Hey Julio, I have some fancy ones lying around from use with other stuff. I don’t think fancy ones are needed to hear the small but still noticesble (not earth shattering) improvements that linear PSU’s brought to my listening. I’m using an Uptone LPS-1 to play with this DAC the S2 DAC and for the iCAN SE we luckily have an Australian brand that builds his own linear PSU’s here at affordable prices (and safety approved) - Gieseler Audio. I have a few of his PSU’s around.
But I did see earlier in this thread that John said a couple of eBay ones looked ok and are really well priced. I’ll dig out the post later.
I also suggested a nice cheap Jameco linear PSU above that John gave the thumbs up to but that’s only available in the US (I think).
These past few days I’ve been a pig in mud playing with Roon DSP, trying to find what my ears prefer the most. It will be interesting (to me) when my HD800-S cans return from warranty return to see/hear if my preferences change but here goes…
As a PS Audio DirectStream owner and having played with a Playback Designs Merlot DAC (and dreaming of owning one) I’ve always loved the sound of these DACs that up-sample to 20 x DSD rates (the end result is not DSD itself but 20 x standard DSD rates - so I’m told by the DAC designers).
So my first move is to go straight to up-sampling to DSD512 and I’ve gone with Ted Smith’s preferred ‘linear phase, slow rolloff’ or ‘smooth, linear’ in Roon. I’ve also seen Ted discuss how doubling DSD rates also increases clock phase noise (which manifests as jitter), so higher isn’t always better. So I then played with DSD256 and DSD128 also. All sounded great.
Then after a couple of days of getting used to DSD256 mostly, I went to PCM768kHz, expecting to be unimpressed (for no good reason) - but I preferred it immediately to DSD up-sampling. I prefer ‘precise, linear’.
I then got used to Roon DSP but then turned all Roon DSP off and let the S2 DAC do all the lifting, also using linear phase and fast rolloff. The S2 DAC does quite nicely all by itself but I do prefer Roon up-sampling to PCM768k.
All of the above is only highly subjective personal preference of course, nothing scientific.
What I can say with scientific certainty is that the S2 DAC continues to impress
Hi all, love the little box, but have stumbled over an annoying problem. When streaming MQA from TIDAL, I hear clipping/dropouts once in a while. I can get rid of it by adding “head room adjustment” in Roon setup, but then the MQA indicator turns off. So what am I getting as output? and any ideas of the cause?
Many thanks
hi fellas! I find this DAC very well packed , but having my old Hegel H80 integrated amp with his own dac serving me well until now, do you guys think? should I perceive improvements adding this dac into my system? or should I stick with the internal dac of the hegel? my source is allo usbridge, and im not a big user of streaming services.
hi all,
firmware is the same one posted back in December - 2.12 (if anyone has 2.11 they should for sure upgrade).
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James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
502
I upgraded the firmware from what I think was 2.10. I have not detected any change in the relative volume difference between MQA and non-MQA. The MQA still generally seems louder.
I just updated mine using the Mac updater. It has the firmware bundled, so I’m not sure if it’s identical to the one you can download, but it has the same version (2.12).
There is no more clicking when playing MQA tracks, but the filter not being reset bug when playing non-MQA after MQA is still there.
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James_I
(The truth is out there but not necessarily here)
504
It’s odd it has taken Pro-ject this long without a firmware fix. It would be one thing if MQA was some obscure feature. But without that feature, this DAC is like many others at a similar price point. I wonder if part of the challenge is actually in MQA code and that is why it has not been resolved.
, but having my old Hegel H80 integrated amp with his own dac serving me well until now, do you guys think? should I perceive improvements adding this dac into my system? or should I stick with the internal dac of the hegel? my source is allo usbridge, and im not a big user of streaming services.