Your post encouraged me to experiment a bit.
Processing speed is 4.2x but some slight stuttering @DSD256.
Playing @DSD128 gave some occasional stuttering.
Currently playing OK @DSD64.
What is your S2 connected to?
And â bonus question â how do those mrspeakers phones match with the S2?
I tried an RPi 3 powered by RoPieee and I tried to connect them directly to the NUC core.
Connected to the Core I hear no stuttering but the maximimum is DSD 265.
The MrSpeakers ETHER C Flowâs are really good. It appears they need from 40 to 100 hours of burning in but I love them.
Before I had Bose QuietComfort and Samsung Level Over headphones, both with noise cancelling, the latter with AptX, but the closed ETHER C Flows provide for better noise isolation than the active noise cancelling of the Bose and the Level Overs.
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Heh! Thatâs a big step up, headphone-wise. Iâm pondering the Oppo PM-3 or the Aeon (both also closed as to prevent Nearby Spouse Annoyance Syndrome) â for the limited listening I do over headphones âŹ2K is a bit rich for my blood⊠
The Pi is your problem here: its shared-bus implementation is reaching its limits at very high bitrates (since youâre sending DSD over DoP, the rates are actually doubled). Since youâre running Ropieee, you should be able to select native DSD instead of DoP (I believe @spockfishâs patches include the S2): Device Setup > Playback > DSD Playback Strategy. That could mitigate your problems a bit â Iâm running DSD512 on a Cubox with no hiccups at all.
As for ROCK: when @Danny gets around to running another round of patches in a future update, youâll be able to send DSD from your ROCK system natively as well, but until then itâs DoP only.
Iâm using headphones for long hours every evening because of NSAS.
Using the Level Overâs wirelessly watching the news on my PC, and then enjoying music on the MrSpeakers doing some work or administration. I did not have to shell out the VAT buying them in the Netherlands, that softens the pill.
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I believe @spockfishâs patches include the S2
Yes they do.
So you are cheating, I mean alfa or beta testing. 
Not cheating â the info is here on the forums somewhere. And I donât run ROCK.
No comment on the rest.
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PS: My wife is texting me now if she needs my attention while weâre only sitting 2 meters apart from each other. 
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ROCK build 153 has been released w/ the S2 Native DSD support.
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Btw, do you have any idea why I can run the S2 in DSD512 native with the ASIO drivers, but not with the WASAPI drivers? I suspect its a driver issue and not Roon, but thought I should ask.
WASAPI is Microsoftâs driver stack, and Microsoft totally ignores DSD in Windows (just like Apple does in OS X). So that means with WASAPI it is DoP oly.
ASIO is a 3rd party driver infrastructure that has direct support for DSD, so it can work there.
NT
I figured it out
Hi Rene
Interesting about the bandwidth on the pi. Could that be causing some of my issue with mqa?
I just bought one of these for dad - heâs obsessed with MQA after hearing his brotherâs Bluesound Node 2 
This should be better plus it should be a nice upgrade from his current (also very nice) iFi iDAC2. It should arrive next week.
A couple questions:
If this DAC is fed MQA 1st un-fold at 96k for a 192k MQA file, can the DAC do the 2nd âunfoldâ?
Or to put it another way, can we do the 1st unfold before the DAC and the DAC will do the rest?
Does anyone have Audirvana that they could test this with? Do you still get the MQA light on the DAC display, if Audirvana does the 1st MQA unfold?
And if @John_Westlake is around, can you explain the differences between the âoptimal transientâ and âlinear phase, fast roll-offâ filters?
Cheers in advance
I donât know the difference in the filters yet because i just got the S2 last night but I know this - MQA files sound impeccable on this dac. I am still stunned. I disabled the DSP in Roon and just let it play MQA files all day. Playback was bitperfect as the dac fully unfolds. It does not need software unfolding, etc I donât believe. Tell your dad he is in for a very pleasant surprise
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Thanks Robin. Yep the DAC does the full MQA decode, no question there.
Just as an aside, I wanted to know if the 1st unfold can be done before the DAC and the DAC can do the rest of the unfolding. I wanted to know if this was possible, if someone chose to do this.
Hopefully someone can perhaps try with Audirvana perhaps or with a Bluesound Node 2 digital output.
I will fire up A+ tomorrow and let you know
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Oh youâre a legend! Many thanks