Ayre wants $1.5K for DSD'ed QB-9

[Charles Hansen]

Six bit SDM has seven levels so it has 20*log₁₀(7) = 16.9 dB noise level advantage compared to 1-bit SDM.

 

Miska,

 

If it is truly a six-bit DSM, it would have 2^6 = 64 levels. Then the noise level would be 36.1 dB lower, yes?

 

Thanks,

[Miska]

If it is truly a six-bit DSM, it would have 2^6 = 64 levels. Then the noise level would be 36.1 dB lower, yes?

 

No, in multi-bit SDM all bits have equal weight (1). It is a scrambled unary coding. So lower the value is, better the linearity is because you have more combinations available.

 

Six bit PCM would have maximum presentable value of:

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 = 63

 

Six bit SDM would have maximum presentable value of:

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6

 

Problem in former is that the bit representing value of 32 needs to be 32x more accurate than the bit representing value 1, not the case with latter. Problem with latter is that you can represent only small number of values, but it is worked around by using higher sampling frequency and noise shaping.

[Miska]

First Gen Airport? Gads, that's like - 25 years old? I think you are talking about something newer!

 

It's not that old, maybe five years or something.

AirPort Express - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I would try a fifth or sixth generation pair of units, and I expect your troubles would disappear. After the DLINKs stop working that is - why fix something that isn't broken?

 

Why would I buy a new unit when everything else works just fine, including my own protocol? And the old one has better quality S/PDIF output. Easier to stay away from UPnP, or use the alternative AP for the purpose. AP-E is set for 2.4 GHz band is only 802.11g, and D-Link is on 5 GHz band and 802.11n.

 

Main reason I didn't upgrade Airport Express is that it still has just 100 Mbps ethernet so it is not very useful for 802.11n because speed becomes capped by the slow ethernet. (802.11n is 300 Mbps)

Apple - Mac - AirPort Express - Technical Specifications

[Audio_ELF]

There is another way to do what you want and it is not difficult at all. If you have a laptop, you can purchase a PC Card USB 2.0 plug-in for about $20. (They are very cheap because everybody thinks they are obsolete and wants USB 3.0.) If you have a desktop, purchase a PCI USB 2.0 card.

 

In this case, the second USB controller has direct access to the main CPU with its own interrupt. There is no interference with any other USB devices connected to the computer. This creates a large increase in the sound quality for a very low cost. Certainly much less expensive than purchasing a new computer with Thunderbolt and then a Thunderbolt-to-USB adapter!

You're right internal cards would be a lot cheeper - though of course with Apple hardware that isn't an option. I wasn't really wanting to do it myself, just summising that IF a DAC incorporated Thunderbolt (or someone was developing an audophile Thunderbolt product) that would be the reason for doing it...

 

Personally I like the UPnP method of working, but thats not to say its the right method for everyone / every manufacturer - I think it's good that different companies find different methods of working then we can (usually) find a product that suits us.

 

Eloise

[Miska]

Note, to avoid confusion we usually talk about number of levels in SDM instead of number of bits. Especially because often the number of levels doesn't match with two's complement value range. Like TI/BB DACs use 3rd order five-level SDM which translates to roughtly 2.5-bits in two's complement binary representation (in combination with a 6-bit PCM ladder running at 1/16th of the rate of the SDM, used for the 6 MSBs).

 

For example dCS DAC has 24 bits, hence 25 levels, which means roughly log₂(25) = 4.6 bits in two's complement binary code.

[Charles Hansen]

No, in multi-bit SDM all bits have equal weight (1). It is a scrambled unary coding. So lower the value is, better the linearity is because you have more combinations available.

 

Six bit PCM would have maximum presentable value of:

1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 = 63

 

Six bit SDM would have maximum presentable value of:

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 6

 

Problem in former is that the bit representing value of 32 needs to be 32x more accurate than the bit representing value 1, not the case with latter. Problem with latter is that you can represent only small number of values, but it is worked around by using higher sampling frequency and noise shaping.

 

Hi Miska,

 

I understand what you are saying, but in that case I think it would be better to call them 6 level DACs instead of 6 bit DACs. Then there is no opportunity for confusion to sneak in.

 

Thanks,

[Miska]

I understand what you are saying, but in that case I think it would be better to call them 6 level DACs instead of 6 bit DACs. Then there is no opportunity for confusion to sneak in.

