R8HE in-the-field Upgrade to 10M Clock Input
Summary:
Refinement of space, naturalness and preciseness in the realm of individual instruments and voices. A new sense of individual instrument/voice holography within the grand holography of the entire soundstage. Any previous vagueness of out-of-phase recorded instruments now snaps into focus in addition to bowling alley depth in some recordings.
I mentioned to Kingwa that if it is true that the linearity of the DAC is only ~80dB as purportedly measured by ASR, then the textbook measurements that are aspired to have less [perhaps no] relevance to the listening experience that I have intuitively aspired to and now embrace with this DAC.
In short, this was "The best listening experience I ever had".
Ha!
This is after about 40 hours of burn-in with a brand new .5M DH Labs Silver Sonic BNC cable. Kingwa mentioned that the new configuration of the FPGA will require 100 hours before full stability. A lot of holography improvement has occurred from 24 to 40 hours.
While the HW portion of the upgrade is straightforward conceptually - replacing the coax input with 75ohm BNC and swapping out the display, it was by no means a walk in the park in terms of its execution.
I imagine the display replacement on an R8 might be somewhat less involved vs. the R8HE where at least in my unit, with no supplied step-by-step instructions, I had to use a sharp knife to cut the two tie wraps tying the existing three ribbons to the incoming AC cord running underneath the regenerator board. Not knowing at the time that the new display is not backwards compatible to issued production FW as well as whether I'd need to back out of the upgrade for some unknown issue, rather than cut the connectors off the ends of the ribbons I went through the tedious process of unscrewing the aluminum partition holding the three transformers so the ribbons/connectors could be pulled out from the digital section. Also on the HE version, I unseated the main regenerator transformer to have access to pulling the new power ribbon into the middle of the chassis where it plugs into the transformer power board. Illustrations of the board connectors and ribbon identifiers on the new display board were provided. If you're going for the [in-the-field] upgrade, tie a wire or string to the ends of the ribbons before pulling them out so you can most easily [ha!] pull the new ribbons back into place.
On my R8HE, I had to pull the USB Blaster ribbon off the digital board which was covering up hidden circuit board pins for the new fourth ribbon from the display which provides the new feature of displaying incoming sample rate. I forgot to plug the USB Blaster ribbon back onto the board which was the culprit of my issue with the new FW update.
In terms of the new display installation [along with gaining access to cutting the cable ties underneath the regenerator board], the front panel needed to be unbolted from the sides to gain access to the bottom screws of the display board as the main regenerator transformer is mounted directly behind it. On my R8HE, it put some strain on the AC wires soldered to the front panel switch.
Also, the new off-the-shelf display momentary switch buttons are about 5mm long vs. the ~1mm needed for the retrofit. A thin washer placed over the buttons of the approximate height allowing a precision wire cutter to trim to a consistent height did the trick. I did have to follow up with a slight Dremel Tool trim on one button that was not releasing upon the first display install attempt. I also replaced the Philips screws underneath the chassis securing the middle panel with button head allen head screws as the weight of the three transformers requires the panel to be cranked down tightly. In addition to the two existing coax wires needing to be soldered to the new BNC connector, one very small surface mount resistor needs to be desoldered to one of the digital board ribbon connectors.
I purchased the Neutrik 75ohm BNC thru Parts Express $15 [where the shipping was more expensive than the $6 part].
I'd get the BNC through Kingwa along with the display. The display was $58 inclusive of DHL shipping which arrived in about 4 days.
If your heart wants it, then I say, "Go for it!".
I do not know Kingwa's timeline to post the upgrade to the website.
Supplemental to an inquiry regarding the distinction between 10M clock input to the SingXer SU-2 DDI vs. the DAC, my observations with the R8HE are as follows:
Before the addition of the external 10M clock to the SingXer SU-2, I felt the addition of the USB to IIS DDI was marginal.
After the clock input to the SU-2, the soundstage widened by 10%-15% along with across-the-board SQ refinements.
After adding 10M clock to the R8HE, the 180 degree soundstage width didn't really change but the refinement and delineation of instruments/voices within the soundstage took on a new dimension of refinement in my setup. I listen exclusively through speakers spaced 13' apart at about a 100 degree listening angle.
The End.
Finally, a heartfelt "Thank you" to Kingwa for his generosity, and making a significant difference to our hobby.
