R2R dac vs. Delta Sigma type dac

Conradicles

Any updates H9?

I reread this thread and there is a lot of good information.

heiney9

I am in a holding pattern. They originally said end of April after the next production run. I'll be reaching out shortly to see where they are at on unit allocation.

I've just been messing around with a few new pre-amp options in the office rig waiting for the new dac. Finally have the "right" combination of discrete op-amps in my trusty Keces HA-171 pre/headphone amp. What a killer neutral and dead silent pre-amp. Had to ditch all the Bursons as the combination wasn't right. Now I'm running (3) New Class D Ultimate Edition II.

This one of the newly acquired pieces.

Xduoo TA20 Plus






Tube rectified, pair of 12AU7, class A buffer, metal film output caps, Elna Silmic II input caps, Panasonic filter caps, 24 step ladder resistor volume pot.

It works great as a small footprint pre-amp for my Pass ACA's. I have 1965 Mullard GZ34 rectifier and a pair of 1953 RCA JRC 5814 3 mica black plates in her now. So sweet and the sound stage is HUGE.

The Keces HA-171 w/discrete op-amps has more drive, but it can't match the sweetness and sound stage width and especially depth of the TA20 plus with the GZ34 and RCA 5814's.

Just waiting and waiting for the DAC.

VR3

Delta sigma dacs sound like musical wallpaper 😁, in reference to the 2d to 3d comment

audioluvr

I love my musical wallpaper!

heiney9

VR3 wrote: »

Delta sigma dacs sound like musical wallpaper 😁, in reference to the 2d to 3d comment

Have to agree to disagree. Not sure where my 3D depth and width of sound stage is coming from then, certainly not out my ****. My main rig Supreme dac is heavily modded with discrete op-amps and expensive capacitors. Office rig dac is a previous version of the main rig dac and modded with discrete op-amps.

There's a large amount of latitude in designs of DS dac's so to link them all together and poo poo them ALL is kind of short sighted.

I'm definitely open to exploring r2r dac's. I've heard one GD Audio back 15 years ago, sounded like the music was in a paper bag. But that's just one, more budget unit, 15 years ago.

I hope we can agree the design around the chip set is more important than the chip set. I'm sure there are wallpaper sounding r2r dac's (with regards to 2D and 3D).

Also should compare apples to apples. Not fair to compare a $5K r2r dac to a $1700 ds dac and then say r2r is always better (not saying you did/are) just putting that out as a general comment.

If I like the FiiO, I will explore a more spendy r2r to try in the main rig.

H9

VR3

I'm sure there's exceptions and system synergy etc that come into play. 😁

heiney9

I've been doing so much experimenting the past 6 months with the office rig. I've bought (4) Pass ACA amps - 2 separate versions. Can't take my ears off the 2nd version. Very similar to a First Watt F5 just a bit less oomph which will change when I build the 2nd one to go parallel mono.

For awhile I put my Aleph 30 in the office rig. I want to keep it, A) it's overkill even though it really makes the R200's shine, it really, really does. it's to big for a desktop rig C) I should use the $$$ from the sale to recoup some of what I've spent.

I've bought 6 different headphone/pre-amps (2) being Pass diy units, (3) being various Schiit models and the newest being a well, built, well designed CHi-fi piece, Xduoo TA20plus. (5) of the six having tubes. The 6th being the Pass diy ACP+ headphone/pre-amp.

I've swapped 3 sets of speaker cables, bought numerous Russian tubes, and 6SN7 tubes for the above units. The other Pass diy pre is the Korg Nu-tube, which sounds great, but I'm going to replace some caps in the signal path and I ordered an LPS for it.

I modded a Keces HA-171 heaphone/pre-amp I've bought a couple years ago. Put in discrete DEXA New Class D Ultimate II ed. discrete op-amps (not class D) they run in 100% class A.

I have accumulated a lot of gear and until I play it all again with the R2R dac, I can't sell anything....lol.

Pieces that are staying for sure are all the Pass diy pieces, Keces HA-171, probably the Schiit Valhalla 2 - OTL unit, I;ve got some really stellar Russian tubes for it.

H9

invalid

Some Delta Sigma dacs don't even use chips, some use FPGA, one small manufacturer is even using 8 dual triodes and a BFT to do upsampling and filtering.

treitz3

Going from two higher end DS DAC's to a mid-line dedicated R2R DAC for me was no contest. The R2R smoked both of the DS DACS's and the two, compared in the same system with no other change, wasn't even a fair comparison in my book. It was akin to having a race between a Yugo and a Bugatti.

I now utilize 2 R2R DAC's in the rig and will never own another DS DAC again. Just my 2 cents on the subject.

The first word that came out of my mouth when I first heard the R2R DAC was a very enthusiastic, "WOW".

FWIW.

Tom

heiney9

I am all for exploring r2r dac's. I just try not to talk in absolutes, that was my only point. I'm a bit antsy to get it here. At first I wasn't at all concerned about the wait, but now I'm getting anxious.

