables. In short, the Statement power cable kicks it up another notch, but at first the improvement in performance this time does not seem as large as it was when changing USB cables. That changes with longer listening and suddenly I don't want to step back down on the power cable either. With a cheap cable pair Muddy Waters' Good Morning Little School Girl sounds like it was recorded in a church and places Muddy at the altar and the listener at the rear of the church. With the Impact/Testament combo the reverberation decreases slightly and moves the listener up a few rows. The Statement USB/Testament PC pairing decreases the reverberation some more and moves the listener up a little more. With both Statements, the reverb stops changing but the listener is now only 25 percent of the church distance away from Muddy and his voice is less lost in the reverb. Television Man by Talking Heads now sounds like it did when I was using the LP to audition Sota and Linn turntables 30 years ago. Then I was hearing it thru large floor standing speakers and now it sounds the same through my LCD-X headphones. The Singularity's treble glare is greatly reduced and only occasionally noticed with some material. The improved intimacy becomes more apparent with each track I listen to.

Every listening session with each cable combination was repeated on a different day with fresh notes taken and then compared to the previous session's notes to see if my impressions were different. If the notes had discrepancies, I repeated the session again with that cable combination. I also would step back down to listen to the lesser expensive cables again because I can often notice better sonics when they are missing better than when they are added. When I returned my brother's cables I let him try my Statement cables with his speaker based system. He immediately noticed an improvement with the sound that exceeded his expectations. He said he now hates me after calculating the cost of replacing all the cables in his system.

After hearing the improvement to the music that the Audio Sensibility Statement cables have brought to me, far exceeding my expectations, the anticipation of waiting to replace my Soundcraftsman with the Master 9 is beginning to become unbearable.

Some may say I was influenced by the price of the cables in my listening impressions. If so, why did I pick the cheap e-bay power cable in an earlier post over some other more expensive name-brand cables? In past listening experiences with interconnects my choices did not go along with the prices and I admit that I don't hear the differences between certain cables, but when I can, I can do so repeatedly with someone else changing the cables randomly. I will fail at A/B tests that require instant switching with a patch panel as most people will also fail. That type of testing uses a different part of the brain than when a person sits back really listening to music at length. Again, your mileage may vary or you may think I'm fooling myself. That's OK with me. Take from this comparison what you want and just go back and enjoy the music.

 

[FredA]

Hi guys.

My r2r 7 has become a r-7, minus the back panel update port. Since my dac had neither the power cable nor the input selection cable on socket, i had to work quite hard to do the mod. All is functional now but I have an issue with loud pops when switching inputs . It may partially go away as the new controller burns in. Anyway, i can always mute the pre when doing this, no big deal. Another difficulty is you have to ideally remove two internal walls in order to route the cables to the digital board and the side panels to facilitate the removal of the faceplate,

So all in all, it tooks me several hours tonight as i was trying to find a cause to this loud popping switching inputs. Kingwa was very helpful, as always. I can’t thank him enough. If it had not been of this issue, i would have done the job in 4-5 hours

I am testing the new v3 accurate fw now. And as @JaMo mentioned on another thread, the nos3 mode sounds just great! Almost as dynamic as the os8 and so liquid! Like a r2r 11++.

To soon to make a judgment as my dac is still cold. But things are looking very very good.

 

[batfier]

Hi guys.

My r2r 7 has become a r-7, minus the back panel update port. Since my dac had neither the power cable nor the input selection cable on socket, i had to work quite hard to do the mod. All is functional now but I have an issue with loud pops when switching inputs . It may partially go away as the new controller burns in. Anyway, i can always mute the pre when doing this, no big deal. Another difficulty is you have to ideally remove two internal walls in order to route the cables to the digital board and the side panels to facilitate the removal of the faceplate,

So all in all, it tooks me several hours tonight as i was trying to find a cause to this loud popping switching inputs. Kingwa was very helpful, as always. I can’t thank him enough. If it had not been of this issue, i would have done the job in 4-5 hours

I am testing the new v3 accurate fw now. And as @JaMo mentioned on another thread, the nos3 mode sounds just great! Almost as dynamic as the os8 and so liquid! Like a r2r 11++.

To soon to make a judgment as my dac is still cold. But things are looking very very good.

Congrats and thanks for sharing! glad to see you successfully finished it and that it worth the effort sonic wise as well. looking forward to the metamorphoses of my r2r7.

 

[JaMo]

Hi guys.

My r2r 7 has become a r-7, minus the back panel update port. Since my dac had neither the power cable nor the input selection cable on socket, i had to work quite hard to do the mod. All is functional now but I have an issue with loud pops when switching inputs . It may partially go away as the new controller burns in. Anyway, i can always mute the pre when doing this, no big deal. Another difficulty is you have to ideally remove two internal walls in order to route the cables to the digital board and the side panels to facilitate the removal of the faceplate,

So all in all, it tooks me several hours tonight as i was trying to find a cause to this loud popping switching inputs. Kingwa was very helpful, as always. I can’t thank him enough. If it had not been of this issue, i would have done the job in 4-5 hours

I am testing the new v3 accurate fw now. And as @JaMo mentioned on another thread, the nos3 mode sounds just great! Almost as dynamic as the os8 and so liquid! Like a r2r 11++.

To soon to make a judgment as my dac is still cold. But things are looking very very good.

Well done Fred!
Congratulations!
/Jan

 

[BearlyPizza]

Hi guys.

My r2r 7 has become a r-7, minus the back panel update port. Since my dac had neither the power cable nor the input selection cable on socket, i had to work quite hard to do the mod. All is functional now but I have an issue with loud pops when switching inputs . It may partially go away as the new controller burns in. Anyway, i can always mute the pre when doing this, no big deal. Another difficulty is you have to ideally remove two internal walls in order to route the cables to the digital board and the side panels to facilitate the removal of the faceplate,

So all in all, it tooks me several hours tonight as i was trying to find a cause to this loud popping switching inputs. Kingwa was very helpful, as always. I can’t thank him enough. If it had not been of this issue, i would have done the job in 4-5 hours

I am testing the new v3 accurate fw now. And as @JaMo mentioned on another thread, the nos3 mode sounds just great! Almost as dynamic as the os8 and so liquid! Like a r2r 11++.

To soon to make a judgment as my dac is still cold. But things are looking very very good.

grats!! looks good~

 

[FredA]

Thanks guys.

I enjoy v3 accurate in nos3 very much.

 

[Chopin75]

Thanks guys.

I enjoy v3 accurate in nos3 very much.

NOS is really great ! Maybe now you can check out the other NOS modes very easily. See what u think of NOS 2, currently my favoirte mode. Does the new panel show the sampling rates, DSD/PCM etc ?

 

[FredA]

NOS is really great ! Maybe now you can check out the other NOS modes very easily. See what u think of NOS 2, currently my favoirte mode. Does the new panel show the sampling rates, DSD/PCM etc ?

No sampling rate displayed.

The difference between os8 and nos 3 is now minimal. Unbelievably close, to such an extent i wonder sometimes if the configuration panel works, but i can state it does as the sound pauses for a fraction of a second as i change the mode between os and nos,

Nos 3 with old jazz is fabulous, the medium and bass are richer, and the highs smoother. All this is subtle but it is enough to make the sound more enjoyable, it took the usual 24 hours for the r2r 7 to get up to speed. And now i can say that nos 3 (the rest of the settins are all defaults) is my favorite, the bass response is so good, and the sound is smooth yet resolved. The tonal balance is excellent. It really makes me think of the r2r-11, only more resolved and with more clarity.

I just love that sound.