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Thinking about getting a R2R DAC

Dear community,

I currently have a chord qutest DAC. I like it a lot, very full sound, accurate detailed and exciting.  However, whenever I go back to vinyl (with a well-recorded nice pressing) I find the sound so much more satisfying.  There is a warmth, yes, but there is a presence, a 'there-ness' that I just don't get with the digital.  I'm wondering if an R2R DAC would get me closer to that?  my budget would be around the same as the qutest.  I was looking at the MHDT Orchid or the Border Patrol.  Don't get me wrong, I really like the Qutest.  I am thinking of putting it in the upstairs system to pair with the Node2i I have up there.  Any thoughts?  Will analog always just be a different animal than digital?

Currently in the main system I have a Sonore uRendu feeding the Qutest which is going to a LTA MZ2 going to a Pass XA 30.5

thanks!
adam8179
alexberger
935 posts
 
Hi @adam8179 ,

I also use Chord Qutest for couple of years. I like it very much. It is a huge step compared to my old Care 303 CD player that use 1704 DAC chip. 
I improved the SQ of  Qutest significantly when I changed BNC digital socket to Audio Note silver RCA and started using NBS Signature cable. Thank a lot to @zipost suggested me to do it. Now CDs sound competitive to my vinyl setup. But vinyl still wons in terms of tone and microdynamics. But CD at least as good in presentation, soundstage, separation and other audiophile attributes.
Did you compared your network streamer to good CD transport with SPDIF cable?

Regards,
Alex.
decooney
2,241 posts
 
@hilde45 The Pagoda has a tube. Is there much debate about tubes needing break in? Mine definitely changed over first 40 hrs.  


To add on to your point - 
It's not just the stock supplied tubes that take time settle in, the new caps inside need to settle in as well. My MHDT Orchid is very 3-dimensional, and deep soundstage. Upgraded it again after the first year, even better now once I upgraded the coupling capacitors inside to high $ silver-gold-oil Mundorf caps with Cardas silver soldering, and went with an ever better NOS Tesla tube to replace the decent stock tube. It now challenges DACs at 2-3x the price. Same can be done to the Pagoda.  My buddy uses a Pagoda in a mastering studio.  
alexberger
935 posts
 
Other trick I did to make Chord Qutest sound warm and smooth even on "white" filter with regular power supply, I added Furutech AC GTX-D(Gold) Duplex receptacle.
This  receptacle makes sound more fat and warm in contrast to  Furutech AC GTX-D Rhodium that sounds more neutral.
alexberger
935 posts
 
The problem is a simple digital oversampling and anti-aliasing filtering (used in most DACs) is not accurate enough for music reproduction.
DAC without oversampling and Chord DACs with sophisticated oversampling and anti-aliasing filtering solve the same issue by different approach. The goal is recovery the original analog signal that was before ADC.
So one solution it do pure analog low pass filter.  Other solution is to do sophisticated digital signal processing using modern powerful FPGA and smart algorithms.
The question is what does work better?
rikkipuu's avatar
rikkipuu
279 posts
 
I had a Denafrips Terminator (r2r) and recently upgraded to the Terminator Plus.  I have had a Yggdrasil (r2r) and W4S DSDSE v2.2 (ds) dacs and the Terminator is in another league.  FWIW I felt the W4S was the better dac.
I added the Denafrips Iris DDC (USB to I2S converter) to try the I2S on the Terminators, the Iris was a game changer in my system.  Denafrips considers the I2S the best input but have put a lot of work into their USB input.  I wasn't expecting much from the Iris as the USB from my Innuos Statement was supposed to be amazing (and I thought it was).
I have clock cables on order to clock the Iris with the Terminator Plus's OCXO clock.  I have read the benefit is significant.
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