 

Exactly, better not talk about any number of bits when talking about SDM. So DSD is two-level SDM, not "1-bit".

 

And permutations are easy, so you can for example trivially turn DSD into 64-level SDM.

[Charles Hansen]

You're right internal cards would be a lot cheeper - though of course with Apple hardware that isn't an option. I wasn't really wanting to do it myself, just summising that IF a DAC incorporated Thunderbolt (or someone was developing an audophile Thunderbolt product) that would be the reason for doing it...

 

Personally I like the UPnP method of working, but thats not to say its the right method for everyone / every manufacturer - I think it's good that different companies find different methods of working then we can (usually) find a product that suits us.

 

Eloise

 

Hello Eloise,

 

Yes, I always forget that Apple doesn't like to support upgrades to their products. The newest laptops have the system memory soldered in place, so you cannot even add system memory after you purchase the unit!!! That is becoming absurd...

 

But you are right. Doing what you describe would increase the sound quality of a USB DAC, but for a VERY high price. Instead of just a $20 PC Card in a Windows laptop, you would need to purchase a $3000 Mac Book Pro with Retina and Thunderbolt and then add the external Thunderbolt-to-USB converter. Even then I don't know enough about the system architecture to promise that the extra USB port would have its own interrupt.

 

I assume that you already know to go to "About This Mac..." under the Apple logo in the upper left corner, and then press the "Details" button. Then you will can select different views. You choose view by device type or similar and then you can see which USB devices are connected to which controller. Normally on a Mac, I see one USB controller has the built-in camera and the Bluetooth controller, while the other USB controller has the keyboard and the mouse.

 

In my case I always turn the Bluetooth off. Then since I never use the camera while I listen to music, I move the DAC from one port to the other until it is on that controller (you have to "Refresh" the view after each change). Then the only active device on that controller is the Audio DAC. However I believe that both controllers still use the same interrupt on the PCI bus, and while this helps the sound quite a bit, it is not as effective as adding a completely separate PC Card (for a laptop) or PCI card (for a desktop). Someone like Gordin Rankin would know the answer to this for sure. Or one could also just test it by listening.

 

Best regards,

[Charles Hansen]

Personally I like the UPnP method of working, but thats not to say its the right method for everyone / every manufacturer - I think it's good that different companies find different methods of working then we can (usually) find a product that suits us.

 

Eloise

 

Oops! I almost forgot to address your preference for UPnP. The problem is that despite there being a committee and everything, it is almost anything BUT "Universal". It is VERY rare to find devices that actually work together. My friend at AudioQuest has been doing many demonstrations with UPnP equipment for many industry trade groups and he says it is extremely frustrating because very few devices will work together properly.

 

He says that the only software that will work with all hardware is J.River. He says that finding hardware that works together is very difficult. Most manufacturers have lists of "approved" equipment. So if you purchase a Linn DS system (for example), it comes with a list of NAS drives and routers that will work with it. In theory everything should be compatible. But in real life this is far from the actual situation.

 

That is one reason why USB is so popular, despite its limitations -- it really is "PnP" for the most part. The only problem is Windows USB Audio drivers only handle Class 1 USB Audio and are limited to 96 kHz. So every company that wants to go beyond this must supply a driver.

 

There are three main companies that sell USB 2.0 drivers for Windows audio -- Centrance, Thesycon, and Ploytec. First one is US company, other two are German companies. We have used the Thesycon driver with excellent results. When we first started using it almost five years ago, there were some small bugs that they fixed within one or two days! Very fast and responsive company. Since that time I don't know of any problems at all.

 

The only situation for a while was with USB 3.0. The first computers with USB 3.0 ports would use drivers from the chipset manufacturer, such as NEC. Thesycon said they did not want to make 20 different drivers for every different chipset. So they said, "Wait for the official Microsoft USB 3.0 driver, and we will make a driver compatible with that." This was a good idea on their part. It avoided confusion about which driver to use, and all computers that used proprietary drivers for USB 3.0 ports also had USB 2.0 ports. So the user only had to make sure to connect to a USB 2.0 port.

 

Again, the USB system is easy to understand, explain, install, and configure. But it has limitation with cable length (that can be overcome with "extenders") and also with a "one-to-many" applications (which I believe is being solved by J.River).