I am tempering my expectations as I'm not expecting it to be a world beater in the r2r segment, but it seems this will give a good "starting" point. The office rig is a quasi near field rig and it plays nuances quite well, so I should be able to get the flavor compared to my current favorite DS unit.

One variable are the tubes. I have (2) sets to swap. A quad of 1963 Amperex BB lg halo 6DJ8's and a quad of 1972 Voshkod 6N23P gray shield, single post getter, red tips. I'll audition both after I break in the JJ's that come with the unit. Which ever tubes I prefer, will be a "set it and forget it" choice. I've read the tubes are difficult to swap with the clips they use as they are horizontal.

H9

heiney9

invalid wrote: »

Some Delta Sigma dacs don't even use chips, some use FPGA, one small manufacturer is even using 8 dual triodes and a BFT to do upsampling and filtering.

Sounds like a lot of work and expense and complexity for not a whole lot of gain. Just from what I've read. Not heard or compared a discrete implementation of DS to the I/C chip version. "Sometimes", complexity can be an Achilles heal and sometimes it's necessary.

Just food for thought, not trying to debate......

H9

heiney9

Delivery has been pushed to mid May. Production issues. I see they have stopped taking orders for them. Guess I'll just wait. I have other gear to play with.

H9

newbie308

Sorry to hijack your post H9! Has anyone heard the LAiV Crescendo DAC? It doesn't have tubes, but it looks like a quality product at a reasonable price. I have not yet owned an R-2R unit, so I'm considering this one as an entry level.

audioluvr

newbie308 wrote: »

I have not yet owned an R-2R unit, so I'm considering this one as an entry level.

You've never owned an older CD player?

pitdogg2

audioluvr wrote: »

newbie308 wrote: »

I have not yet owned an R-2R unit, so I'm considering this one as an entry level.

You've never owned an older CD player?

Not quite the same but, yes it's a ladder dac like the older ladder dacs CD players before they went to the 1 bit delta sigma dac. The difference is there are only 2 resistors in the newer r2r dac. There were multiple resistors in the old ladder dacs in CD players.

newbie308

Did the old Technics single disk CD player with MASH bit technology have R-2R? That was my first and only dedicated CD player. Everything else was a DVD or Blue ray after that.

pitdogg2

newbie308 wrote: »

Did the old Technics single disk CD player with MASH bit technology have R-2R? That was my first and only dedicated CD player. Everything else was a DVD or Blue ray after that.

If I remember the MASH was a 4bit chip, so I don't think it would be considered a ladder dac. That being said I didn't like the feel of the tray of the Technics players so I avoided them. Most I heard did sound pretty good. getting back to the tray, they were very flimsy soft plastic.

billbillw

The MASH DAC was actually 1-bit, an early oversampling design. I had an earlier Technics as my first player that was a gift to me around 17. I believe it was a pre-MASH 16-bit DAC, but yes, it had a flimsy tray. I don't know what ever happened to that unit. I don't remember if something broke, or it quit reading discs, but I ended up buying a Sony 5-disc player in 1994 or 1995 that stuck with me until I bought a Marantz changer. The Marantz didn't necessarily sound better, but I liked the changer mechanism better. It was much faster to change discs.

pitdogg2

I had always thought that it was one bit myself. When refreshing my memory I came across this

Matsushita was not sure whether people would take it well that they now had a 4 bit chip instead of 16 bit dac.

Strange.
Either way it was not a ladder dac.

billbillw

pitdogg2 wrote: »

I had always thought that it was one bit myself. When refreshing my memory I came across this

Matsushita was not sure whether people would take it well that they now had a 4 bit chip instead of 16 bit dac.

Strange.
Either way it was not a ladder dac.

A little more digging seems like they developed it as 1-bit and the early ones were just that, but later, some were 4-bit Delta Sigma designs. I'm not sure when the switch was or if it was just in higher models. Probably no easy way to determine which are 1-bit vs 4-bit unless you dove into the service manuals and looked up chip numbers.

pitdogg2

billbillw wrote: »

pitdogg2 wrote: »

I had always thought that it was one bit myself. When refreshing my memory I came across this

Matsushita was not sure whether people would take it well that they now had a 4 bit chip instead of 16 bit dac.

Strange.
Either way it was not a ladder dac.

A little more digging seems like they developed it as 1-bit and the early ones were just that, but later, some were 4-bit Delta Sigma designs. I'm not sure when the switch was or if it was just in higher models. Probably no easy way to determine which are 1-bit vs 4-bit unless you dove into the service manuals and looked up chip numbers.

Yep, from what I found they would stack them to get 16/18/20 bit like performance. Some would also use a Yamaha chip with the 4bit mash, strange things for sure.

mhardy6647

https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/the_complete_d_a_dac_converter_list/

sample screenshot