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

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On 8/18/2017 at 4:16 AM, sadekkhalifa said:

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

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

 

@sadekkhalifa here's a detailed article on another site: http://www.stereolifemagazine.com/news/item/1306-pro-ject-pre-box-s2-digital 

It's hard to call any of these "reviews" just yet. I'm not certain any reviewers have units in-hand. I am told units will be arriving at UK distributors in a week or so, and I've asked my local Pro-Ject retailer here in the US to look into ordering one for me. I will report here on any updates from them.

 

This would be a good drop-in replacement for my Schiit Magni/Modi stack, so that I can finally compare MQA and DSD at full resolution. I'm also intrigued by the built-in reclocking and USB filtering, which may allow me to remove my USB REGEN from the chain. Also, the power options that make this a good option for traveling with a laptop as well as desktop systems. This is a very interesting little box.

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@franz159 thank you! There is nothing like that available in English yet.

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46 minutes ago, HeadStrong said:

Amazon carries their products but I don't see the S2.  What is the USA availability?

 

USA availability: possibly in one month (late September). One person on another forum got that estimate from his local dealer. I'm still waiting to hear back from mine. But this makes sense for a European product, since I'm told UK availability begins in one week. USA dealer lookup: http://www.pro-jectusa.com/en-us/dealer-locator

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1 hour ago, Norton said:

HIFi News review:  http://www.analogueseduction.net/user/products/large/HFN_Budget Esoterica_Pro-Ject Pre Box S2_lowres.pdf

 

Thank you! Finally. A full review in English, with listening and lab results.

 

"This latest ‘digital box’ should not be confused with Pro-Ject’s earlier miniature DAC/network solutions – a new designer (John Westlake) and new chip technologies mark out the Pre Box S2 Digital as a vastly superior offering."

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Found this review on another forum:
http://www.hificlube.net/artigos/reviews-testes/pro-ject-prebox-s2-digital/

This is an in-depth review, worth pasting into Google Translate or one of its competitors if you don't read Portuguese. The author gets into setup, configuration, and listening, and even compares it to a Chord Hugo 2, Chord Mojo, and an iFi Micro DSD.

Press the blue "Continuar a ler" button to expand the entire article. Giving Translate the direct link didn't work well, but it was very much worth my time to paste this in by hand (section-by-section, to stay within Translate's text limit).

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On 9/6/2017 at 8:43 PM, chauphuong said:

Not any comparison to read. Conclusion of the article is that the stuff is best for MQA

 

He compares it to the Chord Hugo 2, Chord Mojo, and iFi Micro DSD. But you're right, in the end most of these reviews unavoidably spend a lot of time on MQA because it's so new. In fact that's the only reason I am interested in this Box, though once I have it I might try DSD as well. For normal use however, I suspect I'll prefer my Modi/Magni 2U.

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4 hours ago, arcman said:

Here's another one that, at least, looks like it may be cheaper than the Mytek http://lnx.m2tech.biz/products/rockstars/young-mkiii/

Probably in the $1200-$1400 range if pricing matches previous products

 

Interesting. None of their products include a headphone amplifier.

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Thank you for the review! I just ordered one from an eBay seller in Germany. It will take two weeks to get here. 

The same seller has a few more units available, in black and silver.

 

 

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9 hours ago, arcman said:

So you would need to add a us power cord?

 

9 hours ago, gahabana said:

no power cords needed. it is powered via USB OR with the unit you get small smps power supply with microusb out that can power the  S2 DAC. It comes with EU, UK and US (three diferent ends) so will work more or less anywhere in the world ...

 

That's correct, no power cord needed for USB. And in fact, reviewing the manual I see the "wall wart" is only for coaxial and optical connections, and not recommended for USB. Note the bit I've underlined below:

Mains power connection
The unit offers 2 possibilities:
1. USB input is not used: Connect the low voltage plug from the power supply to the micro-USB socket
Power 5V DC before connecting the power supply to the mains.
2. USB input is in use: Unit can be powered directly from computer via USB input. In this case is highly
recommended to disconnect Power 5V DC cable from the unit - power disturbances from two power supplies
could affect sound performance.

