Let me try explaining what did I find.
Taal is one of my regular listening album and I am totally familiar with all of its songs. Swapping between R13 R2R to D50 (blindly) didn't give me any clue which one is which. They were in the cabinet with level matched volume set and powered ON all the time regardless which one was playing.
Did K13 R2R loose any details, NO. I even make some specific notes to specifically focus but I had both doing same thing.
Pneuma wasn't different either with one after another blind switching.
This is really not different than what I got when I initially added K13 R2R in my setup.
But the main difference comes in when you leave one of them playing for long time, like a day or two and then got it switched (blindly).
For example, I left D50 playing on Saturday all day. I am in Atlanta and snow storm got us all trapped over the weekend inside the house.
We had a jam over the weekend, with some friends while doing doing these comparisons.
On Sunday afternoon, I got it switched (unknowingly) to K13 R2R and, believe me or not, all day we kept on saying that now everything is smooth and kind of laidback that I prefer. This time we weren't comparing (because we weren't switching back and forth) but everything we played Sunday evening/late evening was relaxing. I totally knew something changed but wasn't able to put finger as to what changed other than saying this is good and later I verified that K13 was connected while it was D50 before.
It might not matter but I had Revel M16 speakers playing over the weekend and room mode around 60-70 Hz was lowered in using Wiim Ultra's PEW but was was same with both the DACs.
My friend, I gave these couple of attempts but it wasn't of my liking. Transilvanian Hunger was kind of unbearable, nothing was clear enough for me to observe anything really.
It might be the case that speakers I have (Revel M16, Emotiva XT, Ascend Acoustics Sierra-LX and JBL HDi1600) aren't suitable for such music, I tried these on all these except Emotiva.
Tracy chapman - fast car, Wondering where the lions are - Bruce, many of Larissa Liveir's songs, etc. are my go to music after a extremely busy day. Nothing beats this playlist, lights down and a glass of merlot (or two) for me, other than my favorite Sachin's knocks.
You mentioned Fast Car and I am listening it with K13 R2R while writing this post. Her vocal reverbs and dynamics in this song are breathtaking.
I don't know really how did people come to conclusion that K13 R2R looses details or something. May be they mean details don't pop out the way they expect or something.
To sum up, I would say its more about preference. D50 surely has darker background because things pop out more noticeably which gets my attention more. I used to like that a lot but sometimes I just don't want that, other than if someone is over my place and I want then to say my rig sounds very clean and loads of details to brag about.
I am getting Fosi's new BT20A Max in a week or two because it has 2 RCA inputs with remote which will help me get some fun trying 2 DACs. Return policies here does favor as you easily get 30 days or more to try something at home and send back if you don't want it.
By the way, I have also got Fiio R2R Warmer DAC which is R2R with tube buffer.
Don't know if this is going to help in making a decision but I tried what I could.