 

But while I think there will always be a market for USB DAC's I think that in five years that ethernet DACs will become the primary system. Many people already have ethernet networks in their homes (at least in the US). And I think that slowly most people will migrate to ethernet. With Gigabit Ethernet, one can also use a "one-to-many" system for video also. I think that will become the mainstream system over time, but not thanks to DLNA or UPnP committees!!

 

Best regards,

[mav52]

Oops! I almost forgot to address your preference for UPnP. The problem is that despite there being a committee and everything, it is almost anything BUT "Universal". It is VERY rare to find devices that actually work together. My friend at AudioQuest has been doing many demonstrations with UPnP equipment for many industry trade groups and he says it is extremely frustrating because very few devices will work together properly.

 

He says that the only software that will work with all hardware is J.River. He says that finding hardware that works together is very difficult. Most manufacturers have lists of "approved" equipment. So if you purchase a Linn DS system (for example), it comes with a list of NAS drives and routers that will work with it. In theory everything should be compatible. But in real life this is far from the actual situation.

 

That is one reason why USB is so popular, despite its limitations -- it really is "PnP" for the most part. The only problem is Windows USB Audio drivers only handle Class 1 USB Audio and are limited to 96 kHz. So every company that wants to go beyond this must supply a driver.

 

There are three main companies that sell USB 2.0 drivers for Windows audio -- Centrance, Thesycon, and Ploytec. First one is US company, other two are German companies. We have used the Thesycon driver with excellent results. When we first started using it almost five years ago, there were some small bugs that they fixed within one or two days! Very fast and responsive company. Since that time I don't know of any problems at all.

 

The only situation for a while was with USB 3.0. The first computers with USB 3.0 ports would use drivers from the chipset manufacturer, such as NEC. Thesycon said they did not want to make 20 different drivers for every different chipset. So they said, "Wait for the official Microsoft USB 3.0 driver, and we will make a driver compatible with that." This was a good idea on their part. It avoided confusion about which driver to use, and all computers that used proprietary drivers for USB 3.0 ports also had USB 2.0 ports. So the user only had to make sure to connect to a USB 2.0 port.

 

Again, the USB system is easy to understand, explain, install, and configure. But it has limitation with cable length (that can be overcome with "extenders") and also with a "one-to-many" applications (which I believe is being solved by J.River).

 

But while I think there will always be a market for USB DAC's I think that in five years that ethernet DACs will become the primary system. Many people already have ethernet networks in their homes (at least in the US). And I think that slowly most people will migrate to ethernet. With Gigabit Ethernet, one can also use a "one-to-many" system for video also. I think that will become the mainstream system over time, but not thanks to DLNA or UPnP committees!!

 

Best regards,

 

I thought Microsoft had released 3.0 USB drivers New for USB Drivers (Windows Drivers) but I'm probably reading it wrong.

[Miska]

But you are right. Doing what you describe would increase the sound quality of a USB DAC, but for a VERY high price. Instead of just a $20 PC Card in a Windows laptop, you would need to purchase a $3000 Mac Book Pro with Retina and Thunderbolt and then add the external Thunderbolt-to-USB converter.

 

I have a desktop PC with Thunderbolt, such main board costs around 150€. Then there are for example Lenovo, HP and Acer laptops with Thunderbolt too (probably others as well).

 

You can get some audio interfaces with Thunderbolt too, like

Apollo 16 Audio Interface with Realtime UAD Processing and Thunderbolt

and

Avid | Pro Tools|HD Native - Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) from Avid

 

Now it's more and more coming to replace Firewire. Reason of course is that you get PCI-Express bus on a cable, so you have all the same DMA capabilities available. For USB, computer still needs to deal with the USB packets and audio protocols, with PCIe the audio interface reads samples straight out of the computer's RAM by itself.

 

I believe that both controllers still use the same interrupt on the PCI bus, and while this helps the sound quite a bit, it is not as effective as adding a completely separate PC Card (for a laptop) or PCI card (for a desktop).

 

On Linux you can easily check interrupt sharing by just "cat /proc/interrupts".