I hope this summary was useful.
Summary:
Refinement of space, naturalness and preciseness in the realm of individual instruments and voices. A new sense of individual instrument/voice holography within the grand holography of the entire soundstage. Any previous vagueness of out-of-phase recorded instruments now snaps into focus in addition to bowling alley depth in some recordings.
I mentioned to Kingwa that if it is true that the linearity of the DAC is only ~80dB as purportedly measured by ASR, then the textbook measurements that are aspired to have less [perhaps no] relevance to the listening experience that I have intuitively aspired to and now embrace with this DAC.
In short, this was "The best listening experience I ever had".
Ha!This is after about 40 hours of burn-in with a brand new .5M DH Labs Silver Sonic BNC cable. Kingwa mentioned that the new configuration of the FPGA will require 100 hours before full stability. A lot of holography improvement has occurred from 24 to 40 hours.
While the HW portion of the upgrade is straightforward conceptually - replacing the coax input with 75ohm BNC and swapping out the display, it was by no means a walk in the park in terms of its execution.
I imagine the display replacement on an R8 might be somewhat less involved vs. the R8HE where at least in my unit, with no supplied step-by-step instructions, I had to use a sharp knife to cut the two tie wraps tying the existing three ribbons to the incoming AC cord running underneath the regenerator board. Not knowing at the time that the new display is not backwards compatible to issued production FW as well as whether I'd need to back out of the upgrade for some unknown issue, rather than cut the connectors off the ends of the ribbons I went through the tedious process of unscrewing the aluminum partition holding the three transformers so the ribbons/connectors could be pulled out from the digital section. Also on the HE version, I unseated the main regenerator transformer to have access to pulling the new power ribbon into the middle of the chassis where it plugs into the transformer power board. Illustrations of the board connectors and ribbon identifiers on the new display board were provided. If you're going for the [in-the-field] upgrade, tie a wire or string to the ends of the ribbons before pulling them out so you can most easily [ha!] pull the new ribbons back into place.
On my R8HE, I had to pull the USB Blaster ribbon off the digital board which was covering up hidden circuit board pins for the new fourth ribbon from the display which provides the new feature of displaying incoming sample rate. I forgot to plug the USB Blaster ribbon back onto the board which was the culprit of my issue with the new FW update.
In terms of the new display installation [along with gaining access to cutting the cable ties underneath the regenerator board], the front panel needed to be unbolted from the sides to gain access to the bottom screws of the display board as the main regenerator transformer is mounted directly behind it. On my R8HE, it put some strain on the AC wires soldered to the front panel switch.
Also, the new off-the-shelf display momentary switch buttons are about 5mm long vs. the ~1mm needed for the retrofit. A thin washer placed over the buttons of the approximate height allowing a precision wire cutter to trim to a consistent height did the trick. I did have to follow up with a slight Dremel Tool trim on one button that was not releasing upon the first display install attempt. I also replaced the Philips screws underneath the chassis securing the middle panel with button head allen head screws as the weight of the three transformers requires the panel to be cranked down tightly. In addition to the two existing coax wires needing to be soldered to the new BNC connector, one very small surface mount resistor needs to be desoldered to one of the digital board ribbon connectors.
I purchased the Neutrik 75ohm BNC thru Parts Express $15 [where the shipping was more expensive than the $6 part].
I'd get the BNC through Kingwa along with the display. The display was $58 inclusive of DHL shipping which arrived in about 4 days.
If your heart wants it, then I say, "Go for it!".
I do not know Kingwa's timeline to post the upgrade to the website.
Supplemental to an inquiry regarding the distinction between 10M clock input to the SingXer SU-2 DDI vs. the DAC, my observations with the R8HE are as follows:
Before the addition of the external 10M clock to the SingXer SU-2, I felt the addition of the USB to IIS DDI was marginal.
After the clock input to the SU-2, the soundstage widened by 10%-15% along with across-the-board SQ refinements.
After adding 10M clock to the R8HE, the 180 degree soundstage width didn't really change but the refinement and delineation of instruments/voices within the soundstage took on a new dimension of refinement in my setup. I listen exclusively through speakers spaced 13' apart at about a 100 degree listening angle.
The End.
Finally, a heartfelt "Thank you" to Kingwa for his generosity, and making a significant difference to our hobby.
I hope this summary was useful.
Last edited:
