Audio-GD R2R 11

i would gladly discuss those with someone who is intellectually and emotionally mature enough so that the discussiion wouldn't embarrass me. you are beneath me both in smarts and in character.

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but for others.

speakers: Omega 8 inch full range augmented with 2 subs one for each channel. Amps Job 225, nuprime IDA 8 and musical paradise KT88 15 watt.

I owned LHLABS pulse dual mono balanced with femto upgrade and i hated the sound. Im a midrange guy and i found it sounding dull. the opposite of what iu like about the tube sound. digital, mechanical with treble that was problematic to the point of being fatuiging no better than any run of the mill chin fi.

I got one of those NOS 8x Phillips 1514 from audio mirror and liked the sound but it couldnt do more than 48khz and lacked resolution and ultimate bass definition and also slam. i loved it but was not perfect

then I got a bunch of schiit, five different ESS labs and hated all. typical anemic, digital, sound that brash dumbasses like the above mistake for resolution.

then I got peach tree and then i got exa sound which was ok but at this time i knew i dont want delta sigma designs. I also got mojo that i barely liked enought with most of my cans but i never ever used it on the go, i was only interested n desktop use and i wanted something better.

and then I got R2R 11 and after two days i placed an order for their balanced ladder DAC and i also bought their balanced headamp separately from ebay. had the most beautiful mids, smooth as silk and full of detail. just beautiful. also the highs the closest thing to the glory of the old timey accuphase CD players and DACs that i have always craved but could never afford. also bass is world class. it is just a beauty. ergonomics are sub par and it has the annopying click with every new song. other than that the best purchase that i have ever made in hifi

these are my headphones:
Audeze LCD-2C, Senn HD650, Senn 6xx, Senn 599, Hifiman HE400i, Marantz MPH-2 with brainwavz angled memory foam pads, Superlux 668B with brainwaves XL round pads, and monolith 1060.

 

Here we go again. Another Rando who knows more than everybody else and has a big mouth. Where did I put my popcorn?

 

Can you eat popcorn while watching crap and shit talks? lol
I can't.. never... Just remembered what hands attached to his s19 review.

Btw I don't think every rando loves recent agd products. But almost every agd lover in sbaf is rando. Interesting.

 

Then this happened...

Bravo.

Were you touching yourself when you typed this out?

 

I was considering getting one of these Audi-GD's. Any recommendations for the $400 ish price bracket?
I have an xDuoo TA-10 and it's been great but want a nice solid state.

 

Or if you can wait, a 2nd-hand multibit Jotunheim.

 

It's too bad that differing opinions from "the usual" stuff isn't presented better because I'm really curious what's out there worth trying aside from Schitt. But also doesn't get shit on right away, even if people are randos. It comes across like "well if it didn't come from the Higher Ups, our Lords and Saviors, it's utter bullshit and you're idiot."

 

Obviously someone who hasn't actually read the other DAC threads in this place.

 

It seems that Kingwa manages to make his expensive offerings at least OK-ish, aside from pricing and value. His master amps and dacs didn't sound terrible (at least to me). Rather they did something(s) well.

But when it comes to low-mid products, I am suspecting he does not know how to compromise cost wisely without losing much performance.

 

Are people interested in hearing the R2R 11? I own it and it is currently on tour right now. I have no need for it at the moment so if there is enough interest in it I would consider letting SBAF make an official tour out of it.

 

There are manufacturers who don't tune their products by the ear. I suspect Kingwa is one. I'm sure he is a good amp designer.

There is a tube manufacturer locally near me. Can make really cheap tube amps. He knows everything there is to know about tube amps. But he doesn't listen to music. His amps don't sound good.

 

I wouldn't mind hearing it. I think you're close to me in Ypsi?

I think the Singularity module in the S19 was a different design and did not last long at Audio-GD. The R2R-11 and other current R2R offerings from Audio-GD appear to have a different module. I am reading a lot of very good things about the R2R-1 and the new R-28 all-in-one unit. I'm trying to avoid buying an R-28 for my office rig because of the divide on whether or not the latest R2R from Audio-GD are good sounding units. It still seems very tempting.

I picked up an NFB11.38 and it sounds fantastic (ESS Sabre). I pair it with an Audio-GD Precision 3 power amp for a bedroom setup. However, I've been using it at my office lately because it sounds excellent with Focal Clear.

 

The 'problem' seems to be that most of us here don't have the experience of the 'senior ears' in listening to and evaluating DACs (sounds like a geriatric hearing aid I know, but I'll go with it).

DAC subtleties are just that, subtle & difficult to distinguish unless you know/have experience with what to focus on & how. My Audioquest Dragonfly sounded great to me until I heard something better, and even then it took a while to get accustom to the difference.

The people we trust here have spent more time listening to shit than many people know. Not listening for pleasure, listening for evaluation, which anyone who has seriously tried to write a review will tell you is not (necessarily) a fun activity. Repetitively trying to discern minutia can wear on you VERY quickly..

So yeah people can get a little gruff when people ask about or praise (for the umteen zillionth time) something relatively obscure or already addressed as being crappy elsewhere. I think @msommers point is a good one, or at least comes from a good perspective, but at the same time that snarkiness is a big part of the culture here as well. Anyone who reads around a bit will hopefully pick up on that. I was tentative & scared at 1st, but I got over it.

As far as Quinoa Kingwa, I honestly don't know how he tunes his stuff, by ear or whatever, but he doesn't seem to have a 'house sound' because everything he puts out seems to sound radically different. Maybe he's zeroing in on one. I've heard my friends DAC-19 (not the singularity!) and it sounded pretty darn good, or at least no peaks & fatigue. I'm sure some would call it warm-poo. Either way until he gets more consistent with what he puts out, I think everything he puts out will be approached with suspicion, and rightfully so.

 

Add to that the fact that many people outside of China may be put off by the prospect of dealing with a small Chinese company: shipping costs, wait times, dealing with customs, seeing multiple reports that units sent for repair take forever or get lost, and that the company asks customers to declare grossly undervalued customs and shipping values just to spare them costs which would leave the customer in a serious bind if anything unfortunate happened to the package and they couldn't claim more than $300 shipping insurance on their $1500 product...

There is a serious amount of brain damage that could be involved which makes purchasing their products (for me) completely not worth it.

 

I think it's more a matter of presentation over anything else. The MO appears to be rando, who may or may not have dropped a line in the intro thread..and then seeming, with their very next post is praising AGD. Or even praising AGD, calling it the end all be all and calling schiit well...shit. Well that's just not going to go over well, regardless of the validity of the statement and it instantly puts people on edge around here. Also if said rando would have taken just 5 minutes to read the must read stuff in the bully pulpit section they would have known already that coming out like that was a bad idea.

I think if someone were to come in and try and present a reasonable argument or counterpoint for AGD in a reasonable manner, with some comparisons and real facts to back it up maybe people would be more receptive, but that's just not how these people roll, so when I see them and the obvious MO I instantly think they are just some troll from reddit trying to get everyone's eyre up around here, regardless of if that's their actual goal or not.