exaSound e18 - e20 - e28 - Info and Experiences Post All Here

[johndoe21ro]

Related to the Paul Hynes power supplies, I have one and I'm very happy with it. Paul is an amazing guy and here are two more reasons why I just had to say that. I bought my exaSound and its power supply second hand, from pretty far away. I wasn't sure if the voltage can be swapped from 110V to 230V so, before buying the DAC and the power supply, I asked Paul if it's possible to change the voltage. He kindly replied yes and taught me how to do it. On arrival, the package was mint, as good as new... aside from a minuscule problem. One of the plastic bezels of the PH SR3-12 was cracked. Nothing major but I am kind of a perfectionist so I wanted to replace it with a new one ASAP. I talked to Paul about the problem and he sent me a replace one for free, by plane. Now that's something!

 

P.S. I heard Paul also uses silver cabling inside his power supplies for some extra bucks. I also heard its worth it. This might partially explain why: http://hifipig.com/paul-hynes-sr3-power-supply/

[bmoura]

P.S. I heard Paul also uses silver cabling inside his power supplies for some extra bucks. I also heard its worth it. This might partially explain why: Paul Hynes SR3 Power Supply | Hifi Pig

 

The reviewer says the SR3 adds weight to the sound. I agree. A nice improvement to the e28.

[EdmontonCanuck]

P.S. I heard Paul also uses silver cabling inside his power supplies for some extra bucks. I also heard its worth it. This might partially explain why: Paul Hynes SR3 Power Supply | Hifi Pig

 

The reviewer says the SR3 adds weight to the sound. I agree. A nice improvement to the e28.

 

I went a slightly different route, and I am using Red Wine Audio's battery power solution with my e20MkIII.

 

A small but noticeable improvement. Highly recommended. The lead times for one of Paul's units was too long for my tastes

[bmoura]

The lead times for one of Paul's units was too long for my tastes

 

Yes, I hear that the lead times can be long. I was lucky to order one when they had some stock available.

[Miska]

Anybody tried with a Teddy Pardo PSU? I assume there would be less lead time issues...

[johndoe21ro]

Anybody tried with a Teddy Pardo PSU? I assume there would be less lead time issues...

 

Miska, as far as I know, there are no lead time issues anymore since PH has moved and/or expanded the manufacturing facility. You can ask him personally by e-mail.

@ EdmontonCanuck: Nice battery power solution. I'm sure it sounds darn well. I wish I could test one against my PH power supply just to know how much I am missing.

[Stereolab42]

Anybody tried with a Teddy Pardo PSU? I assume there would be less lead time issues...

 

Mine is arriving in a few days. It was shipped almost immediately after I ordered (from Israel, but air mail with good tracking).

[elcorso]

Anybody tried with a Teddy Pardo PSU? I assume there would be less lead time issues...

 

My last Paul Hynes arrived in 2 to 3 weeks, even if I live "other side of the world". They improved a lot their lead time...!

 

Roch

 

PS/ PH LPSU take more time to burn in than to arrive...

[johndoe21ro]

My last Paul Hynes arrived in 2 to 3 weeks, even if I live "other side of the world". They improved a lot their lead time...!

 

Roch

 

PS/ PH LPSU take more time to burn in than to arrive...

 

Can you point out some differences in sound with/without the PH LPSU? I received my exaSound with the PH power supply and never heard it without. I'm pleased with what I am hearing but I don't have a clue about what I'm getting with it.

[bmoura]

Can you point out some differences in sound with/without the PH LPSU? I received my exaSound with the PH power supply and never heard it without. I'm pleased with what I am hearing but I don't have a clue about what I'm getting with it.

 

In my experience you're getting a much better low end with the PH power supply and the exaSound. That was the case here when it was paired with the e28.

[ted_b]

Yes, as I stated in my review here (regarding the SR3-12 over the stock power supply): " The differences heard were immediate and uncompromising: better heft and weight, lower noise floor and more stable soundstage."

[Stereolab42]

Got my Teddy Pardo:

 

 

It's the "Teddy12/2 - 12V 2A Power Supply" with the 2.5mm connector diameter, for the e22. It seems the e20 mkIII takes the same diameter, although older e20s take 2.1mm, according to the manual.

 

Build quality is outstanding. I can't say I can hear any SQ difference, at least not yet. But for the price, $400 shipped to the US, I'm perfectly happy to own it just for peace of mind. I think exaSound should offer a power source like this, there are definitely audiophiles who would be put off from making an purchase of an expensive device simply because it has a power brick. As the politicians would say, the "optics" matter.

[johndoe21ro]

Got my Teddy Pardo:

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]14580[/ATTACH]

 

It's the "Teddy12/2 - 12V 2A Power Supply" with the 2.5mm connector diameter, for the e22. It seems the e20 mkIII takes the same diameter, although older e20s take 2.1mm, according to the manual.

 

Build quality is outstanding. I can't say I can hear any SQ difference, at least not yet. But for the price, $400 shipped to the US, I'm perfectly happy to own it just for peace of mind. I think exaSound should offer a power source like this, there are definitely audiophiles who would be put off from making an purchase of an expensive device simply because it has a power brick. As the politicians would say, the "optics" matter.

 

You've got a nice combo there. I think exaSound should offer an optional LPSU but offering the buyer a choice of his own is a very good thing in my opinion. Keep us informed of the SQ differences you'll hear. Until then some burn-in is required.

[LewinskiH01]

I received my e22 yesterday. Yesss!

 

Installation was not plug and play because my server runs on WS2012. Despite George's (President AND Customer Service) email almost telling me I'm a fool for getting WS2012 if I run an exaSound DAC because of incompatibility, I got it running relatively easily. But have to say there is a first opportunity to make a first impression and I'm left wondering if he means I'm a fool for buying his product...oh well, back to the unit.

