[FredA]

@FredA Thanks. Currawong’s pictures looks like one board in a stack with a metal shield on top. Double sided circuit board with parts on both sides makes sense.

Dumb question.,, How is DSD implemented in R2R 7?

There are not so many ways to do this. A subset of the the ladder has to be used to generate signed pulses at a very high frequency, depending on the dsd format. These pulses are simply low pass filtered with hardware . But i am not an expert in that domain, i am just stating how i would do it.

 

[FredA]

Listening to the Beach Boys for the second time with the r2r 7. The first time was in the first few weeks of ownership, Those guys were into some serious stereo effects (i get sound bursting from everywhere with a quite spectacular 3d effect). The most recent track's recording quality is quite impressive. The r2r 7 is like a good wine. It ages well. Sounds better this time and also this confirms my matching effort paid off with with excellent bass and better balance.

 

[barbas]

Is there anyone out there that happens to like R2R 7 in NOS mode rather than OS?

 

[gk2013]

Is there anyone out there that happens to like R2R 7 in NOS mode rather than OS?

Yes, one of my friends (no forum member) uses the R2R 7 in NOS mode. He prefers NOS above Oversampling mode.

 

[barbas]

I just bought an R2R 7 from Magna Hi-Fi (btw, can't be happier with Joss customer service, this guy certainly knows his job!) replacing a Ref 5.32 converted to a NOS 5 Amanero. I always preferred NOS mode over OS and by a big margin, that's why it was a real surprise reading that everybody seems to like OS x8 mode over NOS in R2R 7, including Joss. I'm still burning the Dac and I'm not in the mood for playing with jumpers already, hence the question over here.

By the way, first 300 hours of burn-in took place in my brother's setup (Avalon Indra, Vitus SIA-025 and Vitus SCD-010) and once the AGD achieved 200 hours of burn-in, it was clear to me that it surpassed in every possible way the SCD-010 Dac, a unit costing 6-7 times more than Kingwa's baby boy.

Will comment more accurately in a few days after finishing burn-in period.

 

[FredA]

I just bought an R2R 7 from Magna Hi-Fi (btw, can't be happier with Joss customer service, this guy certainly knows his job!) replacing a Ref 5.32 converted to a NOS 5 Amanero. I always preferred NOS mode over OS and by a big margin, that's why it was a real surprise reading that everybody seems to like OS x8 mode over NOS in R2R 7, including Joss. I'm still burning the Dac and I'm not in the mood for playing with jumpers already, hence the question over here.

By the way, first 300 hours of burn-in took place in my brother's setup (Avalon Indra, Vitus SIA-025 and Vitus SCD-010) and once the AGD achieved 200 hours of burn-in, it was clear to me that it surpassed in every possible way the SCD-010 Dac, a unit costing 6-7 times more than Kingwa's baby boy.

Will comment more accurately in a few days after finishing burn-in period.

Not surprised. Looking forward to hearing your feedback.

 

[Currawong]

Which NOS mode do people prefer?

 

[barbas]

Which NOS mode do people prefer?

With NOS 5 I preferred Mode 3

 

[Articnoise]

I just bought an R2R 7 from Magna Hi-Fi (btw, can't be happier with Joss customer service, this guy certainly knows his job!) replacing a Ref 5.32 converted to a NOS 5 Amanero. I always preferred NOS mode over OS and by a big margin, that's why it was a real surprise reading that everybody seems to like OS x8 mode over NOS in R2R 7, including Joss. I'm still burning the Dac and I'm not in the mood for playing with jumpers already, hence the question over here.

By the way, first 300 hours of burn-in took place in my brother's setup (Avalon Indra, Vitus SIA-025 and Vitus SCD-010) and once the AGD achieved 200 hours of burn-in, it was clear to me that it surpassed in every possible way the SCD-010 Dac, a unit costing 6-7 times more than Kingwa's baby boy.

Will comment more accurately in a few days after finishing burn-in period.

Your brother has one nice audio system. Did he also think that your R2R 7 sounded better than his Vitus?

 

[barbas]

Your brother has one nice audio system. Did he also think that your R2R 7 sounded better than his Vitus?

Indeed

 

[christianvogel]

With NOS 5 I preferred Mode 3

My experience is that NOS only sounds better if you have a good jitter-free digital source. Oversampling seems to mask jittery harshness, smoothing it out. However with a very good digital source, NOS to me sounds better.

For example, with a raspberry PI powered by battery over spdif coax using a hifiberry Digi+ board, oversampling sounded better. Then I upgraded the source to a Mano digital streamer over I2S over an audio quest chocolate HDMI cable and suddenly NOS is a lot better to me.

My favourite NOS mode so far is mode 2 (FIFO). This was only the case after upgrading to the Mano, before that I preferred mode 3 (smoother sound).

This is with the firmware I got the R2R-7 with. However the new smooth firmware was really a remarkable upgrade (completely opened up the top-end of the sound, which sounded weird before), and I need to try the modes again.

