[Daniel4IEM]

Oh dang. I went through the whole dual jaw surgery years ago because u was having terrible TMJ and other related issues. Best of luck with all that.

I have monoblock amps for my movie watching/hifi and recently moved the R28NOS in the room. Not I get R28NOS goodness with gaming, tv, and music to sound amazing on headphones and speakers. Sell the R28 if you need but if you’re still on the fence, connect it to a two channel system and see what you think. Personally I love it. Might give you a reason to keep it around.

Wow, sounds like you been through it. Thanks for the well wishes. You definitely make a strong case for speakers...

 

[Louisiana]

Decide to sell my beloved R28.
https://www.head-fi.org/classifieds/audio-gd-r28-2020-model.65156/

And sold - that was lightning fast.

 

[Daniel4IEM]

I just listed Like-new/ mint condition R28 NOS in classifieds in case anyone is interested

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

hey everyone, anyone tried the new R28 NOS 2023 version ? very curious of how that thing sounds

 

[Patswalker]

hey everyone, anyone tried the new R28 NOS 2023 version ? very curious of how that thing sounds

Yup! I got mine in January. I love it. To me it's sort of the neutral thick wide detailed R2R sound I love. I have it at my desk and it sound amazing on headphones. Some headphones sound better than others but that's the nature of great R2R dacs that aren't a billion dollars. Warm, thick, detail, great soundstage, all the good sound I want. It's great at the price point. Worth every penny.

I was curious to pull it into my speaker set up so I did. When I did this it sounded so good that I wanted to see what would happen if I used it as the preamp. I had the Schiit Kara. I did a lot of A/B testing using the R28NOS as only a dac going into the Kara and using the R28NOS as a preamp without the Kara and I heard zero difference. This is a great compliment to the R28NOS. Often times dac/headphone amps that have a preamp out have the preamp as an afterthought. In the R28NOS it is just as good as a great dedicated preamp. Just cautious and know that it only has XLR analog inputs if you want to do this, it does not have any RCA inputs. I took out the Shiit Kara and it sounded amazing. The R28NOS to me is one of the greatest values of hifi all in ones I have heard. Also, physical size wise, It's not as big as it's big brothers, the R27 models.

The sound to me connected to two Schiit Vidar2 monoblock amps is full wide and detailed. Just what I want for speakers. I forget I am listening to it which is my actual ideal. I like it when dacs and peamps sound so good like this does but doesn't have a sound signature intense enough that it constantly reminds me I am listening to it. I want my audio gear with my speakers to sound amazing but any one piece takes up too much attention, in the chain I find it hard to match them with anything. The R28NOS balances itself extremely well in the chain. I have Schiit amplifiers and Audio GD is known to work extremely well with Schiit products.

I ended up missing it at my computer so much that I found the R27RE used and have it in my speaker room and the R28NOS back in my office and I'm super happy.

For headphones I do not think it is a full on swiss army knife do all machine. It's close though. I do think the R28NOS is amazing as a pair or companion to a great delta sigma DAC. I have it on my desk next to a Geshelli Labs J2S 4499 dac and Archel3 pro, both fully loaded with the top of the like Sparkos Labs opamps. Its bright, sparkley, warm and detailed. Great to pair with the full deep warm enveloping detail of the R28NOS with headphones. For full sized headphones I am not going to be adding anyhitng else on my desk. This is my desktop endgame. In my headphone area I have an increduble dac I love connected to an Audio GD HE9 LE headphone amp. I am a huge fan of Audio GD. I think their price to performance value is incredible. The R28NOS is one of my favorite products I have heard from them.

I hope that is what you were looking for. I really think the R28NOS is a very special device and I HIGHLY recommned it. It's amazing as a partner to another amp and dac with a different sound signature.

Ask any other questions you need, no problem.

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

Hey man! Thanks a lot for all theses informations! I am seriously thinking of buying one, so I do have a lot of questions if you don't mind haha..
First you have to know that I am mostly a headphone listener, I only have Arya Stealth (have you tried them with it?), I love theses, but I really wanna turn that arshness down (I know it's not much compared to previous versions arya but I am quite sensitive and it can seriously fatigue my ears after long listening sessions).

