[Asgo]

R2R7HE is too expensive, not sure 1000 € more is justified (regarding sonic performance).
I have a powergrip station to clean up electric power.

 

[gk2013]

Although the NFB7.77 is really nice I would chose the R2R7 !

 

[Asgo]

duplicate

 

[Chopin75]

R2R7HE if you can!

6Moons is 1x Oversampling IPS1, IPS0 and ATT1, ATT0 jumpered. (This is an unconfirmed setting)

This does bring a point that I want to ask. Do most of you use R2R 7 DAC using NOS modes ? Or OS is required for best sound, or it depend on what you play ? e,g, for low res- may need OS but for Hi Res & DSD, no need. BTW, what are the differences for each type of NOS mode? I assume some different filtering for each NOS?
Interesting point because:
Holoaudio apparently sounds terrible with OS
Metrum - strictly NOS
Schiit Y, - has some sort of filter/sampling

 

[T Bone]

Holoaudio apparently sounds terrible with OS
Metrum - strictly NOS
Schiit Y, - has some sort of filter/sampling

As a Holo Owner, I can confirm that the oversampling modes are inferior to the NOS mode. ...NOS is the reason to buy this DAC.

I like the Schitt Ygdrassil, but in my limited listening I seem to have personally preferred the Holo (confirmation bias? maybe)
They Ygdrassil doesn't support DSD and doesn't have an I2S input. I have a lot of DSD music so that was an important factor in my decision making process.

 

[T Bone]

I haven't read this entire thread, but has someone had a chance to do a head-to-head comparison of the Holo Spring and the Audio-GD R2R7?
A quick google search didn't turn up anything obvious.

 

[Chopin75]

As a Holo Owner, I can confirm that the oversampling modes are inferior to the NOS mode. ...NOS is the reason to buy this DAC.

I like the Schitt Ygdrassil, but in my limited listening I seem to have personally preferred the Holo (confirmation bias? maybe)
They Ygdrassil doesn't support DSD and doesn't have an I2S input. I have a lot of DSD music so that was an important factor in my decision making process.

I am in similar situation as I have loads of SACD but that cannot really send signal out of my Oppo except via HDMI. Currently only Byrson has HDMI (and I think some other less well known DACs in the past). So I am planning to build a new DSD download collection (but they cost much more than SACD!) up to DSD 256 and there are plenty of these in certain classical labels. I am not too impressed with PCM in general. Byrson costs $3500, using some delta-signa chip I think. Exasound also has both stereo and 7.1 channel. but again DS chip. The only hybrid ones that use R2R are Holo and Audio-gd. I heard Holo-Dac has awesome DSD playback. Is that how you feel ? I am still not clear how Holo does DSD, apparently it does DSD natively without oversampling. Then of course there is PS audio that does not use DS but FPGA process but then some reviews are not that awesome, maybe due to the fact that all PCM becomes DSD (which seems a terrible idea, as switch formats usually means more distortions). Again I have not really seen many reviews comparing all these DACs together. e.g Holo vs PS audio vs audio-gd R2R 7 in DSD mode. all via I2S

 

[T Bone]

I heard Holo-Dac has awesome DSD playback. Is that how you feel ? I am still not clear how Holo does DSD, apparently it does DSD natively without oversampling.

I find that the Holo does an outstanding job with DSD tracks - and I have quite a few DSD titles. The Holo has entire section of its R2R "brain" that is reserved exclusively for DSD playback! ...it was built from the ground up to support DSD. It was not an afterthought. Most software packages put DSD data into a PCM "envelope". That's DoP - DSD over PCM. The Holo supports native DSD without the need for PCM encoding. On the hardware side, many DAC's convert DSD to PCM or use DoP internally to play DSD encoded streams. As I said before, the Holo has completely separate R2R chips for DSD playback.
It was one of the reasons that swayed my purchase decision to the Holo.

If you use HQPlayer and convert to DSD (I've never tried it) the Holo's native DSD support is a real asset.

There's one small quibble that I have with the Holo's DSD playback - it's that there is sometimes an audible "pop" when switching from PCM to DSD encoded music. It's not a showstopper, more of a mild annoyance than anything.

