[Tango Sierra]

I edited my power cable review to show the correct AWG of the standard Testament cable (13 instead of 12).

 

[FredA]

Hi guys I was wondering if you guys can give me a run down comparison of the R8 and R7? What are the compromises and what are the benefits. I'm coming from an Yggdrasil A1 and currently own using an iFi Pro iDSD but it's up for sale. I'm looking at the R8 right now since it's a cheaper version and selling the iDSD would cover it. Sorry for outright asking but I'm in a bit of a time crunch so scrolling through pages and pages is a bit of a luxury.

No one has reported on the differences on this thread or anywhere AFAIK. We have yet to hear detailed listening impressions.

 

[DACLadder]

A direct comparison of the R7 and R8 would be very interesting. The guys at Magna HiFi are on top of Audio GD equipment so maybe they can provide an early impression.

 

[DACLadder]

I asked Jos at Magna Hifi the differences between the R7 and R8. He stated the R7 is more refined with a larger soundstage. But requires better support equipment to hear the difference.

Also the R7 is more versatile with additional inputs and the ability to program different DSP firmware (smooth, accurate, or hybrid) each with their own sound character.

 

[Tango Sierra]

I received my Audio Sensibility Statement power cord and Statement USB cord yesterday. These cables are a step-up in the Audio Sensibility lineup compared to the cables I reviewed the other day. This will not be a review, just a few preliminary comments about the cables.

After opening the package I connected the power cable to my Singularity 7 DAC. I listened through my Audeze LCD-X headphones for a few moments to some of my reference tracks and was disappointed with the sonics. Then I remembered how my Furukawa cable took some time to burn in on the DAC before the sound cleared up so the AS Statement power cable is now powering my kitchen refrigerator. I will let the cable burn in that way for several days before trying it on the DAC again. I figure that should help the sonics and if I'm super lucky, the food in my refrigerator will also taste better. I should have not have been a cheapskate and just paid the AS option of $10 Canadian to burn the cables in for three days. I was thinking it would delay the shipping but now I'm guessing that he pays a company on the US side of the border to warehouse and ship the cables in order to not slow down things through Customs with individual shipments to US customers. (If the shipper is stocking both burn-in and not burn-in cables, I wonder what the ratio of orders is?)

After connecting the power cable to the refrigerator my attention turned to the USB cable. I plugged it into the computer and DAC and gave a listen. It was awful. I could hear hints of greatness in both the treble and bass but the overall sound could be best described as utter chaos.
Since I can't burn in the USB cable with the refrigerator, I will have to be patient and just keep music pumping through it for several days. At this point, I went and tried to catch up with the fifty hours of backlogged TV and movies on my DVR. Four hours later I peeked in on the USB cable sound and it was much better. The extreme chaos of the sound had settled down but it was still not as good overall as the lesser expensive AS Impact USB cable but still there were hints of greatness to come from the treble. Another six hours saw more general impression improvement and after a total of 24 hours burn-in, it still seems to be improving. I am not yet doing detailed listening and note-taking and that may not happen for several days but so far the Statement sounds like it may be great with excellent recordings but may not be so forgiving of poor recordings or maybe of any music that uses distortion as part of its sound. Only time will tell. I will have to try and get my bother's AS cables back for comparisons after my cables settle in (Unfortunately he is a four hour round trip away).

 

[Chopin75]

I received my Audio Sensibility Statement power cord and Statement USB cord yesterday. These cables are a step-up in the Audio Sensibility lineup compared to the cables I reviewed the other day. This will not be a review, just a few preliminary comments about the cables.

After opening the package I connected the power cable to my Singularity 7 DAC. I listened through my Audeze LCD-X headphones for a few moments to some of my reference tracks and was disappointed with the sonics. Then I remembered how my Furukawa cable took some time to burn in on the DAC before the sound cleared up so the AS Statement power cable is now powering my kitchen refrigerator. I will let the cable burn in that way for several days before trying it on the DAC again. I figure that should help the sonics and if I'm super lucky, the food in my refrigerator will also taste better. I should have not have been a cheapskate and just paid the AS option of $10 Canadian to burn the cables in for three days. I was thinking it would delay the shipping but now I'm guessing that he pays a company on the US side of the border to warehouse and ship the cables in order to not slow down things through Customs with individual shipments to US customers. (If the shipper is stocking both burn-in and not burn-in cables, I wonder what the ratio of orders is?)