PS: @Currawong: when reviewing the R2R-7, I recommend to try to get a source like the Magna Mano or Sotm sMS-200 ultra to loan, just to experience the effect. It is really remarkable what impact the digital source has on these NOS dacs...

 

[barbas]

My experience is that NOS only sounds better if you have a good jitter-free digital source. Oversampling seems to mask jittery harshness, smoothing it out. However with a very good digital source, NOS to me sounds better.

For example, with a raspberry PI powered by battery over spdif coax using a hifiberry Digi+ board, oversampling sounded better. Then I upgraded the source to a Mano digital streamer over I2S over an audio quest chocolate HDMI cable and suddenly NOS is a lot better to me.

My favourite NOS mode so far is mode 2 (FIFO). This was only the case after upgrading to the Mano, before that I preferred mode 3 (smoother sound).

This is with the firmware I got the R2R-7 with. However the new smooth firmware was really a remarkable upgrade (completely opened up the top-end of the sound, which sounded weird before), and I need to try the modes again.

PS: @Currawong: when reviewing the R2R-7, I recommend to try to get a source like the Magna Mano or Sotm sMS-200 ultra to loan, just to experience the effect. It is really remarkable what impact the digital source has on these NOS dacs...

Hi Chris, what was your experience regarding PLL?

 

[christianvogel]

Hi Chris, what was your experience regarding PLL?

Hi @barbas, I tried turning the PLL on, and that gave me worse performance, even with the PI, so it has remained off since.

I do hope mr. Kingwa will enable us to do these settings through the front-end buttons instead of jumpers through a software update... the amount of times I have had to disconnect all, carefully slide the DAC out, open, change a DIP, and reverse the process...

Mr. @Kingwa, I have this suggestion for a menu system for the R2R-7:

entering and exiting settings mode:
- pressing both channel selector buttons for 3 seconds: go into settings mode (flash display)
- pressing both the same way while in settings mode: exit settings mode to normal mode, applying any changes

in settings mode:
- pressing the left channel select button: cycle property to set (show a flashing number)
- pressing the right channel select button: cycle value for the current property (show the value for a second, then switch back to the flashing mode number)

values for each setting:
0: oversampling switch. 0=off, 1=on
1: select OS/NOS mode. In NOS: 1, 2, 3. In OS: 1=OSx1, 2=xOS2, 3=OSx4, 4=OSx8
2: PLL mode. 0=off, 1=on
3: dithering. 0=off, 1=on

This has the added benefit that no-one will have to open the DAC anymore, so less warranty issues...

 

[FredA]

My experience is that NOS only sounds better if you have a good jitter-free digital source. Oversampling seems to mask jittery harshness, smoothing it out. However with a very good digital source, NOS to me sounds better.

For example, with a raspberry PI powered by battery over spdif coax using a hifiberry Digi+ board, oversampling sounded better. Then I upgraded the source to a Mano digital streamer over I2S over an audio quest chocolate HDMI cable and suddenly NOS is a lot better to me.

My favourite NOS mode so far is mode 2 (FIFO). This was only the case after upgrading to the Mano, before that I preferred mode 3 (smoother sound).

This is with the firmware I got the R2R-7 with. However the new smooth firmware was really a remarkable upgrade (completely opened up the top-end of the sound, which sounded weird before), and I need to try the modes again.

PS: @Currawong: when reviewing the R2R-7, I recommend to try to get a source like the Magna Mano or Sotm sMS-200 ultra to loan, just to experience the effect. It is really remarkable what impact the digital source has on these NOS dacs...

Hi Christian.

Are there between the 3 nos modes ones that are synchronous, meaning the clock from the i2s signal is taken as is (no reclocking)? This is a possibility with the nos7, if i am not mistaken. I have an excellent i2s source so i will try NOS soon, just curious.

 

[Articnoise]

My experience is that NOS only sounds better if you have a good jitter-free digital source. Oversampling seems to mask jittery harshness, smoothing it out. However with a very good digital source, NOS to me sounds better.

For example, with a raspberry PI powered by battery over spdif coax using a hifiberry Digi+ board, oversampling sounded better. Then I upgraded the source to a Mano digital streamer over I2S over an audio quest chocolate HDMI cable and suddenly NOS is a lot better to me.

My favourite NOS mode so far is mode 2 (FIFO). This was only the case after upgrading to the Mano, before that I preferred mode 3 (smoother sound).

This is with the firmware I got the R2R-7 with. However the new smooth firmware was really a remarkable upgrade (completely opened up the top-end of the sound, which sounded weird before), and I need to try the modes again.

PS: @Currawong: when reviewing the R2R-7, I recommend to try to get a source like the Magna Mano or Sotm sMS-200 ultra to loan, just to experience the effect. It is really remarkable what impact the digital source has on these NOS dacs...

I agree that NOS is more sensitive to upstream jitter and noise than oversampling. That was the main reason oversampling was invented.