 

[Chopin75]

Since this USB clean-power/isolation/reclocking results seem to be very system dependent, I would certainly wait until @Wynnytsky gets his Intona and reports back (if you have the same DAC). Note that the Intona does reclock after the isolation, but iiuc, the clocking used is not as good as that found in the Recovery or the new ISORegen. Also, I would think there should be some Intona´s available also on the used market due to the success of the ISORegen from Uptone Audio. Some folks say that the USB reclocking quality should not matter much, but seems to me there are hundreds of users reporting increases in sound quality by using better clocks (and you can get real crazy with real expensive clocks, like the SOtM ULTRA series of components.) . If you want a simple solution immediately with guaranteed success, I would try the Uptone ISORegen (there is a 30 day return policy), which includes isolation, quality reclocking and power cleaning. It comes with a wal-wart power supply which will be serviceable, but could be improved even further by a quality linear, battery, or supercaps power supply. I have found the ISORegen isolation does not work in my system, but it does work in the majority of instances, and they offer a 30 day trial.

https://uptoneaudio.com/products/iso-regen

Another note, I do not have a R2R7, but I have used my Tanly and SU-1 in 4 different audio GD DAC´s via HDMI i2s and have not had noise when changing sample rates. I use JPlay software. My experience with the SU-1 with the stock power supply was not very good, I thought it sounded very harsh, even after a few days burn in.. but I now use external power supplies for the SU-1 and find that helps a lot reducing the extra high end energy, while still keeping the detail.

Back in August, Intona sent a newsletter to users which implied they had something under development for the audiophile community.. if you like a copy of that email, send me a PM.

Did check out IsoRegen, sounds very promising but seems to work best with LPS. I am wondering how it compares with:

Intona + W4S +/- LPS

while using LPS for the ISO regen too.

ISO regen also is not to be designed for use with anything placed after it, as it provides the adapter to be linked to the DAC directly, though I think some reviewers did place devices after it too.

 

[T Bone]

I have both the ISO Regen and the LPS. You are correct, you can take the Regen's performance up a notch with the dedicated linear power supply. It's a pricey little combination, but it does a very good job.
I don't know how it would compare head-to-head with W4S. I am sure either would be a good solution, but I don't know if there's a clear winner.

P.S. My ISO regen is plugged into a Singxer SU-1 digital-to-digital converter, not the DAC. You're perfectly fine placing something between the Regen and the DAC if its necessary.
Computer --> ISO REGEN (LPS-1 Powered) --> Singxer SU-1 --> Holo Spring DAC

 

[Chopin75]

I find that the Holo does an outstanding job with DSD tracks - and I have quite a few DSD titles. The Holo has entire section of its R2R "brain" that is reserved exclusively for DSD playback! ...it was built from the ground up to support DSD. It was not an afterthought. Most software packages put DSD data into a PCM "envelope". That's DoP - DSD over PCM. The Holo supports native DSD without the need for PCM encoding. On the hardware side, many DAC's convert DSD to PCM or use DoP internally to play DSD encoded streams. As I said before, the Holo has completely separate R2R chips for DSD playback.
It was one of the reasons that swayed my purchase decision to the Holo.

If you use HQPlayer and convert to DSD (I've never tried it) the Holo's native DSD support is a real asset.

There's one small quibble that I have with the Holo's DSD playback - it's that there is sometimes an audible "pop" when switching from PCM to DSD encoded music. It's not a showstopper, more of a mild annoyance than anything.

It is interesting that Holo seems to be able to do both DSD and PCM very well without compromise. what really bugs me is that there are no dedicated DSD DAC around (at least not affordable ones). I am willing to do 2 separate DACs, one for SACD/Downloads and one for PCM if each is reasonably priced. PS Audio is kind of a true DSD only DAC it seems (but overpriced IMO). Metrum would be a true gold standard PCM only DAC + Schiit etc. Then the Chinese did it - both Holo and Audio seem to be able to nail both. However, I still am not sure how good R2R is in terms of DSD playback. Great if any of the users on this site can give some comments. Most do concentrate on PCM, it seems, or maybe I just missed some of those threads in this 69 pages of threads! For those jumpers inside, do they work mainly on PCM and I suspect they don't work for DSD? Or maybe some of the jumpers are for DSD oversampling - x2 to x 4.?

 

[Chopin75]

I have both the ISO Regen and the LPS. You are correct, you can take the Regen's performance up a notch with the dedicated linear power supply. It's a pricey little combination, but it does a very good job.
I don't know how it would compare head-to-head with W4S. I am sure either would be a good solution, but I don't know if there's a clear winner.