After connecting the power cable to the refrigerator my attention turned to the USB cable. I plugged it into the computer and DAC and gave a listen. It was awful. I could hear hints of greatness in both the treble and bass but the overall sound could be best described as utter chaos.
Since I can't burn in the USB cable with the refrigerator, I will have to be patient and just keep music pumping through it for several days. At this point, I went and tried to catch up with the fifty hours of backlogged TV and movies on my DVR. Four hours later I peeked in on the USB cable sound and it was much better. The extreme chaos of the sound had settled down but it was still not as good overall as the lesser expensive AS Impact USB cable but still there were hints of greatness to come from the treble. Another six hours saw more general impression improvement and after a total of 24 hours burn-in, it still seems to be improving. I am not yet doing detailed listening and note-taking and that may not happen for several days but so far the Statement sounds like it may be great with excellent recordings but may not be so forgiving of poor recordings or maybe of any music that uses distortion as part of its sound. Only time will tell. I will have to try and get my bother's AS cables back for comparisons after my cables settle in (Unfortunately he is a four hour round trip away).

Hha, what sort of music uses distortion as part of the sound.
I have been testing a new Music playback OS called Euphony Audio. So far quite amazing! Improved from audirvana. The DSD256 is particularly good. The piano tone of DSD is simply the best, and even though R2R7’s PCM is already so amazing, the DSD playback can be jaw dropping. Again depends on quality of the DSD files, which can be unforgiving if the recording sucks.

 

[FredA]

Hha, what sort of music uses distortion as part of the sound.
I have been testing a new Music playback OS called Euphony Audio. So far quite amazing! Improved from audirvana. The DSD256 is particularly good. The piano tone of DSD is simply the best, and even though R2R7’s PCM is already so amazing, the DSD playback can be jaw dropping. Again depends on quality of the DSD files, which can be unforgiving if the recording sucks.

I also checked Euphony. Ended up ordering a rpi 3b+ and will be testing it wih Volumio. My mac mini (osx) is pi..ng me off. I hope to get it out of the loop.

 

[Tango Sierra]

<<what sort of music uses distortion as part of the sound.>>

Rock, Blues and even some jazz guitarists use distortion as part of their sound.

 

[Chopin75]

I also checked Euphony. Ended up ordering a rpi 3b+ and will be testing it wih Volumio. My mac mini (osx) is pi..ng me off. I hope to get it out of the loop.

H
How is Mac OS annoying you? I hate the Sierra and higher as the audirvana sucks without direct mode so I am looking for alternative software. Audirvana is superb though, can play anything, so east to use, multichannel, even iso DSD files. I am not aware of any other software that can do so much with low price. Audirvana also has windows version now.

 

[FredA]

I am leaning toward an linux-based solution. Like Volumio or PiCorePlayer. As i don't upsample, this would be good enough with a small platform like a PI or USBbrige.

 

[FredA]

I received the r-7 front plate kit. The installation should be simple: two wires to route to the digital board section and connect on sockets. Another one for power.

I might remove the sides to get better acces to the front plate screws. But I will delay the conversion to r-7 as a new firmware (altera) is required and is not yet ready in accurate or smooth/accurate version.

I now have a Raspberry Pi in my setup, replacing the mac mini. Bottom line: to my ears, it sounds better. But i made a tweak. I added the ifi ac power on the power distributor feeding the pi (apc h15). This made a difference. Otherwise, my setup is still the same:

Pi (running Volumio, plugged to apc h15 with ifi ac power plugged just next to it) -> Schiit wyrd (fed by apc h15) -> intona -> f-1 (fed by zerozone lps through a balanced isolation transfo) -> r-7 (on isalotation transfo too) -> master- 1 (iso. transfo) -> nord one up monoblocks.

The new raspberry pi (version 3b+) is quite a pocket rocket, with 4 cores running at 1.4ghz. Just an issue with it : the usp ports become real noisy when used concurrently with 100/1000 ethernet, at least that is the latest news, should be fixed with a Volumio software update at some point. I don’t use ethernet. I attached my music drive to the pi with a usb cable. Overall, Volumio is very easy to use and to setup. For someone with some hands one experience like me, at least. For the ethernet problem, a workaround is to limit it to 10/100. I was tempted to get the Allo Usbrige, which should be better but as i have a wyrd and an intona to fix the usb signal. It is less than sure that i would get another upgrade.

So, life is good. Next, i will most likely add a second lps to feed the pi. With the Mac Mini, i would have a sound drop every two hours, i have yet to have one with the pi. Linux-based-optimized-for-audio operating systems are the way to go as far i am concerned.

