New Dac the FiiO K13 R2R: Early Impressions

[Stuart.W.D]

I am thinking of the Fiio warmer RTR rather than the K11, K13 for hifi / rack use between my WiiM Ultra, NAIT 50 and my ATC SCM11 out of pure curiosity only, to add a touch of warmth.
Thoughts?

View: https://youtu.be/lTNFjqzkVe4?si=MGmOma5ZoMiJ4LXp

 

[Stuart.W.D]

@The_Lecht_Rocks
These three videos may help you make a decision!

View: https://youtu.be/NCIIbjtz_JA?si=rt6OIN7pKGsTNmBH

 

[nopiano]

View: https://youtu.be/8JL4RrNk-yo?si=8QAobh4hZFORA-d-

This is one where an analogy with photography makes sense. Darko is usually worth watching, even when sponsored by dubious cable companies!

 

[Juzzie Wuzzie]

I am thinking of the Fiio warmer RTR rather than the K11, K13 for hifi / rack use between my WiiM Ultra, NAIT 50 and my ATC SCM11 out of pure curiosity only, to add a touch of warmth.
Thoughts?

That's the one I would pick as the visual asthetic is lovely in my view. I think you'll get warmth to both the sound and the living room.

 

[RTHerringbone]

I am thinking of the Fiio warmer RTR rather than the K11, K13 for hifi / rack use between my WiiM Ultra, NAIT 50 and my ATC SCM11 out of pure curiosity only, to add a touch of warmth.
Thoughts?

Is there a perceptible lack of warmth with the Ultra versus the ICON (albeit different systems and rooms)?

I can't quite wrestle with the logic of adding another box out of curiosity. I love the look of the Warmer and itchy wallet syndrome would absolutely have me looking to get one, but I just can't picture the benefit sonically.

I guess it's about the same price as the Ultra so it should offer something, but then you end up wondering if just using the Ultra as a transport is wasteful if you get the Warmer. Not unlike me "wasting" the DAC in the Ultra in my upstairs setup.

 

[Integralista]

I am thinking of the Fiio warmer RTR rather than the K11, K13 for hifi / rack use between my WiiM Ultra, NAIT 50 and my ATC SCM11 out of pure curiosity only, to add a touch of warmth.
Thoughts?

Hi, this magic around DAC characters and combinations with streamer bridges... remind me on best days we had selecting and changing tubes in tube amps, tube amps in general, tube magic as such...

 

[Messiah]

For example, I was listening to O by Damien Rice (a CD I ordered from Discogs), and I could hear little things I hadn’t noticed before -- faint sounds of kids playing in the background, Damien taking breaths between lines, even subtle touches on the guitar touching the wood, and the body to the strings is nicely done. These are small details, but they felt very real. I didn’t notice them before with an older Rega DAC, or my iFi Zen DAC, or the DAC in my Cambridge CXN V2. I found that very interesting.

Out of curiosity (as this is what I would do), it would be interesting to swap back to some of the other DACs to see if you then notice those bits you didn’t before, now you know they are there.