 

The unit has some interesting USB filtering built in, and I look forward to testing it with and without my USB REGEN inline.

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Shipping update:
● Sunday 9/24, order placed
● Monday 9/25, shipped from Germany via DHL
● Friday 9/29, arrived in USA, delivered to USPS
● Saturday 9/30 out for delivery

That's less than half the posted shipping time estimate, probably because I live near DHL and USPS hubs. They will probably want a signature for this. Luckily today is a Saturday.

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Received!

First of all, it's very small:

I'll be comparing it to the Schiit Audio Modi 2U & Magni 2U shown here.

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I'm getting the same "pop" sound reported by @gahabana, apparently when the master clock changes. So not with every sample rate change, but about 2/3 of them, and every time it switches in and out of MQA. When the sample rate rises, the "pop" is heard on the left speaker. When the sample rate falls, it's always or usually on the right.

 

Also, the unit does not correctly sense and display sample rates from Qobuz. It does that OK with Tidal or MusicBee. I don't know if anyone has reported this yet. I see in the pinkfishmedia thread John Westlake promised to reduce the "pop" with a firmware update in a week or two. He said the fix would be "basically increasing the time before the DAC comes out of Mute after sample rate change." I hope that doesn't clip any music. 

This is clearly still a "version 1.0 product", even if the firmware version is 2.10. That's OK, that's what happens when you're an early adopter.

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Setup was quite easy. A Windows driver is included on a CD for USB operation. No driver is required for Macs. When you run setup.exe in Windows it will ask you to plug in the unit, if you haven't done so already. I connected the Box via USB cable (the instructions advise a direct connection, no hub), and also connected the RCA outputs to my active speakers, then let the installer run.

After that the Pre Box was immediately ready, no PC reboot required. I selected USB with the Input buttons, and was immediately rewarded with the sounds of the internet radio stream I'd been playing. Plugging in my headphones, I was happy to see the Box will remember separate volume levels for the headphone tand preamp outputs.

As you can see from my photo, the unit is quite compact. It is a bit deeper than the Schiit Magni but only about 2/3 as wide, and runs 1/3 as hot. After some quick clicking around to ensure it will detect the resolutions and formats of different streams and files — which led to the popping sounds described in my previous post — I've been just letting the unit stream some music and have a good burn-in for awhile.

In fact, when run from USB the Pre Box will never turn completely off until the PC turns off, or until you unplug it from USB. When the PC is asleep, part of the display goes away and the USB icon turns red, but the big white volume numbers remain lit (and the nonexistent volume can still be adjusted via the knob or remote). By pressing in the volume knob or pressing the remote's "Mute" button, you can mute the unit to replace those numbers with a red muting icon, but it's still on.

More soon.

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The firmware update will probably be announced on the pinkfishmedia forum @gahabana is on, and a link will likely appear on the product web page. We'll keep an eye out for it.

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Next test: will it connect to my Android phone? Pixel XL, UAPP.  This works with my Schiit Modi 2U via a UTG cable, directly to the Modi or through a USB REGEN to the Modi.

First, how to power it and connect:
● Unable to power the Pre Box S2 Digital directly from the phone. Android shows the "USB Supplying Power to Attached Device" message, but apparently does not feed enough power to the Box.
● Powering the Box with the supplied wall-wart doesn't help: the Box lights up, but UAPP reports no DAC found.
● Putting a USB REGEN into the chain works! Full communication between UAPP and the DAC.

Results:
● Playing hi-res files on the device OK.
● Streaming above 44.1 kHz stutters until bit-perfect enabled.
● Tidal HiFi streaming OK, 44.1 and 48 kHz (UAPP and Pre Box show same sample rate)
● Tidal MQA streaming OK, 96 and 192 kHz (UAPP shows 48 kHz but Pre Box shows 192)
● Qobuz low-res and Hi-Res streaming OK, to 192 kHz (UAPP and Pre Box show same sample rates.)

