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1.36.25.19
In Reply to: RE: I have a Denafrips R2R and an AKM based delta-sigma DAC posted by AbeCollins on May 14, 2021 at 06:11:32
R2R has been around a long time so it's not really a trend. Audio Note in 1995 came out with their non-oversampling R2R DACs - then the competition heard them - then a whole bunch of companies jumped on the bandwagon trying to make cheap knock-offs most of them sounding like cheap knockoffs. Albeit, the cheap knockoffs also tended to sound better than the companies making standard unlistenable dreck (oversampling and upsampling).
You want to judge R2R technology perhaps it would help to audition the best ones instead of the Chinese knock-offs.
Follow Ups:
Lets say that R2R has seen a resurgence as a current niche trend.... like vinyl has made a niche come back because it's hip or cool.I should note that recent cheap Chinese DACs sound pretty darn fantastic! But in the $1000 class, there was virtually no advantage that I could hear in going with R2R vs delta-sigma. In this case R2R was just another flavor, and in NOS mode I thought it was a bit veiled.
Edits: 05/17/21
As I said, i would audition stuff from people who actually do design work and know what they are doing than people who copy using cheap parts to sell a price point.Maybe an Audio Note 0.1x at ~$1800 that is dedicated R2R tube transformer NOS that may well thump the Denafrips in either mode. The fact that it has modes is somewhat of a warning sign. I remember people arguing over the EE minmax and which mode sounded better - well they were both lousy IMO so the fact that the SS or the tube was better was more or less pointless to me.
Usually these switcher products have one mode that the owner winds up using and the other mode is wasted money. I have had amps with Triode and UL and I have a DAC, Line Magnetic 502CA which destroyed the minimax that has tube and solid state. Each with its own transformer no less. Still one selection is usually better (the Tube mode) and the other is usually poor to the point that it would never be used (the SS mode). They should have put all the money to the tube mode and make it sound better. But part of the expensive is stuff a SS mode and transformer into the box.It ran around the same price as my Audio Note 0.1X which has one mode and an old TDA 1543 chip and it sounds miles better than the LM DAC with its 32/192 ESS Sabre blah blah blah.
The Audio Note 0.x selling for 21 consecutive years - the Line Magnetic 502CA dropped after what 4 years? Replaced by the same thing but has MQA nonsense.
Edits: 05/17/21
In the price range of Audio Note.... And Audio Note Gear has never been among them.
If people want to judge a technology then you need to judge it based on the best of that technology - for R2R ladder NOS DACs that is Audio Note.No analog or digital filters.
If that doesn't cut it - then the cheap Chinese knockoffs with crappier parts quality sure a shit won't cut it.
This is the same with tube amps. The guy who spends $20k on his solid-state system goes and auditions a Chi-Fi tube amp of dubious quality parts selling for $599 then says "see tubes suck - they lack dynamics, they sound like mud, etc. Well, that wasn't exactly the tube amp to judge tube technology now, was it?
One problem with Audio Note is that they always show with their speakers. So if the speakers are loved so will the equipment but if the speakers are disliked then the rest of the chain is ignored.
So the trick is comparing items in outside systems. Comparing, as I have done, AN CD/DACs in several higher end systems using a variety of speakers allows one to hear the better examples of NOS such as the 3.1x and 4.1x.
My dealer back in Canada had a half dozen dedicated systems from a variety of brands - he put a dac 0.1X in all of them. Why? He said to "fix" them.
It was the same reason he had SET amps and SE tube amps connected to speakers that on paper didn't seem like a match. An OTO on Quad ESLs, a Wyatech Labs 211 on B&W 801 speakers an SE tube amp on Magnepans. They may not play too loud but they all sounded better with these at moderate volume than running amps from Meridian/Bryston/Levinson/YBA/Sima Audio/Classe/Anthem/McIntosh(SS)/Arcam/NAD/Ayre/Linn as some of the other SS brands in the store.
It didn't have to be Audio Note - in general, the best sounding amplifiers in the store all tended to be SET or Tube-based (AN/Wyatec/Cary/ASL/Jolida/Octave and a few others I can't recall).
Albeit the reason I became a fan of AN was that of all the tube brands the store carried the AN tube amps sounded much better and easily beat all the SS brands in the store. When the TT2 turntable beat the Linn LP 12 and the Oracle table and the AN one box CD player for $4,000 sounded far better than the store's Linn Sondek CD12 at $30,000 I became more of a believer. The natural sound of the NOS no filters approach had some serious merit.
Many other companies found merit in it to and that is why I see so many copies. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. I just think it would be nice if people auditioned the one that started it and has been doing it the longest and arguably does it the best. And while it is expensive - it also gets you more when you try to sell it.
I bought my Audio Note OTO Phono SE in 2003 for $1800 (Canadian). I can sell it in 2021 for $2200+ US). Sure doesn't seem too expensive to me. Chi-fi? People know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Edits: 05/17/21
Couldn't agree more.
Audio Note (especially in their lower priced items)always stood out as supreme value as compared to their competition. The fact they were doing with DACS what is in vogue now (15 years later) tells me all I need to know.
To me, AN's higher end stuff was nice but it never produced the smack in the face, "OMG this is it!" feeling their lower priced items did. Is it the best I've heard? Nope. But its pretty close and didn't cost me a mortgage.
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