Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital: MQA HW decoding at reasonable cost

[beautiful music]

Did someone got a chance to listen to this device, eager to know more about it 

On 7/23/2017 at 0:32 PM, franz159 said:

I have just read a positive review in July number of  Italian magazine AudioReview about this new little DAC from Project

http://www.box-designs.com/main.php?prod=preboxs2digital&cat=s2-line&lang=en

A very reasonable entry level price for experimenting with MQA, but apparently not at all entry level performance.

 

Main specs from Pro-Ject infosheet:

• Dual mono construction

• High end ESS Sabre ESS9038 dual DAC

• Proprietary clock circuity design

• Organic polymer capacitors and thin film miniMELF resistors

• MQA hardware decoding

• DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 & DSD512 (DSD over PCM)

• Up to 24bit/192kHz for optical & coax inputs

• 7 selectable digital filter characteristics

• 1 proprietary optimum transient digital filter

• Headphone output on the front (6.3mm)

• Synchronization of all internal oscillators

• Jitter as low as 100 Femtoseconds!

• Gold plated four layer PCB

• Full alu/metal sandwich casing in silver or black

 

SRP: € 349,00  

 

@franz159 I would be appreciated if you can post this review here 

[beautiful music]

2 hours ago, gahabana said:

my experience with "Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 digital DAC" ...all great except one major issue in my setup:

Am using odroidxu4 (running Armbian builds of Ubuntu) as endpoint for Roon as well as LMS/squeezelite.
Worked immediately with no issues.
I also have a benchmark dac2 hgc (which i used both as preamp for pro-ject s2 and to compare).
Love - all resolutions worked out of the box. PCM all the way to 768khz and DSD via DOP all the way to DSD256 with Roon.
Sounds very good. Haven’t done a lot of critical listening - but i hear nothing worse compared to Benchmark DAC2. Remote (one that comes with it) is cheapo plastic bit bigger then credit card but works great for volume control and switching filters or on the fly or sources etc.
sounds GREAT to me.
things i love compared to Benchmark:

switching between various sampling rate sources is practically instant. i.e. from 44.1khz CD to 192khz hires source or dsd is instant. on benchmark there was 0.4sec delay or you missed bit from start of the song. if all upsampled obviously none of the dac’s have issue with changing sampling rates but it makes me happy. i still use LMS from time to time so that comes in handy
over 24+ hours no issues, clicks, losing sync etc … i think digital piece/USB is well implemented and has no obvious bugs …in spite of changing, reseting, roon and squeezelite - not once i had to reboot due to sw bug. that is great!!!. e.g. SMSL M9 DAC i also have works fine sounds good but when you reboot the pc or endpoint it starts with hiss until music app (roon or squeezelite) actually starts sending sometjhing (or even silence) … no big deal but bit annoying. as i am planning to replace benchmark dac2 with it and going directly to poweramp can not do that with SMSL m9 but think i ll have no issues with Pro-Ject S2
it remembers volume setting upon power off … which is good if going to power amp directly
MQA support - seems to work very well. 48 all the way to 192khz abd blue light works (tested with Roon/Tidal).
downsides compared to benchmark:

does not have balanced out’s that my amp has (Bryston) … can use RCAs but would be nice if it was balanced
don’t care about headphones so did not compare at all
it can not be powered off (if powered or connected via USB only and source is powered its always powered). not a big . deal … just would be nice if you could power it off
has mute on remote just like benchmark … what benchmark also did is ‘Dim’ which takes volume 20 or 30db down so if you get a phone call can still hear the music but at much lower volume instantly … just cool
i miss ability to power up amp via preamp/dac. it requires 12V output and i guess it did fit in benchmark and pro-ject bing 2-4 smaller box it kinda didn’t fit. if i switch to pro-ject and eliminate benchmark as a preamp ill have to turn on/off amplifier manually and cant do it via remote no more :frowning:
i wish pro-ject would display sample rate and depth. behcmark does it with LEDs … and smsl has info screen. not that it matters cause it DOES work whatever you send to it (16/24/32 bit and any sample rate) …
but benchmark is 2000EUR and Pro-ject 350. makes you wonder if its worth it.

However, last step was to try S2 directly powering poweramp (Bryston SST2). All of the above still holds true however, there might be a problem for me to use it in that way unless you guys have some idea:
Issue: when sample rate changes between the tracks very often i hear a farily loud click/pop between the tracks. I rebooted, powered off … changed settings in the DAC (filters and ‘distortion settings’ on or off) but that did not make any difference. i even inserted Intona isolater between by USB source computer and S2 just to be sure it’s not due to some ‘ground’ connection issues.

My guess is that it could be fixed in the firmware of the S2 (whenever input sample rate changes drive output to 0 in few ms and that i think could do it) … it happens when going from 44.1 to 192 and any other mix … some combo’s almost every time some not so often. Of course if I upsample all the content from Roon to 352 or 384 kHZ it is a non issue but then MQA support is gone etc.

I have no clue why i did not hear those clicks/pops when S2 was connected to Benchmark DAC2 which acted as pre-amplifier.

Any thoughts/ideas ?

Thanks !!!

 

It seems that you are the first one in this community to receive this DAC.

 

Looking forward to seeing other audiophiles opinion.

[beautiful music]

Does anyone have a Chord DAC, so we can see a comparison between these DACs'.