 

For example on this machine I have:

16: 123 0 0 0 IR-IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb1

17: 621689 0 0 0 IR-IO-APIC-fasteoi ehci_hcd:usb2, mmc0

45: 155 0 0 0 IR-PCI-MSI-edge snd_hda_intel

 

So clearly pluggin USB audio interface on the "usb1" bus would make sense since it has almost no traffic at all at the moment. First number is interrupt line, four next ones are number of interrupts handled per CPU, then it's interrupt type and last column is drivers/devices using the interrupt line. So line 17 is shared between usb2 and the SD-card reader.

[Charles Hansen]

I thought Microsoft had released 3.0 USB drivers New for USB Drivers (Windows Drivers) but I'm probably reading it wrong.

 

Hello Mav,

 

Sorry, I didn't make myself very clear. They finally included USB 3.0 drivers with Windows 8, which is why I said "that was the situation for a while". I should have added "until Win 8 was released."

 

Sorry,

[Charles Hansen]

I have a desktop PC with Thunderbolt, such main board costs around 150€. Then there are for example Lenovo, HP and Acer laptops with Thunderbolt too (probably others as well).

 

Hello Miska,

 

It looks like Apple's one-year exclusivity for Thunderbolt has passed now. I suppose the other manufacturers don't make it seem so important as that would almost be like making an advertisement for Apple.

 

I've never used Linux, so I am glad that you can help the reader who are using it. We have instructions on our website for OS-X and Windows, but not Linux.

 

Thanks,

[realhifi]

 

 

But while I think there will always be a market for USB DAC's I think that in five years that ethernet DACs will become the primary system. Many people already have ethernet networks in their homes (at least in the US). And I think that slowly most people will migrate to ethernet. With Gigabit Ethernet, one can also use a "one-to-many" system for video also. I think that will become the mainstream system over time, but not thanks to DLNA or UPnP committees!!

 

Best regards,

 

Hello Charles,

 

Curious as to the protocols that you think will be used if it is not the UPnP or DLNA. It is frustrating but my biggest frustration is that some album art work doesn't show up as it should if using iTunes as a library for a UPnP server at the computer end.

I happen to think for the most part they work as advertised especially if you are thinking along the lines of the big boys such as Denon and Marantz which have worked hard to incorporate UPnP into all there network electronics. It is nearly Plug and Play now for their hardware. It is the software on the Mac side that has been the culprit whereas there is simply not been the same kind of work done, most likely because of the ubiquity of AirPlay through Apple's iTunes on that side.

 

I will be very curious to see where things go on the Ethernet music streaming side of audio in the future and if Apple can be at the forefront in bringing a higher resolution form of AirPlay to the industry.

[labjr]

Yes, I always forget that Apple doesn't like to support upgrades to their products. The newest laptops have the system memory soldered in place, so you cannot even add system memory after you purchase the unit!!! That is becoming absurd...

 

I can't stand Apple for stuff like this. And won't use it. They sell you $25 worth of memory for $200. They're way too controlling for me. They may have a neat OS but they gouge for the privilege of using it. I've noticed Metric Halo has a couple things that work in Windows now. Hopefully, companies are realizing that a set of powerful computer components can be useful regardless of the OS.

[Miska]

They may have a neat OS but they gouge for the privilege of using it.

 

It's neat only on surface. Making for example a player software on that platform is painful. Already found way too many "features" while doing the software port as it is now...

[Paul R]

That's your opinion. I find it to be a very neat and powerful UNIX implementation. Reminds me a lot of working on a VAX.

-Paul

 

It's neat only on surface. Making for example a player software on that platform is painful. Already found way too many "features" while doing the software port as it is now...

[Charles Hansen]

Hello Charles,

 

Curious as to the protocols that you think will be used if it is not the UPnP or DLNA. It is frustrating but my biggest frustration is that some album art work doesn't show up as it should if using iTunes as a library for a UPnP server at the computer end.

I happen to think for the most part they work as advertised especially if you are thinking along the lines of the big boys such as Denon and Marantz which have worked hard to incorporate UPnP into all there network electronics. It is nearly Plug and Play now for their hardware. It is the software on the Mac side that has been the culprit whereas there is simply not been the same kind of work done, most likely because of the ubiquity of AirPlay through Apple's iTunes on that side.

 

I will be very curious to see where things go on the Ethernet music streaming side of audio in the future and if Apple can be at the forefront in bringing a higher resolution form of AirPlay to the industry.

 

Hello Real,

 

To me UPnP and DNLA are just camels. You know the old saying, "A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee."

