Using MQA is like 1 step forward and 5 steps back, since i have to disable room correction. So I don’t bother with MQA.
Great - sounds like you’ve got a pretty functional system then 
I got an issue with DSD on this dac though; when I play DSD, or up-sample to DSD, I sometimes get faint click sounds. To reproduce, play a low-volume calm part of a tune, then press pause - play - pause - play (repeat if needed) until it starts clicking in speakers (sometimes in the left, sometimes in the right). It only clicks during music.
I would blame interference, noisy power or something similar if it weren’t for the fact that when doing the same with PCM (tried 384khz) there are no clicks.
I asked John Westlake to look into it in case its a DAC issue, but it also might be related to Roon. Maybe @brian can shed some light on this issue?
This sounds familiar. Are you powering DAC thru USB or 5V? In one instance, @dabassgoesboomboom (using an iFi DAC) traced the problem back to power supply. I think he was powering DAC off USB of RPi.
I have tried powering with both normal USB and separate power in the micro USB. I run the DAC after a iFi nano iUSB3 and I have tried with or without it, same result.
But if the issue is something like this, would it not affect PCM also?
Try using the ASIO driver + setting the buffer size in their ASIO control panel to the maximum value and see if it changes anything. I know that one or two of their other products needed that setting to hit all of their sample rates without dropouts–but I don’t remember if this was one of them.
I’ll make a note to try your steps later…they sound weird for a dropouts issue.
I don’t think its dropouts, its more like a faint high-frequency clicking sound but the music continues playing. If you don’t play calm music, you might not even hear they are there.
Never tried the ASIO drivers, where can I download them?
If I use "Convert to PCM " as DSD playback strategy, or just play normal PCM with no DSD, there is no clicking. I also tried different buffer sizes, but same problem.
I reported the problems to John Westlake at this forum, he is going to try and reproduce it: http://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum/showthread.php?t=201691&page=7
@Magnus -
I just went over to the pinkfish forum. Westlake says this about the clicking -
“Sample Rate Clicking is a ESS bug, I need to talk with the designer today to see if there is a work around.”
This DAC chip is in the Wyred4Sound high end DAC, and others. Never read the symptoms you are describing for others DACs. Curious.
It looks like the S2 has its own set of disqualifying warts. Disappointed. I had the local distributor looking into when S2 would be in America.
If I wanted a DAC that couldn’t play DSD, I’d buy a Schiit.
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Well, if the issues found are fixed, it will be an awesome DAC for $400, it sounds very good and has lots of features and is very practical. And the size is perfect for desktop use, below the monitor. It also looks cute with it tiny size, like a toy-DAC for kids
The sample rate clicking and the new DSD clicking sound I found (which might be caused by my setup or Roon) are kinda show stoppers though. If those aren’t fixed, this DAC does not have a bright future.
Its the mobile version of ESS 9038 though, not the PRO version.
Aha, didn’t know there was a difference.
By Westlake’s own admission, the clicking is a ESS bug, not your setup or Roon.
Really bummed about this also. I was in line for one for my desktop setup.
You just got it, not too late to return it? Most of the time it doesn’t pay to be on the bleeding edge.
Good luck.
Give it a week or two, they are working on the issues and will fix most of them (I hope all of them) with a firmware update.
There are 2 types of clicks though, one very loud when switching sample rate (which I worked around by up-sampling everything to DSD in Roon), but there is also a very faint click sound for DSD, which happens occasionally (it’s so faint you can’t even hear it unless its soft music).
John could reproduce the issue with faint clicks in DSD outside of Roon, so its not Roon related.
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Maybe it’s not available in the US yet because of all these issues? It does seem like a great way to try out MQA once they get the bugs out.
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I don’t think so, apparently they have sold lots of them but got few complaints. I would guess the majority of buyers are either Spotify users or listens to MQA in headphones, which means the issues we found is not a big deal. The normal Tidal user will not be that affected either, its just us strange guys who have playlist from MP3 up to DSD128 that are mostly affected
I am interested in this box, as well, but will wait for others to do the bug testing, first. In addition, I will wait until Roon fully supports MQA. I have a Marantz HD-Dac1 now and am upsampling everything to DSD using HQPlayer. I will let you first adopters test the box first.
You don’t need Roon to fix the MQA for using MQA with the Pro-Ject DAC. The DAC does all unfolds in hardware, so all Roon needs to do is send bit-perfect and the DAC does the rest. I have tried MQA and it works perfectly, with a nice symbol in the DAC display when MQA is playing, as well as the fully unfolded sample rate.
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Magnus is correct. the ‘only’ fixes needed with S2 DAC are
- click at samplerate change (no need for that fix if you upsample from roon to anything fixed - i.e. 384khz PCM or 705khz or DSD256 or DSD512)
- issue with play/pause clicks that Magnus discovered.
all the rest is ‘wish it did that’ …but it works as designed
I tried to reproduce the DSD clicks in foobar, but could not. I noticed that foobar releases the DAC immediately at pause or between tunes, so maybe this is a clue!
@brian maybe you could check this with the Pro-Ject DAC: go to a DSD tune with a soft beginning (I use Telegraph Road by Dire Straits), then press play and let it play for a minute, then quickly pause - play - pause - play (repeat a couple of more if needed). At this stage, I get lots of faint clicks during playback. Pause and let Roon release the DAC to make the clicks go away.
I also get clicks during normal play, but not that often. Usually in the beginning of a tune. The pause/play trick just seem to trigger them.
I also tried to get the clicks to appear by using prev/next instead of pause/play, but that did not produce any clicks. Another clue?
The pops after pause/unpause are a Roon issue, not a problem with the DAC. This will be fixed for next release. I think this issue has been present for a while and just never reported earlier.
The situation where this comes up is fairly narrow–you be playing DSD, then pause playback, then unpause within 5 seconds. It can be worked around by releasing the DAC (pause+wait, long-press on pause, or ctrl/command-t) and then starting playback again.
Clicks on sample rate change are fairly common across many DACs. Sometimes they can be fixed with firmware, sometimes not. If artifacts around rate changes are impinging on the music, you could try setting a short resync delay in Roon (100ms or 500ms) to make it less disruptive.
Excellent news! And I tested a new firmware yesterday for the DAC where the loud pops at sample rate changes has been fixed, together with correct left/right channel for DSD. The pops is actually a bug in the ESS chip, but could be worked around (the Roon setting did not help in this case),
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