A rose without thorns? – The prototype Hifi Rose RD160 DAC [€5'299] flew a display that looked like a circuit schematic. Apparently the firm took feedback to heart to rethink that; or offer an alternate scheme. Et voilà, a still super-busy fascia now occupied by succinct performance parameters whose font size for the key data should be nicely visible from the seat. If the display blacks out, the user can still simplify the appearance. After all, once we've selected our desired input, there's no need to keep looking at 'coaxial' in big letters, is there? On the other hand, in amp-direct mode, seeing a numerical volume setting from across the room is ace. That volume is defeatable. Max output is 9V. In 'sound wave' mode, the display shows the signal's real-time waveform. On-board digital chips split duty between 2/ea. AK4191 receiver/filters and AK4499EX DACs in fully balanced configuration. The CPU runs off a quad-core Cortex A7mp LSIC. Three linear power supplies each with its own potted toroid segregate voltage feeds. Back-panel connectivity covers one each AES/EBU, Toslink, USB, I²S/HDMI and SFP fibre, dual coax, 50Ω and 75Ω 10MHz clock inputs and RCA/XLR analog outputs. There are also trigger i/o and a circuit breaker in lieu of a sacrificial safety fuse. Colour options are black or silver.
