Thinking about getting a R2R DAC

@jjss49,

Good point. The only way to avoid ‘Debbie Downers’ is to not engage them. Sadly, their only agenda is to cause enough chaos so they can satisfy their monstrous ego. 

I did a blind shootout between the Mojo V2x and the Orchid and my updated Ayre QB-9 Twenty.  I kept the Mojo- my wife and kids liked it best too.     

There is a lot of talk here about R2R w tubes and I have had both Delta Sigma and many R2R's. I have an Audio Note DAC 5 special and my wife and I am quite surprised as to how similar it is to my vinyl rig. It took a lot of learning and setup to get my digital rig where it is at and was far more difficult learning curve vs getting great vinyl sound. Literally everything or anything can effect digital and usually to a negative degree. 
The Delta Sigma DAC's seem to be more tolerant of conditions but do not seem have that elusive sound potential regardless of what I did. 

My friend has a Technics SP1200MKii with a fairly cheap cart and it is astoundingly good for what it costs.

Listen to a TT2 ...

In the mid-1980s I often did head-to-head comparisons of the same recording on vinyl (VPI+Grado Arm+Grado cart) vs a heavily modded Magnavox CD player (excellent in its day). There was never any contest. Analog won every time.

All these years later, I’ve worked my way through delta-sigma DACs and fully switched over the R2R & NOS. My NOS DAC is the MHDT Labs Orchid--excellent sound. My R2R is the modest but legendary Audio GD DAC-19. Either one is preferable to delta-sigma for me.

I know R2R & NOS don’t measure well, but so what? Vinyl never measured as well as CD players, and we all know how that ended up. I listen with my ears, not measuring devices.

If I had a big 2-channel system, I would of course test my 2 DACs in that system. And I might (in italics) hear the somewhat diminished soundstage that others describe with R2R/NOS. But in my relatively high resolution nearfield desktop system, soundstaging, no matter how excellent, will never be as audible as in a larger, better-placed system space.

I’m happy with digital now that I have R2R & NOS...I couldn’t have really said that before.

Note: You don’t need to spend mega-$$ to get good sounding R2R/NOS DACs. If you want to, go for it (my dream DAC is the Holo May). But it’s not essential for good sound...