 

Right now I have my server (see signature) driving Audiophilleo thru a Paul Pang USB card, and into the Metrum that in turn goes into the Lamm pre. I also connected the e22 feeding with the supplied USB cable from the PPA USB card (fortunately it has two USB connectors), and the e22 feeding the Lamm with a pair of identical cables to those used from Metrum to Lamm.

I finished late last night so couldn't really test for sound quality. Just confirmed it was working well and I could do a relatively easy A/B test. The weak link in the Audiophilleo drive chain is the Ultraviolet USB cable, known to be rather crappy. All of the hardware and software optimizations in the server are worthless for the e22, I know, but I have it already and will use it as-is for a fair comparison. At this point I have chosen to keep my LPSU, with adjustable voltage, on my server and use the SMPS supplied with the e22 on it.

 

Question for exaSound users driving preamps: where do you set the exaSound volume? It's factory-set at -20dB, but is that unity gain? For the A/B I plan to set it such that I measure the same volume thru the Audiophilleo chain and thru the e22.

[bmoura]

I received my e22 yesterday. Yesss!

 

Installation was not plug and play because my server runs on WS2012. Despite George's (President AND Customer Service) email almost telling me I'm a fool for getting WS2012 if I run an exaSound DAC because of incompatibility, I got it running relatively easily. But have to say there is a first opportunity to make a first impression and I'm left wondering if he means I'm a fool for buying his product...oh well, back to the unit.

 

No, George is telling you to skip the third party software DAC apps. JRiver and Foobar take the same position according to exaSound. You'll see more discussion of that on the exaSound web site.

 

Should I use JPlay with exaSound DACs? > exaSound Audio Design

[dennis88]

Not answering your question, but asking one: what were the problems with windows server and how did you manage to get the dac to work?

[LewinskiH01]

Not answering your question, but asking one: what were the problems with windows server and how did you manage to get the dac to work?

 

The exaSound driver needs the .NET 3.5 framework service package 1 installed. The Microsoft website says that is not meant for WS2012, and WS2012 installs updates including .NET 4.0 and 4.5 that usually include previous versions, but it didn't include 3.5. Anyway, a quick Google search returned a way to enable this from WS2012 Server Manager. Really not difficult once you are shown how to do it.

 

I'm thinking exaSound probably hasn't tried WS2012 as it would have been easier to tell me to do that instead of going on on a rant with a new customer.

[exa]

Windows Server 2012 is not listed as supported operating system on our website - exaSound Audio Design > Start Here > Compare Specifications.

 

This is about to change. We are in the final testing stage of new Windows ASIO drivers that don't need .Net at all. They work on Windows Server without the complication of installing the older version of .Net. Send us an email if you are interested to try the pre-release version of the new driver.

[LewinskiH01]

How do you guys find your exaSound sounds best when playing PCM material? Do you feed PCM to your DACs or do you convert to DSD at the server and feed that to the DAC? I haven't yet played around with this.

 

FWIW, regarding unity volume (a question I asked earlier) I think it's probably at 0dB reading on the e22 volume. Playing white noise thru the Audiophilleo+Metrum and the e22 I reached the same SPL when setting the e22 volume at -2.5dB.

[Stereolab42]

I don't notice an improvement converting PCM to DSD in software versus letting the exaSound take the PCM to multi-bit PDM on its own. Maybe on cheap DACs it would make a difference, but not with DACs in this price range.

[One and a half]

I don't notice an improvement converting PCM to DSD in software versus letting the exaSound take the PCM to multi-bit PDM on its own. Maybe on cheap DACs it would make a difference, but not with DACs in this price range.

 

Miska would disagree since he believes that all computations relating to anything audible is preferably accomplished in silicon on the computer rather than the DAC. I would agree with you though, the DAC is better at conversions, since that's all it has to do, and not cope with dll, video, mice et al.

[Miska]

Miska would disagree since he believes that all computations relating to anything audible is preferably accomplished in silicon on the computer rather than the DAC. I would agree with you though, the DAC is better at conversions, since that's all it has to do, and not cope with dll, video, mice et al.

 

Yes...

Recent CPUs have orders of magnitude more computing power than a DAC chip. But even more, I like to keep noisy computations away from the same piece of silicon that actually converts to analog...

 

Haswell has around 1.4 billion transistors and is manufactured in 22 nm process. ESS Sabre is probably quite far... But even more importantly, Haswell can run at 4 GHz and thus has 90702 clock cycles per RedBook sample. While Sabre can run at max 100 MHz which is 2267 clock cycles per input sample.

 

My current plan is to run 4-way digital cross-over with room-correction, also for DSD, with upsampled output to e28...

[Hiro]

Miska would disagree since he believes that all computations relating to anything audible is preferably accomplished in silicon on the computer rather than the DAC.

 

And he's definitely on to something. I was shocked to learn that Auralic's internal DSD upsampling in the ARIES was impeded to such a great extent by insufficient processing power. The measurements (reported on the forum by Xuanqian Wang) of their upsampling algorithm dropped basically 50% only because DSD128 upsampling required more processing muscle than DSD64.

 

I don't want to even think about what's going on inside the smallish DAC chips that upsample all PCM to SDM!

[Hiro]

Yes...

Recent CPUs have orders of magnitude more computing power than a DAC chip. But even more, I like to keep noisy computations away from the same piece of silicon that actually converts to analog...

 

Fair enough. A monolithic D/A converter on a chip is not a perfect solution, it has never been.

[Stereolab42]

Is there a simple WAV/FLAC that somebody could suggest or upload that would demonstrate the audible difference between converting to PDM in software versus letting the DAC do it? (Using HQPlayer or JRiver for the upconversion on-the-fly?)