Not too long ago I had the privilege of announcing the new Audio-gd R2R 7 flagship resistor ladder DAC. I’ve long enjoyed the sound from these kinds of DACs, but never thought I’d be able to afford one without having to build one myself. Now, however, it’s possible to buy one for quite little, as Audio-gd has announced the R2R 11, a variation of their very popular NFB 11.
Using the new DA-8 module, which includes ultra-high speed CPLD processor compensation (unlike the Singularity 19) the R2R 11 is non-oversampling and includes as standard a completely discreet ACSS-based (current gain) pre-amplifier and headphone amplifier. Those of you who are not fans of NOS DACs will be happy to know that the R2R 11 is also DSD native and can accept DXD, and PCM up to 384 KHz via any of its inputs, including the Amanero Combo 384 USB interface. So users of Audirvana Plus and the like can manage up/oversampling via software quite easily.
The headphone amp will output up to 3500mW at 25 Ohms, meaning it will happily drive almost all headphones out there with ease.
The R2R 11 is now available for $350. I expect there will be many people asking whether they should get the regular NFB 11 or the R2R 11. I’m going to bet that acoustic music is going to sound very pleasant through the new model.
