R2R dac vs. Delta Sigma type dac

heiney9 · January 21

I just ordered (it's on back order) an R2R dac for the office rig. It has both NOS and OS capabilities. 24-bit fully differential R2R

I have zero experience with R2R type dac's and I know many are non-oversampling. This unit will over sample USB decoding: 384kHz/32bit; DSD256.

NOS and OS at the flip of a switch.

Added bonus the output is tube buffered w/4 ECC88 tubes.

I wanted to try something different. Right now I have a modded Eastern Electric Mini Max DAC Plus which is now about 12-13 years old. I have added DEXA discrete op-amps. It sounds fantastic!!!

Specs for the EE Mini Max Plus:
dual Sabre ES9018 DAC chips

• Separate Power Transformers for digital and analog sections

• Inputs : AES/EBU, BNC, RCA, OPTICAL and USB

• M2Tech OEM 24bit 192KHz Async USB input

• Tube and solid state output selectable

• Phase In/Out selectable

• Sampling rates : 16-32bit 32KHz - 192KHz

What are your experiences with R2R dac's vs. Delta Sigma types

H9

billbillw · January 21

I'll keep it simple. Less "air", more realism and low level detail with the R2R.
I went from the Teac UD301 to a Denafrips Ares II. That's a similar jump in age between yours. The Teac had a pair of BurrBrown PCM1795 Delta Sigma DACs. At first, I didn't hear a huge difference, but within an hour or two, I started hearing more detail in the R2R, especially low level stuff like a bump in the equipment during recording, or string noises, bass guitar fingering, etc. Some of those things were partially veiled by the Delta Sigma. Overall, it had a more natural and less digital feel. There is a bit of roll-off in the highs with the R2R which I don't think can be avoided to the the mathematical limits of the circuit (bits/frequency). That is probably the cause of feeling a bit less air.
I still use a Delta Sigma on my desktop rig and that uses a much newer Rohm (German) DAC chip. I haven't compared that in my main system with the Denafrips, but I will probably do that soon.

heiney9 · January 21

This R2R unit is on the budget end (I believe). Or rather based on early reviews it's a great bargain for what you get.

I am hoping the tubes don't subdue the output too much. I have read with this unit you can use the oversampling mode if you want to get a bit closer to delta sigma. It should prove an interesting unit with lots of flexibility.

https://www.neowin.net/reviews/review-fiios-warmer-r2r-tube-buffer-dac-hits-all-the-musical-notes-at-a-great-price/

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/fiio-warmer-r2r.28784/reviews

Not shipping until 1st week of Feb

H9

VR3 · January 21

Wait... They make dacs that are not R2r?

I've never heard the budget units but delta sigma sounds like wallpaper in comparison to a r2r dac. Hard to listen to delta sigma afrer having quality R2r at the helm.

heiney9 · January 21

VR3 wrote: »

Wait... They make dacs that are not R2r?

I've never heard the budget units but delta sigma sounds like wallpaper in comparison to a r2r dac. Hard to listen to delta sigma afrer having quality R2r at the helm.

Care to expound with some details? I've never listened to wallpaper before

. If by that you mean "flat", not sure I'd agree with that.

There are literally thousands of implementations of Delta Sigma chip sets. Are you sure they "all" sound the way you describe?

Either way I'm looking forward to trying a bit of a different "flavor". Dipping my toes for now, we'll see how it goes.

H9

VR3 · January 21

Delta sigma to me doesn't even sound like music. It sounds extremely artificial in comparison to a solid r2r dac

heiney9 · January 21

VR3 wrote: »

Delta sigma to me doesn't even sound like music. It sounds extremely artificial in comparison to a solid r2r dac

Ok, so your preference is R2R. I just don't feel the same about all delta sigma designs since like I said there are literally thousands of different implementations as well as chip sets

We all have our likes/dislikes, sometimes I don't think it's always a rational opinion unless you've literally heard 70-80% of them. Maybe you have.

Either way, I appreciate your direct input.

Are you a proponent of NOS or do you poo poo OS?

H9

VR3 · January 21

I've owned a new stock R2r with ank and it was excellent and the nos abbas uses is also excellent.

They just sound like music.

I worked at a music store for close to a decade, so much time in front of real instruments as a reference.

I say all delta sigma because they all suffer the same issues. The built in filters due to the high frequency hash is a deal breaker

billbillw · January 21

I think Trey is perhaps a bit harsh on the Delta Sigmas. The higher end AKM and Rohm sound very much like music to me. I have never liked the Cirrus or Sabre DACs though. Yes, I prefer R2R most of the time, but for some music (especially electronic), I think a Delta Sigma can do just as well, and may be preferred by some listeners.

treitz3 · January 21

billbillw wrote: »

I think Trey is perhaps a bit harsh on the Delta Sigmas.

We shall differ on this statement. Having had an Auralic Vega G2 and a TOTL Marantz SA-7S1 CDP that both utilized the Delta Sigma (neither of which were slackers or anywhere near the low end of the totem pole), going from that to two different R2R DAC's made me realize that the DS was a bottleneck to my listening enjoyment. I honestly had no idea what Trey was talking about when he mentioned coming over to my place and mentioning that it sounded like musical wallpaper.

As soon as I heard an R2R DAC in my rig, I knew what direction I was going to go with. Now, both of the aforementioned are out of the rig and I have 2 R2R DAC's. One for the Esoteric transport and/or the Memory Player and the other for streaming. Long story short, I knew as soon as I heard the first R2R in my rig what Trey was talking about.

Yes, Delta Sigma can sound good. It kept me content for many years and I had no issues with it at all. But it was brought to my attention that the filtering was holding me back. Admittedly, I was stubborn about it, but all it took was about 2 seconds of listening to an R2R to where my ears perked up and I exclaimed (rather loudly), "WOW!". There were two witnesses of this forum who can attest to the very moment that happened.

I'll put it to you this way...I will never again own anything that utilizes a Delta Sigma DAC. When you know, you know. All one has to do is Google or use Chat GPT and ask this question, if they re interested in the "technical aspects" of why >>> Does a Delta Sigma DAC introduce noise that needs to be filtered?

I could care less about the technical aspects, honestly. All I care about is the end result as to what hits my ears.

H9, I have not heard your unit at all, nor have even heard of it. But based upon my observations between the two, and given your appreciation (and articulation thereof) for the finer details, along with your specific gear? I think you will be in hog heaven. If you aren't? Return it within your window of return, save a tad bit more and get you a really great R2R DAC.

The only downside to an R2R DAC is that it will not do extreme high resolution conversions. That said, I don't miss them, as the attributes far outweigh what I am missing.

Tom

displayname · January 21

I’ve heard great dacs with both architectures sound great. I have r2r on the office headphones, and DS in the main state system.

I am of the camp that the type of chip is massively over marketed and over hyped while the type of output stage is underrated and under promoted. And chip implementation is a big factor too, but I think a good designer can make a mediocre chip sound great, and a lot of designers are using great chips to sell lackluster designs.

heiney9 · January 21

Tom, I'm dipping my feet in the pool with this purchase. It's a hot item right now so if I don't dig it I'm sure I could resell or return. This will be for the office rig and if I like what I hear/experience then down the rabbit hole I go to find something for the main rig.

All this after I told my significant other I would not be buying any gear for the first part of 2026. I told her I spent enough in 2024 and 2025. But we all know how this hobby goes. My ears aren't getting any younger and I feel I need to experiment a bit more with something different. Why wait....lol.

Still want a used pair of Golden Ear BHX's.

The only r2r dac I think I've owned was an middle of the line Audio Gd I bought from none other than Tonyb. He even hand delivered it to work. At that time (maybe 13-14 years ago) it just didn't float my boat or perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance. I ended up selling it.

Looking forward to getting ears on this and doing some serious evaluation. These EE Mini Max dac's I own (the Plus and Supreme) are no slouches, but they are older and well..........this is my hobby, so it's time to try something "different".

I keep saying I'm done for awhile...................but really I'm not. The search for an excellent office rig had me buying all sorts of gear. I now have a closet full of Schiit, Keces, DIY Pass Labs amps and pre-amps, extra EE dac not to mention MIT cables, etc.

Going to be a big sell off in the Spring.....

H9

treitz3 · January 21

Question...what Delta Sigma DAC sounded better than an R2R in any of the configurations you have tried so far?

Whether or not it be on headphones or your main system.

Not confronting, just simply asking. Respectfully, BTW.

Tom

treitz3 · January 21

It seems we were posting at the same time. My question was directed toward @displayname.

displayname · January 21

treitz3 wrote: »

It seems we were posting at the same time. My question was directed toward @displayname.

Lumin P1 sounds significantly better than my Hifiman EF600, and it better for what it is.
There’s also been a number of AKM based dacs that sound quite good. The Musical Paradise flagship tube dac always sounded fantastic, I’d love to hear their latest version with upgrades. The T&A Dac 200 with Burr Brown chips was a true standout at Dallas CanJam. Equally my favorite DAC at CanJam was the LTA Aero (r2r), which has also stood out at SWAF the past two years as well.

Admittedly I haven’t done a bunch of side by side shootouts between DS and R2R within a single system or with equal price points, but I’ve heard outstanding DS dacs that I would certainly prefer over certain R2R dacs. I’m an architecture agnostic, and that’s been developed from hearing great examples of both.

treitz3 · January 21

Fair enough. I am not one to argue. For the record, I am not speaking of headphones. Y'all know I am a 2 channel guy only.

Thanks.

Tom

billbillw · January 21

Not one to argue either. It is clear that Tom and Trey really love their Ank tube DAC models. It is possible there is more going on with those Anks than just the R2R to make such a huge difference. I did not hear a life-changing difference and I had my new R2R and the old DS wired in the same system and was playing back to back with the same material.

treitz3 · January 21

Nothing is life changing. It's a preference. Much like those that had a Snubway or MC A/C conditioner.

It is what it is. Those that prefer that?....

Tom

VR3 · January 21

I am actually rocking a R2R Mark Levinson DAC at the moment :-D... not gonna lie though Ive been jonesing for another Abbas DAC 0_0

displayname · 6:33AM

treitz3 wrote: »

Fair enough. I am not one to argue. For the record, I am not speaking of headphones. Y'all know I am a 2 channel guy only.

Thanks.

Tom

To be fair, headphones are two channel

I’m just kidding. While I like having a decent set of headphones in the home office, I don’t put nearly that same energy or funding into them. I’d also consider myself more of a traditional 2 channel guy. Because a number of DAC reviews come from the headphone world, I’ve always wondered if the same opinions would carry over to in room stereos. My guess is that they wouldn’t.

One thing that was kind of eye opening to me at CanJam was realizing that I tend to prefer slightly warmer speaker, but I’m actually on board with a more analytical headphone. One of my favorite sets of the day was the Senn HD 820 with their matching dac. I’m not rushing out to drop $5k on that setup, but I was very surprised by how much I liked it.

billbillw · 10:36AM

I think headphone rigs are brutally honest with each component change since they eliminate room effect and tend to have fewer 'moving parts' so to speak. I have sorta retired my old set of Senn HD580 since I haven't headphone amp in 15+ years and neither my DAC nor preamp has a headphone out.

jdjohn · 11:30AM

I suppose the R2R reference here is to R2R Ladder DACs. R2R (non-ladder) DAC chips were actually some of the first ones ever made back in the 80s by Philips and Burr-Brown.

SW1X Audio Design uses those old R2R DAC chips in their DACs, surrounded by a lot of tubes, and separate power supplies for practically every different function.
Here is a video where the designer/founder discusses those chips, and also the pitfalls of DS chips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhJk8XRazgw

His philosophy is around no over-sampling, and no digital filtering. He has several videos where he goes deeper into their designs, and digital audio, in general.

heiney9 · 12:11PM

I definitely need to get my learn on. I am only vaguely familiar with r2r dac's. Mostly early ones from the 90's.

H9

audioluvr · 12:45PM

I think DAC design is no different than amp design or preamp design or speaker design. They all can be either warm or analytical and infinitely varied between. And we all know everyone's perception of what's good is different. You can't base a product on someone else's opinion. Only your own. My tastes, for example, are on the warm side but too much warm can be too drab with some music so I like to throw in something bright on occasion to mix it up. I think that's why I like the Gustard X26 Pro's DS DAC because it livens up certain tracts of music, especially older recordings. It can also be switched for more or less treble if the need arises.

R2R dac vs. Delta Sigma type dac

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