I am interested by this product because of the R2R reputation and audio GD in general for beiing a natural, fatigue free and big sounding devices, a few questions on that: you mentionned how wide it is, and that sounds good to me but I am also VERY interested by the depth dimension, also by 3 dimensionality (is that right? sry english isn't my mother tongue), I am also very interested about how that bass sounds, is it textured enough? I am a musician and I love to hear good texture on double bass) also is it slamy enough ?

besides that I know the unit is a bit dark, but that's what I am looking for, and I don't have speakers yet but when I will the device will be here for them... by the way isn't it the R-1 R2R dac in the unit? You find it to warm for your taste? is that why the delta sigma? maybe it's the combination of warm dac+warm amp I suppose?

thanks again for taking the time to write this

have a good one

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

By the way I like what you say about forgetting that you are using a system. I just wanna listen to music, with the best experience possible of course in therms of technicalities, but I wanna get lost in music much more than having a system that shows me like hey! look at that precision! look at theses cymbals etc... just wanna get lost and enjoy. Isn't it why we are listening to music after all?

 

[Patswalker]

Hey man! Thanks a lot for all theses informations! I am seriously thinking of buying one, so I do have a lot of questions if you don't mind haha..
First you have to know that I am mostly a headphone listener, I only have Arya Stealth (have you tried them with it?), I love theses, but I really wanna turn that arshness down (I know it's not much compared to previous versions arya but I am quite sensitive and it can seriously fatigue my ears after long listening sessions).

I am interested by this product because of the R2R reputation and audio GD in general for beiing a natural, fatigue free and big sounding devices, a few questions on that: you mentionned how wide it is, and that sounds good to me but I am also VERY interested by the depth dimension, also by 3 dimensionality (is that right? sry english isn't my mother tongue), I am also very interested about how that bass sounds, is it textured enough? I am a musician and I love to hear good texture on double bass) also is it slamy enough ?

besides that I know the unit is a bit dark, but that's what I am looking for, and I don't have speakers yet but when I will the device will be here for them... by the way isn't it the R-1 R2R dac in the unit? You find it to warm for your taste? is that why the delta sigma? maybe it's the combination of warm dac+warm amp I suppose?

thanks again for taking the time to write this

have a good one

I listen to my R28NOS with me Hifiman HE1000 stealth all the time. It's great. I have never used the Arya stealth but if you can go off of that it might help. I love that match.

The R28NOS in my experience support my headphones as they work their magic. I have heard some headphones sound incredibly 3D like you described, both wide and deep, on the R28NOS. It does not make all headphones wide and deep beyond what they naturally can do. But when headphones are designed to be 3D it will highlight that. For example, I listen on my Sennheiser HD600 and it is not wide and deep but it sounds amazing and full. To me that headphone is not a wide and deep headphone so the R28NOS will not be super wide and deep with it. When I listen on me Sennheiser HD800s, the nature of that headphone is an insane wide and deep 3D soundstage, the R28NOS seems to make the HD800s very wide and deep. In my experience that is the nature of great R2R dacs combined with great Class A amps. It has very good texture and slam for it's price. But most of that comes from the headphones too.

I don't think the R28NOS is dark at all. Not to me at least. I would sat full detailed and enveloping. Thick sound with great separation. More like being enveloped in a blanket of music. Dark to me is kind of cold and not fun. A lot of the Topping gear to me is a perfect example of that. Super detail, super precise, focused on measurements over everything else, that to me is dark. The R28NOS has much more life to it than what I personally would call dark. I do think it would be a spectacular pairing with your Arya Stealth. It could possibly calm down the brightness, that scalpel like treble that the Arya can have. Again, I have never heard the Arya stealth but I do have the HE1000stelath and I do find that it does exactly that to those headphones.

I have heard that the R1NOS is in the R28NOS but I am not sure, I can not confirm that. Email Audio-gd. They always respond within 24 hours to me.