 

And there are nothing but problems with both of these things, mostly because they are run by committees. Here's a good example of a committee disaster -- DVD-Audio. Basically it was everybody in Japan except Sony because they were sick of paying licenses to Sony and Philips for CDs. So they seriously believed that DVD-Audio was going to replace the CD! I'm not kidding about this....

 

They thought that if it had all these new features (like the humps on the camel) such as surround sound, static photos in a slideshow, lyrics you could read on your video display, high resolution, yadda, yadda, yadda that people would think that they couldn't live without it and they would start buying DVD-A's instead of CD's. Which just goes to show how stupid committees generally are. And both UPnP and DLNA are just big committees. In fact DLNA was a new committee formed to fix all the problems of the UPnP committee!

 

But DLNA and UPnP are not entrenched standards like ethernet is. If something comes along that actually delivers on the promise of DLNA or UPnP, I don't think it is going to be hard to displace those protocols.. And if the people making a new system are smart, they will make it backwards compatible with DLNA or UPnP anyway.

 

Right now there is exactly ONE piece of software that actually works with almost every piece of hardware out there, and that is J.River. So if you are having trouble with your iTunes, I assume that you are an Apple guy. My recommendation to you would be to purchase the J.River for Mac software. It does not yet have the video features that the Windows package has, but I am sure that it is only a matter of time.

 

As far as Apple and Airplay, they have zero interest in "bringing high resolution to the industry". So I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them. The problem with Apple (from the standpoint of being a developer) is that they are super-secretive about EVERYTHING. It causes nothing but headaches and nightmares for everybody. The EU is suing Apple (or has already done so) because they won't divulge the way to decode AAC or something. So a few months ago, they released the source code for ALAC. I don't know if that was part of the EU thing or if it was just that there were so many reverse-engineered packages that worked BETTER than Apple's implementation of their OWN format! (For example, if you converted a 24-bit any format to ALAC, when you tried to turn it back into the original format it would truncate it at 16 bits! But dBpoweramp had no problems doing it correctly.....)

 

Another example is when companies in the "pro audio" market would make recording accessories for iPods, iPod Touches, and iPhones. Well there was a big company making a stereo microphone that would plug into the 30-pin connector. It was called "Mikey" and the company was Blue. They have a big line of very popular professional recording microphones. So they made a whole bunch of improvements and spent a lot of money to develop an improved model called "Mikey II". And literally less than a month later, the new generation of iPods were released and Apple had disconnected the critical pins that this accessory needed. I am sure that Blue had spent somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million developing this thing and within a few weeks, it was literally obsolete.

 

I have heard many similar horror stories from software developers where Apple would make running changes in their code to "break" the functionality of software that they didn't like! So far, in the era of the iPod and iPhone, Apple has had so much power that they have been the 800 pound gorilla that just goes around doing whatever the hell they want and don't care about the consequences. But things are changing a bit now. In 2009, their stock price was under $100. Last fall it peaked at close to $700. In a few short months it has tumbled 40%. I don't think the can continue with their attitude for much longer. I'm no financial analyst and YMMV, but I think Apple's grip on the market is not nearly as strong as it once was.

 

As far as Airplay goes, it is just like everything else that Apple does (such as ALAC). They take an industry standard (like FLAC) and put some small twist on it to make it proprietary. Then they don't support the industry standard, because they want you to buy EVERYTHING from Apple. So you will never see an iPod that will play FLAC -- only ALAC. I'm not a wireless guy because I don't like the lower quality, lower security, and potential health hazards of wireless devices, so I could be completely wrong about this, but my understanding is that Airplay is essentially just re-packaged Wi-Fi Direct. This would make sense as AAC is essentially just repackaged MP3 and ALAC is essentially just repackaged FLAC. They just add enough "features" that it only works well if you purchase their entire eco-system. Which, of course, is their goal....

 

Best,

[barrows]

Hey guys: So, what is the best of the usual suspects (ie not HQplayer) to use to play back DSD files? I have tried Pure Music, but it (still!) seems really a PITA for DSD, and does not play gapless either. It appears from a casual view that jRiver is the "best" option? Does it play gapless via DoP? I currently have a beta version USB interface here which is DoP capable, and I would like to do some sound quality comparisons of DSD native vs 24/176.4 conversions, but using Pure Music is inadequate to the task. Without seemless gapless playback DSD is a total non-starter for me...

