Headphone Listening RS201E

ROSE Products RS201
#1

Thought I have a Listen To My 3 Favourite Tracks From Neil Young Rugged Glory Album in Flac format.

Over and Over
Country Home
Days That Used To Be

RS201E + Grado SR80 Headphones + Air Guitar

Verdict … Rather Weak - even uninviting …

So i went to my sitting room to do a comparison. Bluesound Node 2 ( The DAC chip is a Texas / Burr Brown PCM 5242 32 bit / 384 kHz MQA compatible dac)

Grado SR80 Headphones - Verdict Toe tapping - full of Power - Fantastic.

With all the things the RS201E meant to be . its clearly falling short somewhere?

Wonder if any thoughts on this.

#2

DA converter chip is least important in such a scenario.
I am not sure what is used for amplification (opamp chip, I suppose), but it seems that it is not electrically compatible with your Grado.
As RS201E is not a dedicated headphone amplifier, nor is Node 2, I recommend using a dedicated headphone amplifier (I am using McIntosh MHA200).
Grado’s 80s are not special headphones but can receive information about music and try something cheap from Rega or some Chinese. Please, have in mind the electrical compatibility of the amplifier and headphones.

#3

i bought the RS201E for what it is a compact box and to put on a shelf. the internal SSD drive was what persuaded me to by it. I don’t want to start adding connecting Clutter and cable. I thought That was the point of the RS201E?

I don’t think your hearing me. The stand alone headphone output is not good dull boring . Comparing it to My Bluesound . We emphasizing stand alone here.

As for the Grado, You will not find, a negative comment, about them in any HIFI review. Only maybe for their ascetics, certainly not for their fantastic sound Sorry … i am a huge huge fan… used them for many years :slight_smile:

The RS201E fine through my Monitor Audio Silver 200 speakers even better through the Smaller Dynaudio emit 10. very dynamic. But i hate speaker stands so much.:slight_smile:

1 Like
#4

Oh, I see.
Maybe try another another headphones?
I got collection of 20+ headphones, will do the test today.

#5

20 pairs of Headphones my goodness.

sounds like a lot of Clutter to me.

Somewhere in the house I have some AKG N700 noise cancelling headphones. They are Bluetooth. Can I try These?

#6

I am not sure how Bluetooth is working on 201e. I think it is only the receiver.

#7

I’ve been using RS-201E for a month, still learning its features.Because of it size and price you can not expect too much. There are several complains about the clock and weather (me too, I’ve to adjust the clock everyday). I wonder the power supply can supplied 5 amp of current as it is so small. I hope someone who has change to a more powerful one and tell us the result. The builtin power amp is quite disappointed, lack of dynamic and high frequency. Its EQ also not effective. Now I use its pre out to connect to my home made power amp with a DBX eq the sound quality is acceptable. I hope factory can improve the software well and members show the way to get better sound quality in the near future.

Perry

1 Like
#8

I don’t know what is your usual digital source but mine 201e got a disabled power amp, fixed line out, and sits between Emmlabs SACD and Nucleus connected to McIntosh C22 anniversary and MC275 power amp acting as ROON endpoint. This is the most valuable device I have in terms of sound for the money.

#9

keeping things simple That much gear doesn’t excite the parts it used to dcrnec. People can shout expensive brands at me all day and it just goes over my head . Just my 201E and it goes into a Naim supernait which feeds Monitor Audio silver 200 Speakers. My connection today is a a toslink cable.

My 201E has a major Glitch, as in Music was coming only out the left hand speaker. and very quite out the right on normal speaker connections into the 201E now Fully connected into the Naim via a Toslink the sound is only coming out the right and softly out the left. whats going on?

Worse i bought it on line new. i can not remember the store. How do I get the device fixed. I wish people would not coment that the device is cheap. it cost me £1,500 pounds sterling . i bought it in good faith new

Please look here

1 Like
#10

That is weird. Toslink is complete digital connection where equipement cannot differentiate left and right channel.
Either balance on 201 is wrong or Naim is doing something wrong.
Brands are mentioned for reference.
If I were you I would just return it. Obviously, you got a very strong negative bias. Buy Naim and be happy instead of trolling (intentionally or not, I don’t care).

#11

Regarding size; try Benchmark amplification.

#12

I do not like the last sentence of your post I did not need that.
I have a serious issue with my RS201E of which i am seeking help with
on how will it be fixed. and who is going to - or have the know how , to fix it. Certainly not locally.

The Naim up for sale by the way.

1 Like
#13

Well, I am not active here to please someone. I just call things their names.
Telling that 201 is the low performer is nonsense.
I might understand you dislike it due to some reasons but my experience is quite different.
You mentioned integrated amplification; I tried it with Tannoy Gold Reference speakers and it is something with which most people (overall) could live happily for the rest of their lives.
As I said, if you don’t like 201 - return it to the store.

#14

premium sounds London said they will have a look and suspect they will have to contact HIFIRose for a replacement
Thanks

1 Like
#15

Dexxas, I tried headphone output. It is not worth mentioning; depending on the headphones I tried (from Grado, Sonus Faber, Focal, Audeze, Bowers & Wilkins…).
I would go with a dedicated headphone amplifier.

#16

Hello fans. I wanted to buy Philips Fidelio L3 headphones that support
aptX™
aptX™ HD
Low Complexity Subband Codec (SBC)
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC)
Certyfikat Hi-Res Audio
A2DP
HSP
HFP
AVRCP
Does anyone have any experience with it or can it play well? I wanted to listen with a cable but I read that the sound is weak!