I don't find the R28NOS too warm. I have the Geshelli stack because I do not belive in the one set up to rule them all idea. I believe it is important to have options that are different. This way it is mich more likely that I will find more symbiotic matching with different headphones. To me the entire chain is what matters. From the music source all the way to the headphones. All the components matter the same to me. So the R28NOS is just one part of a music chain on my desk. If I want a different flavor I go to the Geshelli stack. It just does different things sonically to my headphones. My high end headphone listening area is the same. It has two different set ups that sound different and I equally love them both. Same in the speaker area.

 

[Patswalker]

By the way I like what you say about forgetting that you are using a system. I just wanna listen to music, with the best experience possible of course in therms of technicalities, but I wanna get lost in music much more than having a system that shows me like hey! look at that precision! look at theses cymbals etc... just wanna get lost and enjoy. Isn't it why we are listening to music after all?

Sometimes that's why I listen to music, sometimes it's not. There are definitely times when I want to take a very clinical approach and I listen to the music chain that delivers that to me. I want different things and different times. That's why I have multiple set ups. But when it comes to the R28NOS, in my speaker system it gets out of the way and disappears. With my headphones it does not. It is a wonderful percussion instrument that delivers a particularly full warm 3D detailed music experience that the other set ups on my desk do not.

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

Great. Thanks again!

 

[Patswalker]

Great. Thanks again!

No problem! I hope I was of help. I really do also hope you end up buying it. It is a seriously special device. I can't recommend it enough.

 

[Daniel4IEM]

Hey man! Thanks a lot for all theses informations! I am seriously thinking of buying one, so I do have a lot of questions if you don't mind haha..
First you have to know that I am mostly a headphone listener, I only have Arya Stealth (have you tried them with it?), I love theses, but I really wanna turn that arshness down (I know it's not much compared to previous versions arya but I am quite sensitive and it can seriously fatigue my ears after long listening sessions).

I am interested by this product because of the R2R reputation and audio GD in general for beiing a natural, fatigue free and big sounding devices, a few questions on that: you mentionned how wide it is, and that sounds good to me but I am also VERY interested by the depth dimension, also by 3 dimensionality (is that right? sry english isn't my mother tongue), I am also very interested about how that bass sounds, is it textured enough? I am a musician and I love to hear good texture on double bass) also is it slamy enough ?

besides that I know the unit is a bit dark, but that's what I am looking for, and I don't have speakers yet but when I will the device will be here for them... by the way isn't it the R-1 R2R dac in the unit? You find it to warm for your taste? is that why the delta sigma? maybe it's the combination of warm dac+warm amp I suppose?

thanks again for taking the time to write this

have a good one

I actually asked audio gd this question and here is what they said

The digital parts of R28NOS and R1NOS both use similar NOS technology to process signals.
The overall style of R28NOS is similar to R1NOS and M19, but it is more cost-effective.

 

[sajunky]

I don't think the R28NOS is dark at all. Not to me at least. I would sat full detailed and enveloping. Thick sound with great separation. More like being enveloped in a blanket of music. Dark to me is kind of cold and not fun. A lot of the Topping gear to me is a perfect example of that. Super detail, super precise, focused on measurements over everything else, that to me is dark. The R28NOS has much more life to it than what I personally would call dark.

There is a term "dark background", not a bad things, not at all. Audio GD DAC's have a dark background, it means low noise, so low level details are well reproduced. This is difficult to achieve with non-feedback amps that carry bigger amount of THD distortions, on the border of our perception.

As you mentioned Topping as an example, I know that you mean "dark sounding". To not confuse with the first, I use term "sterile dark background". A dominant tone is artificially cleaned up to the level that nothing happens in the background. During quiet passages low level details are present, but during fast transients these details disappear. As you say l, there is no life in music. Opamp based amps always had this problem, but Topping use nested feedback opamp architecture where this effect is magnified. Topping is not only one using this technology. It became popular with Delta-Sigma DACs, but with R2R DAC there is big loss of musicality, it doesn't work.

