I’m using Jotunheim II balanced headphone output for my Sennheiser HD 800 headphones (Spring 2 as source), but the device also offers balanced outputs suitable for active monitors or such. Nice device for desktop headphone + monitor use. I usually don’t touch the volume knob, but instead fine tune the volume from HQPlayer.
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I just recently discovered I prefer leaving my preamp at 00 and even +3 and have hqplayer set to -32 (give or take).
If I set hqplayer to -4 and lower the preamp volume it seems less enjoyable.
I think it’s probably all mental. 
I have also recently made some slight speaker placement adjustments and now it seems I have lost my speakers, I can’t find them…they have seemed to just disappear! Serious Voodoo Sh¡t! 
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I’m interested in the DSC3 - is anyone making a production DAC based on this design?
Thanks
after checking many posts I see the “recomented” DACs are mostly the below, are there any others you may add? I am looking to get a new DAC:
T+A 200
ADI-2 DAC FS
Audalytic (Gustard) AH90
Holo Audio Cyan 2
Two of these have DAC correction available, and these two also happen to be discrete implementations instead of COTS chips.
Feature set and price also varies quite a lot.
I would add other T+A and Holo Audio models to the list as well.
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this also has NAA ethernet input also, built-in
You will need to add the DSD Direct firmware manually though
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The reason I bought my Holo Audio Spring 3 was because it don’t have any uppsamling internally, its a 100% pure NOS DAC. And it has native support for DSD. I bought it with the internal volume control so I got a nice non-digital volume control as well.
This (in my opinion) makes it a perfect DAC for use with HQPlayer.
Also, the Spring 3 sounds very good, especially with HQPlayer and DSD. I currently use gauss-xla + ASMD7EC-super modulator for uppsampling to DSD256.
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Yeah… T+A totally out of my range.
Any others I can add to my list along with the Spring 3?
The ADI-2 DAC FS grabs my attention, thing is I will connect it to a Mac, meaning I will be able to get only DSD 128 as I will have to use DoP, do you think DoP has impact on sound?
You can get DSD256 from ADI-2, I know I had one before the Spring 3 (very nice DAC for its price). And DoP don’t affect sound quality as far as I know, its just a different way to transfer data (a more inefficient way).
I think from a DSD perspective you should try to get a version with AKM DAC chip, but @jussi_laako knows more about that.
hey guys what are your thoughts about the PS Audio Stellar DAC, as DAC and as HQPlayer partner (not the gold version as it is out of budget):
If I’ve understood everything correctly since I’ve been following this forum thread, there is no possibility of making direct DSD with the ESS chip. It’s purely impossible because the design of ESS chips does not allow direct DSD.
ADI-2 supports DoP 256
For direct Mac connection you should use a USB galvanic isolator
When you consider cost, just use ethernet NAA input of AH90 and get free built-in galvanic isolator (use unshielded eth cable) and better measured performance
AH90 downside for some people seems to be forced to use 256x44.1k - it may limit filter options. ADI-2 can play both 256x 44.1 and 256x48
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For linux savvy AH90 owners out there. It is possible to chroot to the SD card and customize the “gustarender” firmware. There is even some bash_history from the manufacturer on the sd card, lol. I successfully upgraded the NAA client to the latest version, a major upgrade from v4.4.0 to v5.1.3. I also disabled the services I am not using, spotify, roon and tidal.
To chroot from a desktop environment, typically amd64, the key is to install the qemu-user-static package and copy the qemu-arm-static binary to the sdcard. I can post more info if anyone is interested
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Nice, please elaborate.
Yes please
I did this from debian, but ubuntu should work the same. Start by installing qemu-user-static package on your desktop, and determine a mount point for the sd card. I chose to do this from /mnt/sd. Mount the root partition of the sdcard (note this will be the second partition, as the first one is /boot)
sudo apt install qemu-user-static
sudo mkdir /mnt/sd
sudo mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/sd
Copy qemu-arm-static binary to sd card, then prepare system for chroot
cd /mnt/sd
sudo cp /usr/bin/qemu-arm-static usr/bin/
sudo mount --bind /dev dev/
sudo mount --bind /sys sys/
sudo mount --bind /proc proc/
sudo mount --bind /dev/pts dev/pts/
sudo chroot .
From this point on you are acting as root on the sdcard installation.
You can copy the latest naa armhf deb package to the sdcard, then apt install it.
You can further investigate the system to do things like change hostname, remove services, etc. If you want to use apt, I noticed that the chosen apt mirror is hosted in China, which you can change to a debian mirror local to you in /etc/apt/sources.list if you wish. Also, apt update fails on the raspbian mirror because release stretch is to old. You can change it to buster which is the “new” “oldoldstable”. I haven’t investigated further for which dependency this is required.
Once your done editing, exit the chroot environment, unmount everything that was mounted above, put the sdcard back in your DAC, et voila! This should work with all Gustard network devices that use the “gustarender” firmware.
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Nice ! I’m looking forward to what Gustard will do in the future.
They said they will pay more attention to DSD Direct in future products.
For now, AH90 DSD256 Direct is very good objective performance
Agreed, I am very satisfied with the SQ coming from the AH90 using DSDD firmware. At its pricepoint, it is hard to beat. Good to know they will keep working on it in the future, I think this is a great selling point, as not many devices support this mode of DSD playback.
They kindly replied to some of my emails, but stayed mute on updating the current software, which I get it, these companies don’t bank on keeping their previous gear up to date if they are still functional.
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Just to help others, on Ubuntu for this to work I had to do:
sudo chroot /mnt/sd
Thanks for all your tips.
Another tip, this is the exact .deb you need:
https://signalyst.com/bins/naa/linux/bookworm/networkaudiod_5.1.3-66_armhf.deb
What was the full line you used for this Buster? I’ve tried googling but seems hard to find, for raspbian buster . What I found and tried all failed. For now I just commented it out lol
Since there is this raspbian line in there, does this suggest there is a Raspberry Pi inside Gustards/AH90 ? I didn’t think it was by the looks of the board ??
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Now… are A26/AH90 the only NAA DSD256 Direct DAC where users can update built-in NAA to latest version themselves? 