I get the popping noise on this source too, for example when opening the app, or when switching from 44.1 to 48 kHz (pop in the left channel) and back (pop in the right channel). Very annoying, especially at high volumes. Can't wait for the firmware update.

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@gahabana thanks that's very helpful. Not sure I understand your layout with the Benchmark inline there. Can you please describe in more detail? And regardless, I'd be very curious to learn what the Pro-Ject sounds like to you when connected directly, if it's not too much trouble.

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On 9/30/2017 at 4:16 PM, left channel said:

Also, the unit does not correctly sense and display sample rates from Qobuz. It does that OK with Tidal or MusicBee. I don't know if anyone has reported this yet. I see in the pinkfishmedia thread John Westlake promised to reduce the "pop" with a firmware update in a week or two. He said the fix would be "basically increasing the time before the DAC comes out of Mute after sample rate change." I hope that doesn't clip any music.

 

I fixed the Qobuz problem! The Windows app had somehow dropped out of WASAPI Exclusive Mode while I was switching DACs again and again in my testing. In other words, it's my fault. Sorry. I fixed that, and all is well.

Also, John Westlake has reconfirmed to us that a fix for the "pop" sound is on his to-do list. In fact, he posted that "the XMOS interface used on the S2 is a development for our MDAC2 project so this early feedback helps debug the software before its release". It's great to know John is out there.

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@gahabana thank you, that does help a lot. Those popping sounds are indeed annoying. I look forward to your comparisons when you can attach it directly, but the Benchmark is likely adding nothing but balancing.

@arcman as a preamp it's fairly transparent, but to fully evaluate the quality of the DAC I need to do more listening before commenting further.

@MagnusH sorry for taking so long, but I need more time with this comparison to ensure I'm not falling victim to expectation bias. The differences are small, but I believe they are there. It's certainly a great feature-packed value for the money. More soon. 

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14 hours ago, MagnusH said:

If you have a better power available, try it with that as well. I read it would benefit from more stable 5V power  (ISO Regen, iFi nano/micro iUSB3, etc).

 

I have at this point tried doing so using a USB REGEN with an Android phone and with a Windows PC. It was necessary with the phone, but music from the phone sounded thin and weak. It was not necessary with the PC, but I tried it anyway and some sort of malfunction occurred that distorted the music. I have not tried to diagnose or correct this.

The tl;dr version follows. :-)

Android
The new information here is that after listening for a while, I found that my phone as a source sounded far weaker and thinner than my PC. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had to use a USB REGEN to get this Box to pair with the phone. The phone does not supply enough power alone. I first tried connecting the Pro-Ject wall wart,* but UAPP still could not detect the DAC.

Windows
This is my first post on this issue. I've tried inserting the USB REGEN between the Box and my PC, just as an experiment. That caused some sort of malfunction, in which the music sounded like a vinyl record being dragged slowly backwards. As with the Android-REGEN experiment, Windows automatically installed a driver for this combination. Maybe something went wrong with the driver this time; I don't know. I didn't even reboot and retry then, but I may go back and figure this out some other time.

*The manual advises us the wall wart is only for coax and optical connections, and may cause problems when used together with USB. But as I said above I did get desperate enough to try it with the Android, however that alone did not help Android detect it.

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14 hours ago, arcman said:

I just plugged mine in ( no usb) as a dac. Vlume set a 0db. So far so good. The correct resolution values come up for roon, tidal and Qobuz. I have not changed any filters yet. Set up as “pro-ject best”.  I did enable distortion compensation. Sounds just a tad smoother imo. To be honest, with no break in, i think the bluesound node internal dac very slightly edges it out. The clicking has to get solved. I’ll keep it since i need a dac for my Apple Tv as well. Plus, my next pre will have multiple analog inputs. I can run both digital and analog outs of the blusound

 

Audio Quality has two options, "Test" and "Best". The manual says Test "gives the best value when tested on measuring device (lowest distortion etc)", while Best is "the designers'  preferred sound setting". If you change any other setting, Audio Quality becomes "User".