 

[Patswalker]

There is a term "dark background", not a bad things, not at all. Audio GD DAC's have a dark background, it means low noise, so low level details are well reproduced. This is difficult to achieve with non-feedback amps that carry bigger amount of THD distortions, on the border of our perception.

As you mentioned Topping as an example, I know that you mean "dark sounding". To not confuse with the first, I use term "sterile dark background". A dominant tone is artificially cleaned up to the level that nothing happens in the background. During quiet passages low level details are present, but during fast transients these details disappear. As you say l, there is no life in music. Opamp based amps always had this problem, but Topping use nested feedback opamp architecture where this effect is magnified. Topping is not only one using this technology. It became popular with Delta-Sigma DACs, but with R2R DAC there is big loss of musicality, it doesn't work.

I know very well what dark background means. And I agree 100%. One of the things I love most about audio gd stuff is exactly that. I have a Schiit Yggi connected to a Audio GD HE9LE. The background is so dark in that amp that it can put out over 10 clear watts AND be dead silent with IEMs. I have a R27RE in my living room. Same there. I can run anything from super hard to drive headphones to IEMs. No noise. Dark background. I was commenting on a description of the sound though. They didn’t say dark background. They said dark describing the characteristics of the sound. Like the opposite of bright. Dark to pull down the harshness of their headphones. But thanks for all that info!

I agree 100%. Topping stuff is great too! Nothing wrong with any of it in my opinion. It does what it does and it does it super well. Incredible stuff. Close to untouchable in that realm for sure. They’re just not my cup of tea.

 

[AmadisDeGaula]

I know very well what dark background means. And I agree 100%. One of the things I love most about audio gd stuff is exactly that. I have a Schiit Yggi connected to a Audio GD HE9LE. The background is so dark in that amp that it can put out over 10 clear watts AND be dead silent with IEMs. I have a R27RE in my living room. Same there. I can run anything from super hard to drive headphones to IEMs. No noise. Dark background. I was commenting on a description of the sound though. They didn’t say dark background. They said dark describing the characteristics of the sound. Like the opposite of bright. Dark to pull down the harshness of their headphones. But thanks for all that info!

I agree 100%. Topping stuff is great too! Nothing wrong with any of it in my opinion. It does what it does and it does it super well. Incredible stuff. Close to untouchable in that realm for sure. They’re just not my cup

Yup! I got mine in January. I love it. To me it's sort of the neutral thick wide detailed R2R sound I love. I have it at my desk and it sound amazing on headphones. Some headphones sound better than others but that's the nature of great R2R dacs that aren't a billion dollars. Warm, thick, detail, great soundstage, all the good sound I want. It's great at the price point. Worth every penny.

I was curious to pull it into my speaker set up so I did. When I did this it sounded so good that I wanted to see what would happen if I used it as the preamp. I had the Schiit Kara. I did a lot of A/B testing using the R28NOS as only a dac going into the Kara and using the R28NOS as a preamp without the Kara and I heard zero difference. This is a great compliment to the R28NOS. Often times dac/headphone amps that have a preamp out have the preamp as an afterthought. In the R28NOS it is just as good as a great dedicated preamp. Just cautious and know that it only has XLR analog inputs if you want to do this, it does not have any RCA inputs. I took out the Shiit Kara and it sounded amazing. The R28NOS to me is one of the greatest values of hifi all in ones I have heard. Also, physical size wise, It's not as big as it's big brothers, the R27 models.

The sound to me connected to two Schiit Vidar2 monoblock amps is full wide and detailed. Just what I want for speakers. I forget I am listening to it which is my actual ideal. I like it when dacs and peamps sound so good like this does but doesn't have a sound signature intense enough that it constantly reminds me I am listening to it. I want my audio gear with my speakers to sound amazing but any one piece takes up too much attention, in the chain I find it hard to match them with anything. The R28NOS balances itself extremely well in the chain. I have Schiit amplifiers and Audio GD is known to work extremely well with Schiit products.

