another question which I have is about some recommendations of past/current production DACs on 'vintage' chips like AD1862 or PCM63 but in 'compact' format, say half the size of Parasound. candidates have to have balanced XLR outs and be solid state, AES/EBU input will be a plus. something like Pagoda Balanced or Promitheus Audio Tube DAC, but solid state.
In terms of price and performance BF2 compare better to R2R-11 than R-1. I am aware that some say BF2 sounds better, I don't. It could be in some cases, because BF2 has some sort of isolation on USB port, R2R-11 do not. For the same reason many R2R-11 users found that sound is better on the S/PDIF port.
Both have nothing similar to a vintage sound. BF2 has a modern oversamling engine and digital filtering, R2R-11 is a plain NOS design, comes with a decent pre- and head amp as a bonus. If you don't like NOS sound, it can be upsampled, filtered, noise-shaped (whatever you like) on the PC.
If you can get R2R-11 for $250 used, it will be very good purchase. I upgraded mine with Crystek low-noise oscilators, great improvement, but there is still need to deal with ground loops. A new version Mk2 can be ordered with galvanic isolation on the USB port for a few extra bucks.
In terms of price and performance BF2 compare better to R2R-11 than R-1. I am aware that some say BF2 sounds better, I don't. It could be in some cases, because BF2 has some sort of isolation on USB port, R2R-11 do not. For the same reason many R2R-11 users found that sound is better on the S/PDIF port.
Both have nothing similar to a vintage sound. BF2 has a modern oversamling engine and digital filtering, R2R-11 is a plain NOS design, comes with a decent pre- and head amp as a bonus. If you don't like NOS sound, it can be upsampled, filtered, noise-shaped (whatever you like) on the PC.
If you can get R2R-11 for $250 used, it will be very good purchase. I upgraded mine with Crystek low-noise oscilators, great improvement, but there is still need to deal with ground loops. A new version Mk2 can be ordered with galvanic isolation on the USB port for a few extra bucks.
just for the record, I had R2R-11 and liked it, returned it as I could not stand the pops during the sampling rate change. funny, but while going out for groceries today I was thinking that in case I go to something like Tidal CD and have all streaming in CD quality that this will no longer be an issue and I might consider R2R-11 again.
still, my question remains, how would something like Parasound D/AC-1600 or Theta DS Pro Basic III compare to R1, what do those extra moneys (and the fact of R1 being modern) bring to the table apart from the hi-res support?
"It started for me with the Primare CD player connected via S/PDIF.", "I had not expected so much dynamic joy of playing and musical flow, the absence of a unique tonal fingerprint, such a clean drawing of the sound image and the willingness to get down to business. But let's stay on the carpet! It lacks a bit of detail resolution compared to significantly more expensive DACs like my Audio-gd, which costs three times as much. This can be heard, for example, in the hand clapping in "The Beat Goes On" from Patricia Barber's album Companion. But as soon as the P 0.8 is back in action, you don't miss the details you just heard from the other DAC at all, because the musical coherence of the P 0.8 wins out. You can't just get involved with it in a relaxed manner, no, the music experiences a thrilling liveliness with this audio exclusive converter."
"If you want to invest more than the 669 euros called for the P 0.8, I can imagine that buying the Mutec clock for around 1000 euros makes more sense than spending the money on another, more expensive converter. When I listened to "The Beat Goes On" with Patricia Barber again with the reclocker in the signal path, the hand clapping was also more detailed and very believable in terms of timbre.", "The musical quality of the P 0.8 is therefore largely dependent on its players."
"When I used my audio gd to compare Beethoven's Piano Concertos 1 and 3 with Ronald Brautigam at the grand piano, I even liked the playback with the P 0.8 partially better, because the orchestra was so powerful and rich, with structure and musical flow, in the room. In any case, this converter seems to master perfect timing, no matter which music genre it has to process. The audio gd almost sounded a bit boring with Beethoven because it reproduced the orchestra less warmly. So the Audio Exclusive seemed a little more authentic to me on this CD."
"Without further delay: Amazingly to me, I'd call it a "photo finish" with the nod going to the QA361 for a bit more clarity, and seemingly less noise.
I say amazingly because it's taken me nearly 4 years and an investment of well over $3K (NOT including my DAC) to get that Big Rig streaming setup where it is, and understand this: It sounds damned good. People, in whose ears I trust, have deemed it the most natural sounding best digital front end they've heard (though I've no doubt there are better). Now another, albeit a more limited one, costing about $750 inclusive not only sounds as good but appears to sound even better."
