[DACLadder]

The reasons for my silence this time are a mix of things...

Thank you Jan. Great summation with heartfelt truth. That is great news about DSD. My original M7 took a good 6 months to fully open up. Sounded flat with little depth. So give it some time and DSP tweaks that are sure to come.

I purchased new headphones (HE1000 v2) and their clarity is amazing while also revealing. So got,me thinking about the R2R 7. But you are correct that both the M7S and S7 DACs are very musical and forgiving on bad source material.

 

[Wynnytsky]

I am not far from the perfect sound. Swapping some power cables is well worth trying also

that's exactly where I'm at now. My best sound was with a 6awg granite audio cable on the preamp -- that did the best job of controlling highs while retaining strong transients. A Kimber PK10 gold did a decent job as well, but the stage moved back, things got homologous, and the dynamics took a big hit. Years ago rolling power cables was a lost exercise on me but my current chain has an opinion on everything I feed it.

In my case, a little more in the upper mids, and i will be done. This is the magic ingredient that can make the sound really really involving.

Yes I like being startled by those registers -- the perfect tone on the the leading edge when the stick wacks the drum. Tonight for fun I put a 4" thick futon mattress against a side wall. That killed the magic pronto. All the highs were gone and it was like listening in a recording booth. Now I see why people seem to do a half ass job scattering small absorption panels. I'm going to only absorb around/above the speakers. Everywhere else I'll entertain diffusion.

 

[FredA]

Thank you Jan. Great summation with heartfelt truth. That is great news about DSD. My original M7 took a good 6 months to fully open up. Sounded flat with little depth. So give it some time and DSP tweaks that are sure to come.

I purchased new headphones (HE1000 v2) and their clarity is amazing while also revealing. So got,me thinking about the R2R 7. But you are correct that both the M7S and S7 DACs are very musical and forgiving on bad source material.

These cans must be great considering they are an upgrade to the he560, which i really really like. With headphones, using the nfb-1amp, i really like the r2r 7 better than the M7, just can't figure why it's so obviously better. Especially with the he560.

I will be able to test them with the r2r 11 soon. I expect great sound as well with this combination. The r2r 11 has a soundstage that is unheard of in this price range. Maybe the best bang for the buck in the whole audio industry. I think it is quite close to my big setup. Things would change if i acquired a M9 i assume. The M9 with he1000 must be a dream.

 

[DACLadder]

Audio-GD’s annual New Year sale on is! 5% off with special promotional price for R2R 11 of $330.00 US.

@FredA The HE1000 v2 is more to my liking versus Senn HD650s. The many differences are striking in favor of the HE1000s. The S7 is hanging in and sounding great. Would like to explore amps before DACs so looking at the M9. The old M7 was more bloated in the bass and much warmer so not sure today I could appreciate that given the S7’s clarity and precision.

But I will be taking a look at the M9 with a 5% discount. I may also order a R2R 11 at that ridiculously low price.

 

[FredA]

Audio-GD’s annual New Year sale on is! 5% off with special promotional price for R2R 11 of $330.00 US.

@FredA The HE1000 v2 is more to my liking versus Senn HD650s. The many differences are striking in favor of the HE1000s. The S7 is hanging in and sounding great. Would like to explore amps before DACs so looking at the M9. The old M7 was more bloated in the bass and much warmer so not sure today I could appreciate that given the S7’s clarity and precision.

But I will be taking a look at the M9 with a 5% discount. I may also order a R2R 11 at that ridiculously low price.

The construction of the r2r 11 is in accordance to the price (case, finish). Only, the sound is much better than i tought it could ever be. It's a real gem at this price point. Considering how elaborate it is, the M9 is also a great bargain. Those planar hp are so good, they get as much time as my speakers. I am becoming a headphone freak. They have microdynamics and texture to die for. Bass response second to none and such neutrality.

 

[FredA]

While i am at it, if you are into jazz, or even if your are not, listen to Chet Baker, The touch of your lips. That is what i can safely call one of the best jazz records ever made. And with the Hifiman/audio-gd setup, it's just captivating really. Something like happiness. Like breathing fresh air while the sun is slowly setting after a perfect day. In great company.

 

[christianvogel]

After having preferred NOS2, I have been experimenting with HQPlayer (connected to Roon) and the new closed form filters.

The closed form filters are the first filters that make me prefer oversampling over NOS. I have put the R2R7 in oversampling mode, and have HQPlayer do the first oversampling up to 192Khz (I am limited by the I2S output of the Mano) and let the R2R7 add another 8x. The big difference is a realness and extra layer of resolution in the sound. I still slightly prefer the directness and impact and "color" of the sound of NOS2. However, something about the closed filters just feels very "right". It makes me relax while being engrossed by the detail and realism, which is a good indication. In contrast, longer listening in NOS mode, while engrossing, gets more fatiguing.

Probably the Mano is also part of what I am hearing now. With the direct I2S connection, it bypasses a lot of processing steps, and with the nice lineair power supply and Tent shunts, it results in really low jitter, which can be clearly heard. For example, connecting my laptop through USB on battery power is an immediate degradation in sound quality.

Perhaps this is a bit what @Currawong meant with what he likes about the Dave? Theoretically, with the R2R7 and a powerful computer we now get the best of both: amazing hardware and incredible GPU accelerated filtering software, using an insane amount of taps (I think it is about the double that even the Dave does).

 

[Currawong]

No, there is no way that the R2R 7 has more taps in use than the DAVE. The DAVE has effectively 2048x oversampling and uses software that has been in development for 30 years. But it's $9k+ as well.