I ended up missing it at my computer so much that I found the R27RE used and have it in my speaker room and the R28NOS back in my office and I'm super happy.

For headphones I do not think it is a full on swiss army knife do all machine. It's close though. I do think the R28NOS is amazing as a pair or companion to a great delta sigma DAC. I have it on my desk next to a Geshelli Labs J2S 4499 dac and Archel3 pro, both fully loaded with the top of the like Sparkos Labs opamps. Its bright, sparkley, warm and detailed. Great to pair with the full deep warm enveloping detail of the R28NOS with headphones. For full sized headphones I am not going to be adding anyhitng else on my desk. This is my desktop endgame. In my headphone area I have an increduble dac I love connected to an Audio GD HE9 LE headphone amp. I am a huge fan of Audio GD. I think their price to performance value is incredible. The R28NOS is one of my favorite products I have heard from them.

I hope that is what you were looking for. I really think the R28NOS is a very special device and I HIGHLY recommned it. It's amazing as a partner to another amp and dac with a different sound signature.

Ask any other questions you need, no pro

Yup! I got mine in January. I love it. To me it's sort of the neutral thick wide detailed R2R sound I love. I have it at my desk and it sound amazing on headphones. Some headphones sound better than others but that's the nature of great R2R dacs that aren't a billion dollars. Warm, thick, detail, great soundstage, all the good sound I want. It's great at the price point. Worth every penny.

I was curious to pull it into my speaker set up so I did. When I did this it sounded so good that I wanted to see what would happen if I used it as the preamp. I had the Schiit Kara. I did a lot of A/B testing using the R28NOS as only a dac going into the Kara and using the R28NOS as a preamp without the Kara and I heard zero difference. This is a great compliment to the R28NOS. Often times dac/headphone amps that have a preamp out have the preamp as an afterthought. In the R28NOS it is just as good as a great dedicated preamp. Just cautious and know that it only has XLR analog inputs if you want to do this, it does not have any RCA inputs. I took out the Shiit Kara and it sounded amazing. The R28NOS to me is one of the greatest values of hifi all in ones I have heard. Also, physical size wise, It's not as big as it's big brothers, the R27 models.

The sound to me connected to two Schiit Vidar2 monoblock amps is full wide and detailed. Just what I want for speakers. I forget I am listening to it which is my actual ideal. I like it when dacs and peamps sound so good like this does but doesn't have a sound signature intense enough that it constantly reminds me I am listening to it. I want my audio gear with my speakers to sound amazing but any one piece takes up too much attention, in the chain I find it hard to match them with anything. The R28NOS balances itself extremely well in the chain. I have Schiit amplifiers and Audio GD is known to work extremely well with Schiit products.

I ended up missing it at my computer so much that I found the R27RE used and have it in my speaker room and the R28NOS back in my office and I'm super happy.

For headphones I do not think it is a full on swiss army knife do all machine. It's close though. I do think the R28NOS is amazing as a pair or companion to a great delta sigma DAC. I have it on my desk next to a Geshelli Labs J2S 4499 dac and Archel3 pro, both fully loaded with the top of the like Sparkos Labs opamps. Its bright, sparkley, warm and detailed. Great to pair with the full deep warm enveloping detail of the R28NOS with headphones. For full sized headphones I am not going to be adding anyhitng else on my desk. This is my desktop endgame. In my headphone area I have an increduble dac I love connected to an Audio GD HE9 LE headphone amp. I am a huge fan of Audio GD. I think their price to performance value is incredible. The R28NOS is one of my favorite products I have heard from them.

I hope that is what you were looking for. I really think the R28NOS is a very special device and I HIGHLY recommned it. It's amazing as a partner to another amp and dac with a different sound signature.

Ask any other questions you need, no problem.

Hey man I have another question about the musical presentation with headphones, do you find the combo to be mid forward? like with the mids closer to you as a listener? like when listening to a tenor sax or a voice maybe? Also on the bass side, I imagine it does make rumble theses 20hz? Thanks!