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Bullshit. I'm not saying that I agree that Rega is a marketing driven company, but someone inside the company decides what products will sell and how to sell them. Basic marketing.
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Rega DAC-R DAC Review
- Thread starter amirm
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If company exists there is always a marketing.
Doesn't matter if there is a separate department or not.
Doesn't matter if there is a separate department or not.
Hi everyone,
It happens I still have the early version of this Rega DAC, from 2011, which had 5 filters instead of 3, and an asynchronous USB.
When testing it from the Optical input, at 24bits/192kHz, I got the exact same results as Amir:
The results are the same at any sampling rate. Other testing showed exactly what Amir reviewed.
Stereophile reviewed this early version as well, mainly using a CD Player as the source. I found the same results too, when running the same tests.
What's to mention is a good resistance to intersample overs, above 2dB.
If there's an interest, I can publish more. But I must say that not only this is disappointing for the Wolfson DAC in use here, but also that 4 years later, for the revised version, it had the exact same issues, mainly due to a high level of distortion.
It happens I still have the early version of this Rega DAC, from 2011, which had 5 filters instead of 3, and an asynchronous USB.
When testing it from the Optical input, at 24bits/192kHz, I got the exact same results as Amir:
The results are the same at any sampling rate. Other testing showed exactly what Amir reviewed.
Stereophile reviewed this early version as well, mainly using a CD Player as the source. I found the same results too, when running the same tests.
What's to mention is a good resistance to intersample overs, above 2dB.
If there's an interest, I can publish more. But I must say that not only this is disappointing for the Wolfson DAC in use here, but also that 4 years later, for the revised version, it had the exact same issues, mainly due to a high level of distortion.
Last edited:
When several credible sources measure the same thing, it is silly to dispute their accuracy.
But that does not eliminate the possibility of people liking the sound, at all.
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
This site is rightly focussed on objective performance and DACs are expected to exploit all of the performance of the chip(s) used, which is now > 120 SINAD and anything from the last 20 years should exceed 100, but how much do we really need? Is anything better than 96 (CD quality) actually audible, considering all the limitations further down the chain (amps and speakers)? Is the Rega close enough to that, or could it be that its slight shortfall is adding some "character" to the sound which people happen to like? We all know about the terrible objective performance of vinyl, whatever the TT/arm/cartridge, but so many *love* the sound!
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
DSJR
Master Contributor
Have you seen what's written on the main board? May explain the deliberate? added distortion...
Multicore
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Yikes. Thanks for that. Funny.
And thanks for all your measurements. I was thinking as I re-read "We can make a bit of dispensation for an older design" in Amir's OP conclusion, why should we? NTTY has shown us that good quality DACs had been common for decades when this one was released.
I'm not sure you're asking me, but I can share that this little Rega made the job for me, as I needed to simplify my system some years ago, and I never complained about how it sounded, nor was I "wow", I must admit.
As a matter of fact, it made me equally happy as the good old Revox B 226-S CD player with its said super duper Phillips crowned converter. Here below the two compared with a -40dBFS test tone (16bits/44.1kHz):
If we saw that the Rega suffers "high" distortion close to full scale (from -6dBFS to 0dBFS), it is otherwise well behaved as the example above shows. Only hot CD masters would stimulate that easy to hide harmonic distortion. So I'm not surprised I had nothing to complain about at the time.
Of course, all of the above is not an excuse for that Rega DAC to exhibit such a level of distortion at and near full scale.
AudioSceptic
Major Contributor
I'm not sure you're asking me, but I can share that this little Rega made the job for me, as I needed to simplify my system some years ago, and I never complained about how it sounded, nor was I "wow", I must admit.
As a matter of fact, it made me equally happy as the good old Revox B 226-S CD player with its said super duper Phillips crowned converter. Here below the two compared with a -40dBFS test tone (16bits/44.1kHz):
View attachment 497690
If we saw that the Rega suffers "high" distortion close to full scale (from -6dBFS to 0dBFS), it is otherwise well behaved as the example above shows. Only hot CD masters would stimulate that easy to hide harmonic distortion. So I'm not surprised I had nothing to complain about at the time.
Of course, all of the above is not an excuse for that Rega DAC to exhibit such a level of distortion at and near full scale.
Well, I suppose I'm addressing Amir's original review, your welcome additions, and the whole "how good does it need to be" question. Thanks for these detailed measurements, and can I ask if you are a design engineer or in the repair/maintenance industry?I'm not sure you're asking me, but I can share that this little Rega made the job for me, as I needed to simplify my system some years ago, and I never complained about how it sounded, nor was I "wow", I must admit.
As a matter of fact, it made me equally happy as the good old Revox B 226-S CD player with its said super duper Phillips crowned converter. Here below the two compared with a -40dBFS test tone (16bits/44.1kHz):
View attachment 497690
If we saw that the Rega suffers "high" distortion close to full scale (from -6dBFS to 0dBFS), it is otherwise well behaved as the example above shows. Only hot CD masters would stimulate that easy to hide harmonic distortion. So I'm not surprised I had nothing to complain about at the time.
Of course, all of the above is not an excuse for that Rega DAC to exhibit such a level of distortion at and near full scale.
I'm an engineer, not in the audio industry, but I studied signal processing at the university, and my professional life has never been anywhere close to that 
EJ3
Master Contributor
Funny, my degree is in business management (sub: marketing).I'm an engineer, not in the audio industry, but I studied signal processing at the university, and my professional life has never been anywhere close to that
But my main life's work was nowhere close to this field but I became certified to teach in my main life's work.
By doing the work, becoming certified in the work & then, do to my work, they had me teach the work to higher ups (whom I had no idea where going to certify me to teach the work).
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