đŸ”· Airist R2R (Drop DAC)

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories [Official] DACs
101

O ya they are still 50k and were more when they came out. Its a work of art really.

102

You can pick up the older he90 system that is still really sweet for around 15k ish for a good example if you wanted to go that route. I decided to grab the hifiman shangri la sr over the he1, but the trick is to not pay hifiman for their overpriced amp and get a high end stax energizer instead

103

How does the hifiman shangri la sr sound?

104

Really good, big fan of it overall, it’s harder to describe the sound in words, but it’s very lifelike in how it does things. It’s essentially hifimans composition to the he1. I also have the sennheiser he60 that is pretty sweet as well (but the stock energizer kinda held back the cans imo)

105

Re THX vs Heresy, I find them almost indistinguishable. The thx has some very real advantages over the heresy in IO (balanced output). I tested mine back to back and other than volume differences they sound within reason and to my ears, the same.

106

I have doubts that the heresy is less harsh in any human distinguishable way

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107

AFAIK, they “stole” a free-to-use PCB design from someone in China sharing it on the internet, and put their stuff on it. :man_shrugging:

This is the same price, don’t know if it’s worth
 anything.

http://www.audio-gd.com/R2R/R2R11/R2R11EN.htm

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108

So from my experience the dac in the audio gd is not to the same tier as the airist, the audio gd stuff tends to be pretty unrefined imo

109

So what tier would you put the Airist?

110

I think it’s real solid for the price, I would say it’s a good deal for what it goes for it you want something that is more colored but give you a unique experience. I would say it’s not as good as like a bifrost 2 or ares ii etc, but I do think I prefer it over something like a su8 or topping d50 for sure

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111

What balanced DAC would you match with the 789? Knowing I have the CX headphones and will get other headphones down the road.

112

I mean imo at this point the thx is going to limit how far you can go, that would be now my priority before a higher end dac

113

O really. So what AMP?

114

What budget would you be wanting to spend? Also perhaps make a new thread so we don’t clog this one lol?

115

Airist has a poor USB implementation compared to the Bifrost 2. Some games/systems don’t use it properly. The toslink in
 sucks, smoothed out too much. But with that said, I swear it’s more detailed and what it does in the bass is absolutely wonderful. I can hear things with the Airist I can’t on the Bifrost 2 but only in the low end. My particular Airist is a little noisy in terms of noise floor is a bit high.

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116

I have just acquired an Airist so I can finally hear an R2R 
and I’m into it. Problem is, I’m used to Chord Hugo TT resolution. The Airist is not there in that regard. Anyone know should I look for TT-level resolution in an R2R? Ares II? Bifrost 2? Anything else sub £1000?

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117

Unfortunately I can’t really think of anything new with tt level resolution (is it a tt2 or just a hugo tt?) at or under 1k. If you had to pick something new for r2r sub 1k usd, I’d consider a soekris dac2541. But really if you wanted to match that resolution wise you’d likely need to go somewhat higher, if you look used you could see what’s out there (around 1-1.5k ish) and could potentially get close or match with that budget, but not really anything new in that price point imo. But really depends on if you have a tt or a tt2 since there was a noticable jump in performance from the tt to the tt2 imo

This being said, are you looking for something that sounds like the airist, or any r2r dac? Because the soekris does not really sound like the airist whatsoever imo for example. Not all r2r dacs sound alike, as with any other dac tech, it really comes down to the implementation for the final sound

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118

Thanks for your input!

It’s just a Hugo TT. I was A/B’n it with the Airist last night and, although I preferred the Airist presentation, I noticed I was missing information.

I guess it wouldn’t have to be the same resolution as the TT but more than the Airist? I’m willing to track down gear second hand. I’m just not too sure on how the Airist and Hugo TT stack up against things like BF2, Pegasus, Ares II, etc
 This is my first R2R and I don’t wish to accidentally sidegrade.

119

Generally what were some aspects that you liked about the airist, and what would you change there (outside of better resolution)? Just trying to gauge what options around the price point would likely be the most worthwhile to look into

Also what amp would you be pairing it with as well

That’s pretty doable then, shouldn’t have any issue getting something to do that

I think what you’ve mentioned right there would be a nice upgrade from the airist, not quite tt level, but enough of an upgrade that it would likely satisfy. For which one you go for would really depend on what aspects you might want to prioritize

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120

Hello,
Off the top of my head, this one comes to mind
https://merason.ch/frerot.html
The model frérot seems decent for 1k.
Otherwise, with a bit of luck, a used holo cyan, unfortunately it’s not available new because of the chip crisis.
R2R Dacs are suffering a lot at the moment.
It’s hard to find something good when your budget is limited.
Soekris is also having supply problems at the moment, but only because the components are in short supply.
But you can always ask them about the status.

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