[Audio_ELF]

Charles.. Credit where it's due some of your posts are very useful; but some are just rants...

 

Your last post about Apple and UPnP is full of factual errors... Here's a few:

 

RE EU vs Apple: the recent issue between Apple and EU was regarding warranties. Prior to that Apple did get slapped because of pricing in iTunes Music Store UK vs rest of Europe and restriction of sales to one territory.

 

RE decoding AAC: Apple have nothing to do with AAC. It's a standard that is managed by MPEG.

 

RE FLAC vs ALAC: technically FLAC isn't an industry standard. It may be a defacto standard but that's not the same thing. When Apple created ALAC it wasn't even that :-)

 

RE converting ALAC to other formats: I assume you are talking about the problem converting to AIFF within iTunes. Other applications using Core Audio routines have no issue with conversion without truncating.

 

RE WiFi Direct and Airplay: isn't WiFi Direct just about Point-to-Point WiFi and negotiation of such connections?

 

I can't argue with the problems created by the introduction of the Lightening connector to replace the 30-pin connector. But my experience of UPnP streaming is very different and (excluding problems with formats not supported by the renderer device) for the most part it has worked out of the box.

 

As for software changes breaking functionality; are Microsoft really any better in this respect?

 

Eloise

[Paul R]

Hands down right now, my vote goes for JRMC. Preferably on a Mac, but it works just as well under Windows.

 

Actually, all joshing aside, until the Mac version gets a little more ready for full release and gets a Mac interface, I would recommend the Windows version. (Much as that pains me... argh! )

 

It's pretty flawless with DSD, whether playing to a DSD capable DAC or converting it to PCM for playback on a non-DSD DAC, it "just works." Needs to be rebooted occasionally, but that is minor issue. I've been rebooting about every 20 days or so here - music will stop playing or some other silliness.

 

-Paul

 

-Paul

[Miska]

That's your opinion. I find it to be a very neat and powerful UNIX implementation. Reminds me a lot of working on a VAX.

 

Yes, it's just my opinion. Generally equal amount of pain as with SCO Unix, more pain than with HP-UX, Tru64, Solaris (one of the least pain of the commercial ones), FreeBSD, Linux or Windows. I always hated VAX, but had to deal with it due to some obscure Oracle database crap.

 

But from music player perspective, Linux has been the least pain, Windows in the middle and Mac OS X has been the most. And even on general programming side, things that work on Linux and Windows don't work on OS X due to obscure bugs (or "features" if you will). So far I support only three platforms. Maybe some developer who supports the same number of platforms or more could elaborate their views.

 

P.S. Still, OS X is not POSIX/IEEE 1003.1-2008 compliant, while Linux implements practically every small detail of it including optional features.

[labjr]

That's your opinion. I find it to be a very neat and powerful UNIX implementation. Reminds me a lot of working on a VAX.

-Paul

 

I worked for DEC back in the day. It certainly didn't feel like I was working at Apple.

[Paul R]

Lets see... os/390, z/OS, z/VM, zLinux(SuSE), PPC Linux, Intel Linux, BSD, windows, MacOS, VMS, HP/UX, MPE/ix, Wang VS, QNX, iOS, Android, AIX, OS/400(i), and a few more esoteric OS systems, including odd stuff like CMS/2, and other real time OS stuff.

 

MacOS is one of the most open and easy to develop for systems around. Linux is more open, but often more difficult to develope for, given how many different UIs one might have to support.

 

But that is just my opinion of course. (Grin)

[barrows]

Hands down right now, my vote goes for JRMC. Preferably on a Mac, but it works just as well under Windows.

 

Actually, all joshing aside, until the Mac version gets a little more ready for full release and gets a Mac interface, I would recommend the Windows version. (Much as that pains me... argh! )

 

It's pretty flawless with DSD, whether playing to a DSD capable DAC or converting it to PCM for playback on a non-DSD DAC, it "just works." Needs to be rebooted occasionally, but that is minor issue. I've been rebooting about every 20 days or so here - music will stop playing or some other silliness.

 

-Paul

 

-Paul

 

Paul: Can you confirm glitch free DSD (via DoP) playback gapless via jRiver and Windows as well as OSX?