the mod is COMPLETE!!!
 
Will be shipped next monday!!

pls give us some feedback once you got to using it in your studio

what else were they doing, were they going to upgrade the pre-amps too?

Hi guys!
 
Not recieved the vs-r yet and still no update if the unit has shipped or not...  Looks like this system have a curse making anybody working to improve it become mute or something...
 
Anyway they should answer shortly, they do at least once a week.
 
Yes mully they won't charge anything since 1. I'm a guinea pig and 2. because it took forever +1.
 
They will send me a list of all the mods they performed but usually they only mess with the ad/da, clock and power section, so I doubt the pres have been touched. For the record, it was so hard to get in touch with them that I did not ask for the fan thing, so I'll get mine back with the stock one, sorry.
 
Since it took near to 10 months (and still counting...) to get it back, I got an Octa-capture and a RME ADI-2 in the meanwhile, so I'll be able to compare the new VS-r with the stock one (similar to the octa-capture) and to an RME fireface 800 (kinda ADI-2).
 
I'll let you guys know when I get the vs back.

Still waiting?
 
Cheers,
 
jayson

Hey folks, guess what? I got MY VS BACK!
 
I just finished to install everything, synced it with my octa capture and got everything running. Oh wait... the story don't start here...
 
When I got the VS, first thing I did, like any sane person would have done, was to DISMANTLE IT and I noticed that, probably during shipping, the corner where the main xlr jacks are was bent, and not in a subtle way.... nice, this look promising...
 
Anyway, I took the unit apart (repaired the chasis while I'm at it...) and at each time I was pulling a module out I inspected it carefully to see what had changed, comparing with the pictures I took of the stock unit almost 1 year ago.
 
Power supply... no
Fantom board... of course not
Digital board with clock and and digital I/O.... no?? I thought that... whatever
Output board with MAIN SUB and the 10 I/O... yes!! the op amps were swapped with one made by Analog Devices, the chip number is 8512.
Ok... the preamp board now, which contain the A/D converters.......  NO!!!
 
Seriously??? A couple of opamps on the output and that's it? 11 months later? I am truly amazed...
 
If I had known that the only thing that could have been improved in it was the output op amp, seriously, I would have kept it the way it was and saved almost $200, some chassis wear (now it look used....) and numerous email over almost a year.
 
That being said, I'm really happy to have it back and those new opamps won't hurt for sure, I was just expecting SO MUCH MORE!
 
I'll email them to tell them that I know that the only mod was the opamps swap, maybe they will be able to tell me more.... but so far I do not recommend at all the mod, at least I wouldn't do it again.
 
Let's not forget that they probably got tired of trying to make it work in standalone (yeah that should have been simple...), so in the end (9 months later) the tech probably just thrown in some easy to swap parts for good figure and called it a day, leaving me with a modified but not maxed out unit... who knows...
 
To be fair, they gave me 2x $20 cables free of charge and the job was really clean on such small componants. In fact, maybe I didn't noticed other new parts as the solders are really amazing, but seriously, I checked VERY carefully...
 
So, looks like that's the end of the "BLA and the VS700R" tale, with a disapointing ending , if I have updates I'll post 'em but consider this story over

Hahhaha!! That one is funny loll! Not that I don't like my sister but still... 
 
Seriously, when comparing to the Octa-Capture, the mids feel less hard and there's a space thing going on... less cluttered. Not sure if this is vs-R versus Octa or is it really the new opamps, but the sound is definitely different and that's not subtle.
 
I'm really digging it right now... But still I'll ask if something was done on the input side
 
I'll let you know

It looks like they may have intentionally bypassed the opportunity to upgrade the Inputs on purpose. The user needs the high quality sound going into the inputs and going to tape, and not on the outputs going to air. A person can buy an enhancer if he just wanted a better sound coming from the outputs.
 
 Regarding Roland Pres, sounding less open, or more narrow then other unit's converters, this is true, but they are higher quality than at least the older ones from the 2480 and under series, but like the old ones, they still seem to make the stereo field sound more narrow then all other units on the market. I can hear it in my V700r, and that's why everything else seems more open and wider and more balanced whenever you compare them to anything else. But for me personally, I can live with the issue, as long as the sound is clean and clear. The older VS2480 hardware machine pres were D- grade, equal to a cassette tape machine. On the VS2480, they got hundreds of complaints for shoddy pre-amps on the 2480 because they created distortion on the inputs, aside from the cassette tape sound quality, and folks forced Roland to upgrade them, and re-modify them for free. I sent mine back in, they fixed the distortion but still the lower quality pre-amps circuitry remained, still sounded like a cassette tape, rather than the other competitors 24bit hard disk recorders on the market. I also got a Fantom X keyboard, same exact thing, the pre-amps narrows and warps the stereo field on all input recordings. I compared a basic recording to the same exact recording sampled thru the Fantom X inputs, and the sound came out narrowed and monophonic, i was pissed, two grand down the drain, as that's why i bought the unit in the first place, to sample sounds, and playback sound exactly as recorded into it. Roland circuit board designers are amateurs, they don't compare their quality to other companies products, nor do they really listen to the quality of outputs of the products they build either. they just build it according to schematics and paper.