Ted, how does this manifest in real listening? And just curious, was this introduced between Snowmass and Windom?
Those problems were never subtle: Many releases ago at rare random times the left and right channels would swap. In Yale every once in a while the channels would swap and slip by a sample. That usually resulted in everything sounding like it was in a large tunnel. These kind of things were fixed long ago, Windom, Snowmass, Redcloud and earlier canāt have that particular class of problems.
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I used Curious USB for the EX direct to the DS. Now I use the Curious USB between the EX and P2 (Antipodesā reclocker with various digital outputs) and the PS Audio AC12 HDMI cable to the DS I2S in. As others have noted I find the I2S best sounding, and least cable-dependent.
Thx Chris
I tried the same configuration of EX with P2.
Indeed, HDMI sounded the best to me.
But after listening longer I said goodbye to the P2 and now use the USB from EX to DAC.
I now use HQplayer on the EX and Windom on the DS.
Best SQ to me till now.
Are we guessing next release names yet? Oh wait, itās not in Colo.
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That is an impressive goal.
It is. I was following his progress then like most of us the pandemic put a wrench in the works.
Hereās a video about his goal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDo0mQvAvyE
Finished the home setup -super pleased.
Now for the office setup the plan is a Lumin U1, and Kii Audio Three speakers then Iām officially done!
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Donāt hold your breathā¦
The goals are still the same:
The low level noise will change a little, but probably not by a couple of dB.
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Any hints on time frame for the next DSD firmware release? I am itching to try DSD256!!
Iām wondering how weād even be able to do this? What signal device can provide DSD256 over PS Audio compatible I2S?
Was looking into this as my own system is likely to be software upgraded to handle DXD and DSD128 and 256.
There is a thread about DXD 352Khz somewhere. Paul explained that the limitation for higher rates of DSD is the Bridge II processor. However, it can handle DXD via I2S.
If you look at NativeDSD, it explains and shows that the vast majority of DSD downloads have been edited with DXD (as it is the only way possible) and many are recorded with DXD. Many tape transfers are direct to DSD at up to DSD 256. Quite a lot is originally recorded in DSD 64 and then edited in DXD.
DSD 512 is a referred to as modulated. It is not a recorded rate, it is a kind of upsampled rate. Sort of doing upsampling to the original data rather, which is what some DACs do as well. Sounds pointless to me.
Given there is very little material produced in DSD and the vast majority is edited in DXD, that would seem to be the format to buy and let the DSD DAC do its thing. The Bridge II can handle DXD.
The only thing that it would seem could be improved are analog transfers to DSD 256, and then you need a DSD 256 transport. Good luck with that.
Seems to me an ideal solution would be Ethernet In / I2S Out, capable of providing data on that output at least up to DSD256.
I donāt think the Bridge II can process DSD 256. I think itās limited to DSD64 and itās a hardware issue, not software.
The Bridge II was pretty low specification when I looked at buying a DSD DAC in 2015/16. It did seem to me to be a bottleneck. I only bought a Devialet because the streaming card was being upgraded from something with a similar spec to the Bridge II to something with a lot more processing power. Ultimately they retro-fitted it in 2017. I think the reality is that these older DACs with ethernet hardware that goes back some 10 years, it just canāt handle these high frequency rates. The DSD DAC uses a third party ethernet card anyway.
The irony is I have little interest in these formats, but my Innuos server can handle DXD and DSD up to DSD512, and it can be sent to the Devialet Expert over a $10 ethernet cable. All that is missing is the software upgrade of the Devialet Expert to DXD and DSD256 (I suspect).
The other inputs, AES/EBU and optical do not have the bandwidth. The other route from Innuos is DSD by DoP that is limited to DSD128, which I assume is the usb limit generally.
This suggests that even with the Octave Streamer, DXD (32/384 PCM) over I2S would be the most sensible of these high frequency formats.
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I guess, Steve, although I would prefer ideally a device that could pass to the DS I2S port music in its original format. Still, even if we were to go with DXD384, who would make such a device? No one out there, to my knowledge, currently has such a product suitable for I2S.
My comments are mainly based on the fact that the post-production master file on the vast majority of DSD files is DXD. It is then converted to DSD. The nativeDSD website provides excellent explanations of all of this, but at the end of the day pure DSD is limited to analogue masters or unedited DSD recordings, which are very few and far between because it is very limited in scope and cannot be mixed or edited.
So at the end of the day, most DSD files are modulated 32/384 PCM files and that modulation is something that the DSD DAC does.
They say this:
In 2013, we thoroughly explored the question of what types of recordings to offer at NativeDSD Music. It was decided to offer albums that were recorded in Analog, DSD and DXD, but not low bit rate PCM (24 bit, 192 kHz and below). This insures that the listener enjoys music recorded at the highest possible quality with todayās technology.
To me that is complete condescending bull***t. As Iāve said before, Linn who run a record label and pioneered streaming, recorded in DSD extensively and issued more SACD that just about anyone, and have won numerous awards for their audio quality. However they use 24/192 and the idea that 24/192 is ālow bitrate PCMā is just cobblers and false justification for higher bitrates or frequencies.
Whether humans even on the best systems can hear the difference between 24/192 and 32/384 is one argument, more importantly whether your DAC has a noise floor low enough to resolve it (probably not) and whether the recordings are good enough to make use of it. I suspect what is good about the DSD DAC is not what is fed into it, but what Tedās software does to it after receiving it.
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I do say I am impressed at your level of research into this while vetting a DAC purchase and ability to recall and communicate reasoning 7 years later is astounding . If adding the software capability feature helps sell more DACs. Us owners can only hope there are other benefits yet to be realized, since FPGA software compiles randomly sound different each time and their are tag along benefits in the other format processing and sound quality with this added capability.
Iād already been streaming for 5 or 6 years based both on network storage and usb. In those days Qobuz was limited to 16/44. I had a PD Audio PWD Mk2 DAC and was not impressed by the Bridge I so was using it with usb. The Bridge II did not seem much better and was very expensive for what it was. Bear in mind I had been using Linn streamers that had already been around for almost 10 years. I was instantly convinced about the benefits of upsampling and DSD processing when the dCS Vivaldi was released in 2013, but I have never been convinced about the benefits of ultra-high sample of frequency files. I did try DSD files very briefly. Others love DSD and loved SACD before, which is fine by me. I never even bothered with SACD, I always considered it a multi-channel format and never had any interest in multi-channel.
I also believe the market never lies. There are very few DXD/DSD releases, about 1% of all releases, and I donāt buy music to listen to formats. They are also very expensive - about double even Linnās superb 24/192 and Linn is more expensive than others. Worst of all, you canāt stream DSD. Qobuz considered doing it, but never followed through. I suspect it was due to lack of context and cost. It would also have resulted in another more expensive subscription, and they have been trying to simplify matters rather than make them more complicated.