P.S. My ISO regen is plugged into a Singxer SU-1 digital-to-digital converter, not the DAC. You're perfectly fine placing something between the Regen and the DAC if its necessary.
Computer --> ISO REGEN (LPS-1 Powered) --> Singxer SU-1 --> Holo Spring DAC

Yah, that is the chain similar to yours I am thinking of myself - Macbook (?Pro) --> a USB isolator (e.g Iso Regen or Intona) + Singxer SU-1 then to DAC (I am thinking of R2R audio-GD). Seriously, that is complex enough. I am doing step by step. I want to get an isolator to my current DAC first from computer to get some reasonable sound. Now do you use Mac or PC. What software do you use? Great thing about using computer is the flexibility. You can upgrade/change software very easily, do multi-ch, PCM-DSD, rip CD/SACD, internet radio (Mac gives loads of that from iTune) all sort of stuff if you want; Individual streamer is a bit too rigid at this point, though there are some DIY-like streamer that is quite flexible e.g. Nimitra

https://www.audiostream.com/content/fidelizer-nimitra-computer-audio-server

 

[Asgo]

Hi,

I just sold my Denafrips Terminator unit. Sound was too laid back, boring for me and I did not like bubble, lack of impact at low ends/mids. But soundstage was impressive as voices...
Just before to go with Denafrips, I have owned a Audio-GD NOS19 DAC.
So I decided to go back to Audio-GD again

But I don't know which model to go:
R2R 7
Master 7 Singularity
NFB 7.77

My source is a computer equipped with Pink Faun I2S HDMI board (I only use I2S over HDMI for audio stream).

Which model would you choose?

For the R2R 7 owners, which mode is the best for you ? NOS or OS (which one).
I heard OS mode 4x was the best.

So what's your favorite jumpers setting ? For 6moons (see review about R2R 7), they preferred:
IPS1, IPS0, ATT1 et ATT0 set to 'on'
others set to 'off'

What is the matched mode for 6moons review ? OS x4 ?

Regards.

Hi, any other update ? Thanks for sharing your experience or opinion.

 

[christianvogel]

The is L-K-S-Audio-USB-100-Italy-Amanero-program-USB-interface-converter-I2S-output-I2S-E/32811303548.html is excluding vat, shipping and import duties € 354,52
I don't see why this device (without us isolation) is better than a Singxer SU1 with USB isolation which cost € 330 excluding VAT.
I did comparison between Amanero USB and Singxer F1 and the Singxer F1 was clearly the winner. (more spatial, much more depth!)

Mano Streamer is awesome. Indeed limitation is DSD128. I personally do not care about DSD. 99% of my collection is PCM. Streaming services are not DSD, only PCM.

The Singxer SU1 can do up to DSD512 by the way. The Amanero does not work well with DSD(512), see https://github.com/lintweaker/xmos-native-dsd/issues/12

I have the normal Mano, connected to the R2R-7 through I2S. An easy big upgrade is to buy a good HDMI cable. I2S is not really meant for inter-device communication and seems really sensitive to cabling. Make it as short as possible! Got an audio quest chocolate at a 50% discount and it made a rather shocking difference.

I had given up a bit on USB however since Magna and others had been testing the SoTM and it giving even superior results, a friend and I decided to give USB another try. He got an iFi micro and we hooked it up to the USB of the Mano. Then we tried playing 384Khz signal through HQPlayer with closed form filters over the Mano over USB.

The USB sound was surprising. It sounded both less quiet than the I2S connection, as well as more clean and neutral. My friend described it as the I2S having a kind of bloom effect. However the I2S was (as we expected, since the Mano was not built for USB, and the PI USB out is horrible) more quiet, spacious, and had more of a magical, musical and engaging effect.

By the way, the little PI2 only was able to do this for a bit until it crashed, 384Khz seems a bit much for it. Also it was surprising how much better the 384Khz signal sounded compared to 176.4Khz, you would expect this to be beyond human hearing. Seems people are really sensitive to timing information... It also shows that the Mano is very good indeed. The iFi micro is well regarded but it was not nearly as quiet as the Mano over I2S.

The potential of USB was clear, and we suspect that bloom effect we heard over I2S was another kind of jitter. Seems the jitter killing journey goes on...

 

[Asgo]

USB Vs I2S, we could debate a long time...
I did different tests in the past (USB Amanéro) Vs I2S... I2S has always been a winner (It's the native language of DACs, no conversion done end-to-end).
But I never tested SOtM so maybe it's different...

The best I2S combo I know (with computer) costs 1700 €:
Pink Faun I2S bridge + Clock OCXO upgrade + External linear Power supply + Pink Faun IL-2 I2S (HDMI - HDMI) interlink

The best USB combo I know costs 2400 €:
SOtM SMS-200 Ultra + SOtM SPS-500 + Good USB cable (300€) + Singxer F1 USB (Replace Amanero on R2R 7)

Which one is the best ? I don't know. But with the first (I2S) combo, you achieve very high performances.