[edit]

Correction: the problem with the ethernet is it can loose packets when working at max speed. Should be fixed at some point with a driver update. But a single chip still handles usb and ethernet so the usb port could still be noisier than on an allo sparky, not sure as the chip has been updated.

Speaking of the allo sparky, i think i will order one to compare. The cleaner the usb ports, the better the sound of course. With the Sparky, you can order the usbridge board as part of a bundle. As i have an intona and a wyrd, and as the usbridge is basically a usb reclocker, i decided not to get it. If i had decided to get it, i would have taken the wyrd out of my setup because it would have become redundant.

 

[FredA]

H
How is Mac OS annoying you? I hate the Sierra and higher as the audirvana sucks without direct mode so I am looking for alternative software. Audirvana is superb though, can play anything, so east to use, multichannel, even iso DSD files. I am not aware of any other software that can do so much with low price. Audirvana also has windows version now.

Sorry. Missed your question. Osx forces updates on you, like getting itune 12.5 thus Sierra to update an ipad to the latest ios. Powerd sometimes looses it and ends up eating 100% of the cpu. There is a constant pinging done on the internet. The mini has a noisy fan and psu. Good sound quality is tricky to get. The pi based platform are better than a mini. Just an allo sparky, a couple of linear psus, a singxer usb isolator, and a singxer f-1 outputting i2s and you have a real audiophile setup for less than 800$.

 

[Tango Sierra]

Update on my impressions of the Audio Sensibility Statement USB cable.
I received my AS cables this past Tuesday and my last comments were made before retiring for the night on Wednesday. I got up Thursday morning and listened to my Hi-Fi system for a half hour and was not pleased with the sound. I had to leave the house for 14 hours to tend to family matters and when I returned home that night I started listening again. Was still very disappointed and went to bed. During Friday I listened most of the day and wondered why the Statement cable was not only worse than the AS Impact that I remembered, but the sibilants plus the treble glare of the Singularity 7 were back in full force. I was beginning to be thankful for Audio Sensibility's 30-day money back full satisfaction warranty.

Friday evening I thought for laughs I would try the Statement USB cable on my iFi Nano Black Label pocket DAC/Amp. I listened to the Nano with its own cable connected to the USB socket on the front of my computer for 15 to 20 minutes to accustom my ears and brain to the sound before comparing it with the AS cable. After this listening period, I went behind my audio rack to move the Statement USB cable from the S7 to the Nano and what to my bloodshot eyes did appear? The Statement USB cable was not plugged into the S7 but the cheap USB cable that I had originally used with the DAC was! (it had come with some cheap USB accessory.) DOH!....... What a friggin' idiot! No wonder it was sounding like sh#t. Wednesday night before going to bed I must have reconnected the cheap cable to see what I might be missing without the Statement cable but had forgotten I did this. I still don't remember changing the cables Wednesday night. I then plugged the Statement into the S7 and let it burn in Friday night and through the wee hours of Saturday morning.

I have been listening to my system most of Saturday using the AS Statement USB cable. What a transformation. I can't say for sure how much better it is than the AS Impact cable, but I'm pretty certain it is. I will know for sure when I get my brother's cables back for comparison. The AS Statement power cable has been feeding the kitchen refrigerator since Tuesday and I am going to allow that to go on for a full seven days. I want to see if that cheap piece of round steak in the drawer will taste like a ribeye when the cable burn-in period is done. In the meantime, I will start taking notes of my listening experience with the Audio Sensibility Statement USB cable and report back before I start my listening tests with the Statement power cable.

 

[gk2013]

I received the r-7 front plate kit. The installation should be simple: two wires to route to the digital board section and connect on sockets. Another one for power.

I might remove the sides to get better acces to the front plate screws. But I will delay the conversion to r-7 as a new firmware (altera) is required and is not yet ready in accurate or smooth/accurate version.
.

Did you check the flat cable and jumper settings? There doesn't seem to be a difference looking at the new display board and jumper settings.

 

[FredA]

Did you check the flat cable and jumper settings? There doesn't seem to be a difference looking at the new display board and jumper settings.

Except there is no cable going to s0, s1 or s2. So these settings are now handled through the input selection cable. There are 4 wires on it hence 16 bits, assuming it is not using serial transmission but works like the jumpers. You need 3 bit to determine the active input, the left bit is the «high exact » mode setting. Just me guessing. But you sure need to update the fw, as confirmed by Kingwa.

I like the new faceplate. Bigger buttons would have been nice but it is still nice. Looking forward to installing it.