@miles765 It's unfortunate that you got a bad unit. It could been a factory defect or damaged in shipping, etc. Even if the box is intact, they can get jarred around pretty good. I had to return a defective conrad-johnson preamp. On the return trip, the shipper must have dropped it. All of the heavy capacitors had been knocked loose.
I've read good things about the R30. If you like the r2r sound, you might actually like it better than the X-30. I'm gonna stick with my X-30. It sounds great, especially with my ddc and LHY ock-2 clock.