PCM1792 is a vintage chip-dac, still supported by Texas Instruments who bought Burr Brown designs. It is segmented architecture where lower 18 bits use Delta-Sigma modulator and upper 6-bits are decoded for a ladder output (which is not R2R type, BTW). The output is a low power differential current source, requiring a complex buffer, usually with use opamps.
A chip is internally oversampling 8x that produce quite a vintage sound, while there are methods to feed it with better quality source, it is why this chip is subject to the interest of DIY community and butique audio brands. In summary, it can sound well and quite modern if well implemented. If they say NOS, it means that the internal oversampling filter is bypassed (as mentioned before), but calling it NOS is a cheap marketing and misleading. There is a thread on this forum around 2006, you can refresh it with your entry.
I know these music samples, there are not a complex nature, my Audio GD R2R-11, DIY upgraded with Crystek oscilators deal with a grace. It is loosing only in complex passages of Bethoven Symphony 9 with choir or a Mahler.
Being in your place I would focus on improving a source like adding DI-20 or DI-20HE, more effective noise filtering or both. On the USB port I do not recomend using reclockers with this brand. Depends on the model, I would add external clock. Only all these measures together produce excellent sound.
@sajunky Thanks for the correction. I think it was because the chip was from Burr Brown given their association with r2r/multibit and the way the rest of the dac was designed that it gave me the impression of being an r2r nos dac. It sounds like the reviewer is describing such. Interesting because it's the same chip in another older dac I was considering but did not mistake for not being delta-sigma, the Tentlabs b-DAC. I think it will still beat the dac built into my qls qa361 (AK4495SEQ) because I notice the softness people say is characteristic of AKM chips. I'd still like to purchase and try a true r2r nos dac around the same price range - which was my intention - to use the wav/pcm-only firmware of the qls and its digital out with a pcm-native dac.
just for the record, I had R2R-11 and liked it, returned it as I could not stand the pops during the sampling rate change. funny, but while going out for groceries today I was thinking that in case I go to something like Tidal CD and have all streaming in CD quality that this will no longer be an issue and I might consider R2R-11 again.
Strange things with these pops. I had pops with R2R-11 after upgrading to Crystek oscilators when changing sample rate, then became softer and a week later disappeared.
There are still pops when changing tracks in DSD mode or pausing. This happen on certain albums, on other do not, 50/50 chance. This is due to the nature of DSD, I guess some recording companies do not control DC offset, 2xHD label is on my bad list. DC offset can accumulate during playing, then there is a sudden drop to 0.
Audio GD models based on FPGA deal with this problem, R2R-11 feeds directly data with no extra processing.
I think Kingwa put out updated firmware to deal with this. I can't remember if I ever flashed it though.
I have hundreds of SACD rips, I haven't bought any DSD files. Hard to say what's going on. I have seen people reporting the problem and others like me never observed it. My point was that nobody should dismiss the R2R-11 because of this issue. It is likely they won't experience it all on the latest firmware or the MK2.
Getting back to audio pleasures. I own a Theta Gen 5, curious to know if it still holds it's own against more modern dac's of today. I have also a Hugo 2 and I can tell that even with HQPlayer it sounds flat/2D in comparison. I'm curious if someone has compared old R2R to HugoTT2.
Getting back to audio pleasures. I own a Theta Gen 5, curious to know if it still holds it's own against more modern dac's of today. I have also a Hugo 2 and I can tell that even with HQPlayer it sounds flat/2D in comparison. I'm curious if someone has compared old R2R to HugoTT2.
To me that's like asking "what's better, front wheel drive, all wheel drive, or rear wheel drive?"
There's the technology and then there's the implementation. And then there is the question of "better in what way?"
You could compare several DACs with the same DAC chip and all of them will sound quite different depending on the type of power supply they use, the parts they use in the signal path, and the output stage.
That being said, for a high-value R-2R DAC to compare I would recommend one of the better DACs by Denefrips or Holo. Both sound considerably better than the Hugo IMO.
To me that's like asking "what's better, front wheel drive, all wheel drive, or rear wheel drive?"
There's the technology and then there's the implementation. And then there is the question of "better in what way?"
You could compare several DACs with the same DAC chip and all of them will sound quite different depending on the type of power supply they use, the parts they use in the signal path, and the output stage.
Hey there, I'm really interested in your Mystique dac, being purist by myself, and your approach to creating transparent sound is exactly what I am looking for, a few questions for you:
What class A headphone amplifier would you recommend for your Mystique dac, Pass Labs HPA-1 is good enough or something else is better?
Why wouldn't you create a class A headphone amp?
What do you think about the new TI dac11001b, and do you think this dac is better than AD1862?
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