I thought about using HQPlayer and trying the filters with it. If I can work out how to set it up again I'll give them a go. I'm about due to do the final review.

 

[christianvogel]

From what I can find, Dave uses 164k taps, which is incredible considering its size. However even the powerful chip in the Dave cannot compete with discrete graphics card processors (consider just the watt/heat profile) in raw processing power. For example, HQPlayer's poly-sinc-xtr filter employs 2M taps up to over 4M (it depends on the oversampling steps used). However, that does not mean HQPlayer sounds better. From what I found, many found Dave to still perform better. This may be a factor of that 30 years of research.

In the end it is all theory and about what you hear. Very curious about your findings, especially since you have heard the Dave.

In related news, I saw that Magna now offers an upgrade I am likely to try:

USB Singxer F1 Option For Audio-GD
MAGNA HIFI is offering a significant upgrade of the internal USB interface by replacing the Amanero USB interface for a more sophisticated Singxer F-1 XU208 board using the Crystek CCHD-575 ultra low phase noise clocks. Besides the sound quality improvements it enables native DSD512 support! We'll make sure the Singxer F-1 is properly installed and using internal ultra clean power source from the internal DAC to ensure best sound quality! (Available for R2R7; R2R7HE; NFB7.77; others on request)

This would enable HQPlayer DSD512 upsampling to be thrown into the R2R7.

 

[christianvogel]

No, there is no way that the R2R 7 has more taps in use than the DAVE. The DAVE has effectively 2048x oversampling and uses software that has been in development for 30 years. But it's $9k+ as well.

I thought about using HQPlayer and trying the filters with it. If I can work out how to set it up again I'll give them a go. I'm about due to do the final review.

@Currawong if you have Roon, it is really simple to set up. You install HQPlayer and run it. In the settings dialog, select the filters you want to test (this is the fiddly part, but a matter of taste mostly. I suggest trying the closed-form ones first). Then in Roon, you can add HQPlayer as an endpoint (in audio settings, it is an option there). And... that is it, just play music from Roon

 

[FredA]

After having preferred NOS2, I have been experimenting with HQPlayer (connected to Roon) and the new closed form filters.

The closed form filters are the first filters that make me prefer oversampling over NOS. I have put the R2R7 in oversampling mode, and have HQPlayer do the first oversampling up to 192Khz (I am limited by the I2S output of the Mano) and let the R2R7 add another 8x. The big difference is a realness and extra layer of resolution in the sound. I still slightly prefer the directness and impact and "color" of the sound of NOS2. However, something about the closed filters just feels very "right". It makes me relax while being engrossed by the detail and realism, which is a good indication. In contrast, longer listening in NOS mode, while engrossing, gets more fatiguing.

Probably the Mano is also part of what I am hearing now. With the direct I2S connection, it bypasses a lot of processing steps, and with the nice lineair power supply and Tent shunts, it results in really low jitter, which can be clearly heard. For example, connecting my laptop through USB on battery power is an immediate degradation in sound quality.

Perhaps this is a bit what @Currawong meant with what he likes about the Dave? Theoretically, with the R2R7 and a powerful computer we now get the best of both: amazing hardware and incredible GPU accelerated filtering software, using an insane amount of taps (I think it is about the double that even the Dave does).

I don't think is any bypass done with the i2s connection. They are nos modes that have a timing that is more aligned to the digital source however.

I do think that with better filtering onboard, the r2r 7 can be improved, i said it a thousand times. Because the dac modules seem extremly accurate to my ears. They can reproduce really convincing echos and have amazing microdynamics that my planars easily reveal.The fundations of this dac are excellent.

 

[christianvogel]

I don't think is any bypass done with the i2s connection. They are nos modes that have a timing that is more aligned to the digital source however.

I do think that with better filtering onboard, the r2r 7 can be improved, i said it a thousand times. Because the dac modules seems extremly accurate to my ears. They can reproduce really convincing echos and have amazing microdynamics that my planars easily reveal.The fundations of this dac are excellent.

Hi @FredA, you are right, it still goes through the processor. Probably what I am hearing it the better timing you mentioned. I am routing I2S directly from the Mano which has shunts and femto clocks.

Nice to hear about a planar user, what kind of panels are you using?

 

[FredA]

Hi @FredA, you are right, it still goes through the processor. Probably what I am hearing it the better timing you mentioned. I am routing I2S directly from the Mano which has shunts and femto clocks.

Nice to hear about a planar user, what kind of panels are you using?

He560 for now, dreaming of the insanely pricy he1000v2. I love that sound. Easy on the ears but missing nothing.

 

[FredA]

I have a Singxer f-1 in my seup. Fed with a Schiit Wyrd with ultralow noise 5v, through a two-legged usb cable to avoid cross-contamination between signal and power. The difference with the amanero is really small: the bass goes deeper. There might be other differences, really subtle. I have an intona upstream and a couple of jitterbugs i kept in the chain doing the comparison, it could have even things out. I am curious to try dsd through the f-1, not sure it should work. I only have a rj45 i2s connection, thus just the standard i2s pins. I will certainly give it a try given the good comments. Dsd512 might do great things.

 

[christianvogel]

@FredA do you know how to upsample PCM to DSD and feed it to the R2R-7 using HQPlayer?

I only ever see the PCM output option, and a DoP option (but the R2R7 regrettably does not support DoP yet), even when I directly connect my laptop through USB...