 

"Best" sets Distortion Compensation to disabled and the filter to Optimal Transient. "Test" sets Distortion Compensation to enabled and the filter to Brickwall.  Adjust distortion compensation or filters yourself, and Audio Quality will display "User".

John Westlake's MDAC designs contain a similar set of filters, but with more than one than one type of Optimal Transient. On other forums most users prefer one of the Optimal Transient filters, so I guess for now I'll leave it there for now. I may play with Distortion Compensation some though.

This thing has so many options it distracts from any attempt at a quick test and comparison — though I mean that in a good way.

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1 hour ago, MagnusH said:

I also bought this dac a few days ago, and is using it with iFi nano iUSB3 to get less noisy power, and that worked very good (it did improve the sound as well). My own comparison with my old dac which was a DragonFly Red is that it sounds much better in every way, but it would be interesting to see how it compares to other dacs.

 

Thanks for the comparison. So far I've found this DAC quite similar to my Modi 2U, when output through preamps directly to active speakers. Both are very neutral. They are so close I fear any difference I think I'm hearing may be due to expectation bias, but the Modi 2U may be just a bit smoother. I'm still comparing them, but that's my tentative initial impression.

I'm still in the process of comparing the headphone amp to my Magni 2U, and am not ready to comment on that yet. As @arcman and I agreed above, the options in this unit can be a distraction and are not entirely necessary for most of us. I really should leave them on their defaults if I'm every going to stop comparing. And then there's the MQA and ultra hi-res features, which make it even harder to concentrate on this goal.

But again, these are nice problems to have. What an amazingly feature-packed little unit! One thing I can already say definitively is that it's a very good value for the money.

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@Samuel T Cogley a local dealer here in California told me "late fall" and didn't have pricing yet. As you may have seen in my other posts, I purchased one from a German reseller on eBay for 370 Euros including shipping and etc. That's about 435 dollars. It arrived in less than one week.

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13 minutes ago, Samuel T Cogley said:

 

Thanks for this.  I've been watching both threads.  Can you provide an updated link for eBay?  I clicked on one of the links, and the price I saw was $1500.

 

Wow! Thanks for checking. Either something went wrong with that German retailer's listings, or they've become incredibly greedy. Many distributors are confusing this box with another much more expensive Pro-Ject product, and I hope that's all that happened there.

I will ask them. Meanwhile here's the same thing from an Italian seller. The shipping price is unclear and I suspect they will not be as efficient and organized about sending it to you, but it's an option: black - silver

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@Samuel T Cogley @arcman that UK retailer certainly looks like the best deal! And the Italian eBay seller is still a backup plan. The German eBay seller replied to me, saying Pro-Ject isn't delivering stock, so the seller raised the price rather than remove the listing from eBay entirely. Maybe they mean this is temporary, I don't know. The listing still shows they have several units in stock, but maybe they don't really have them. Sigh. #eBay

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16 hours ago, franz159 said:

 

Still not clear to me how actually annoying are the pops and clicks upon master clock frequency changes....

 

As others said, it depends on how loud the volume is. Loud volume = loud pop. At my usual volume setting I can live with this temporarily, and anyway it doesn't happen every time, only when it changes between series (44.1 kHz vs. 48 kHz and their multiples). It's in the left channel when switching higher, and in the right channel when switching lower.

This is what we get for buying version 1.0 of anything. :-)  It's great that John Westlake is so responsive, like the Schiit guys among others. Speaking of which, I opened my unit to check and it does not have the pink-and-silver capacitors that he caught the manufacturer using in pre-production models. They're blue-and-silver instead. I took a photo: