[Viper2005]

How much of a jump in quality would you say it is? Is it the proverbial ‘night and day’ some people like to use around here, or more subtle?

I wouldn't say its night and day no, but I found the R28 sound was a touch flat and also, with my Atticus it gave it a slightly tizzy upper end, which the M9 also fixed. The M9 has just a more powerful sound which gels really well with the ZMF headphones.

 

[gLer]

No R-28 is fine for me. I feel no need to upgrade but as per this hobby go "Greed" is what we should happen to face all the time haha.

I know the feeling! Luckily once I heard the R-28 paired with the Auteur, my ‘greed’ was done. Couldn’t care less about looking for “better” now.

 

[gLer]

I wouldn't say its night and day no, but I found the R28 sound was a touch flat and also, with my Atticus it gave it a slightly tizzy upper end, which the M9 also fixed. The M9 has just a more powerful sound which gels really well with the ZMF headphones.

Good point - I sold my Atticus because it didn’t gel with the R-28 so I know what you’re describing. Wasn’t keen on shelling out even more to please the headphone when there were better alternatives out there that loved the R-28 (as I eventually and fortunately discovered).

 

[sumpao]

I know the feeling! Luckily once I heard the R-28 paired with the Auteur, my ‘greed’ was done. Couldn’t care less about looking for “better” now.

I will try to hold this out due to it just curiosity. thank for advise

actually I do my money is worth spend elsewhere. Thanks for advise.

Greed is a bad thing in human life haha

 

[WildSeven]

Super happy I received my R28 today, out of the box it sounds amazing, very smooth.
Got the updated version can control different modes with the buttons.

Tried several settings and currently have it set NOS 2, i think this is my favorite so far.

 

[WildSeven]

Couple internal shots of the 2019 version, going to replace the top with a custom cut smoky acrylic.

 

[FredA]

Couple internal shots of the 2019 version, going to replace the top with a custom cut smoky acrylic.

Confrats! Have fun. It will pair well with planars like the Sundaras or He-560 and others. The settings on the front panel are so convenient. Lots of bang for the buck. Can't go wrong with it.

 

[crowgun]

Hey,

I have just gotten my new Audio GD R28 (2019), it already sounds beyond expectations without burn-in from the beginning! The sound of instruments are fantastic!

Yesterday I downloaded Audirvana for Windows 10 and tried DSD512 upsampling with it both using my FLAC library and songs from Tidal streaming. I used the default settings for upsampling. It is not flawless unfortunately, there are popping sounds, sometimes the sound only comes either from the left or the right channel of my headphone and that is quickly alternating. It also happened that music playing stopped and a very loud white noise started to play, I needed to throw down my headphones immediately because of the shock. I tried the device with multiple USB cables, the behaviour is the same with all when it comes to DSD upsampling (tried everything from DSD64 to DSD512).

Is this the device itself that is faulty or Audirvana? Do you experience the same? Please help me debugging this issue.

 

[gLer]

Hey,

I have just gotten my new Audio GD R28 (2019), it already sounds beyond expectations without burn-in from the beginning! The sound of instruments are fantastic!

Yesterday I downloaded Audirvana for Windows 10 and tried DSD512 upsampling with it both using my FLAC library and songs from Tidal streaming. I used the default settings for upsampling. It is not flawless unfortunately, there are popping sounds, sometimes the sound only comes either from the left or the right channel of my headphone and that is quickly alternating. It also happened that music playing stopped and a very loud white noise started to play, I needed to throw down my headphones immediately because of the shock. I tried the device with multiple USB cables, the behaviour is the same with all when it comes to DSD upsampling (tried everything from DSD64 to DSD512).

Is this the device itself that is faulty or Audirvana? Do you experience the same? Please help me debugging this issue.

Hmm, unfortunately Audio-gd has a patchy track record with DSD. That said, I haven’t had any issues with DSD and my R-28 and Audirvana+, although I wasn’t trying to upsample but rather just play native DSD tracks. There will be an occasional pop between DSD and PCM, and even the occasional screech, but that shouldn’t happen during tracks. Perhaps try playing some native DSD? Also as far as I know, the R-28 only supports DSD 256 and lower, so DSD 512 shouldn’t work at all. 64 and 128 should be more than fine.

All that said, R2R dacs are natively designed for PCM playback, which is why I converted all my DSDs to high-res PCM, which plays beautifully on the R-28.

Good luck with your troubleshooting...

 

[crowgun]

Hmm, unfortunately Audio-gd has a patchy track record with DSD. That said, I haven’t had any issues with DSD and my R-28 and Audirvana+, although I wasn’t trying to upsample but rather just play native DSD tracks. There will be an occasional pop between DSD and PCM, and even the occasional screech, but that shouldn’t happen during tracks. Perhaps try playing some native DSD? Also as far as I know, the R-28 only supports DSD 256 and lower, so DSD 512 shouldn’t work at all. 64 and 128 should be more than fine.

All that said, R2R dacs are natively designed for PCM playback, which is why I converted all my DSDs to high-res PCM, which plays beautifully on the R-28.

Good luck with your troubleshooting...

Hey gLer,

Do you own a Mac or Pc? What usb cable do you use? Perphaps any usb, power conditioner? Could you try Audirvana's DSD upsampling whether you have issues please?

 

[gLer]

Hey gLer,

Do you own a Mac or Pc? What usb cable do you use? Perphaps any usb, power conditioner? Could you try Audirvana's DSD upsampling whether you have issues please?

I do use a Mac with a QED graphite USB cable and an Ideon 3R reclocker. I’ll give upsampling a try when I get home later today and report back here. The Mac mini supports a maximum of DSD128 with the R-28 because it’s limited to DoP.

 

[FredA]

Hey,

I have just gotten my new Audio GD R28 (2019), it already sounds beyond expectations without burn-in from the beginning! The sound of instruments are fantastic!

Yesterday I downloaded Audirvana for Windows 10 and tried DSD512 upsampling with it both using my FLAC library and songs from Tidal streaming. I used the default settings for upsampling. It is not flawless unfortunately, there are popping sounds, sometimes the sound only comes either from the left or the right channel of my headphone and that is quickly alternating. It also happened that music playing stopped and a very loud white noise started to play, I needed to throw down my headphones immediately because of the shock. I tried the device with multiple USB cables, the behaviour is the same with all when it comes to DSD upsampling (tried everything from DSD64 to DSD512).

Is this the device itself that is faulty or Audirvana? Do you experience the same? Please help me debugging this issue.

Also, dsd upsampling is cpu-intensive. You need a powerful computer to maximize sound quality. Even dsd256 upsampled on the fly won't sound so great with an average computer but there will be no glitche. Native dsd256 files do soumd great however. In any case, AFAIAC upsampling pcm files to dsd will never sound as good as playing them natively.

 

[crowgun]

I have an I7-6700 processor with 16 GB of RAM and SSD as storage. I don't think the PC is the bottleneck here.

 

[crowgun]

I do use a Mac with a QED graphite USB cable and an Ideon 3R reclocker. I’ll give upsampling a try when I get home later today and report back here. The Mac mini supports a maximum of DSD128 with the R-28 because it’s limited to DoP.

Thanks! Audirvana is developed for Mac so I can imagine it still has issues on Win 10 since it is a ported version. Furthermore, Mac users report less issues than PC users when it comes to audio. I wonder how your setup works, with the upsampling, the reclocker could help a lot.

 

[sumpao]

Did anyone try the new firmware yet?