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

[left channel]

OK @baloo2 thanks, that's what I needed to know. I'll request they add that to their Mac plans.

[fritzg]

On 12/8/2017 at 9:32 PM, Em2016 said:

 

That was the only way it could work with Roon as Roon does not support >PCM768kHz which would be a requirement for DSD512 via DoP to work.

 

gahabana mentioned he patched the kernel manually though. Let's wait for his reply in the other thread.

 

We really need all posts of this thread moved to the other one, perhaps? @The Computer Audiophile

 

 

What other one?

[fritzg]

On 12/12/2017 at 11:44 PM, left channel said:

Pro-Ject is now considering a Mac version of the firmware update utility. Wow!

 

No current Mac firmware utility?? That is a dealbreaker. Too bad, it sounds like a good product.

[asdf1000]

7 minutes ago, fritzg said:

 

What other one?

 

This one :-) 

 

The two threads were already merged by Chris, into this one.

[Jamesroy]

On 7/23/2017 at 3:32 AM, 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  

I'm about to purchase the Pro-Ject DAC BOX DS2 Ultra but hear that it's not compatible with El Capitan. I use A+ (Audirvana Plus) as my music player. I'm making a big step up from ifi DSD NANO.

 

[left channel]

 

34 minutes ago, Jamesroy said:

I'm about to purchase the Pro-Ject DAC BOX DS2 Ultra but hear that it's not compatible with El Capitan. I use A+ (Audirvana Plus) as my music player. I'm making a big step up from ifi DSD NANO.

 

Since that initial post you quoted, it's been confirmed that the Pre Box S2 Digital also supports native DSD in addition to DoP.

 

There are several Mac users on this thread who seem to be running the Pre Box S2 Digital with no problem. Perhaps they can report their macOS version here.

 

(For the benefit of other readers, I should note we began this discussion in your thread on the DS2 Ultra, where I mentioned that Pro-Ject DACs and DACs from many other companies have problems with El Capitan, and some have problems with Sierra as well. In that thread I provided links to more information.)

[GUTB]

For some reason, HQPlayer throws up when trying to send DSD to the S2 on my audio PC. On my regular PC, it works fine. Has anyone experienced this?

[Miska]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

For some reason, HQPlayer throws up when trying to send DSD to the S2 on my audio PC. On my regular PC, it works fine. Has anyone experienced this?

 

Can you describe what exactly happens?

[GUTB]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Can you describe what exactly happens?

 

I play the track via Roon, but nothing happens. When I check what's going on with HQPlayer, it appears to be flashing back and forth from playing to paused rapidly. If I change HQPlayer to PCM, it works fine. If I use the same S2 with the same ASIO drivers on my main PC (using HQPlayer in demo mode, no Roon) DSD up-sampling works fine.

[Miska]

44 minutes ago, GUTB said:

I play the track via Roon, but nothing happens. When I check what's going on with HQPlayer, it appears to be flashing back and forth from playing to paused rapidly. If I change HQPlayer to PCM, it works fine. If I use the same S2 with the same ASIO drivers on my main PC (using HQPlayer in demo mode, no Roon) DSD up-sampling works fine.

 

I think that has more to do with Roon communication than with the DAC. Are you using latest HQPlayer and Roon?

[Jamesroy]

6 hours ago, GUTB said:

For some reason, HQPlayer throws up when trying to send DSD to the S2 on my audio PC. On my regular PC, it works fine. Has anyone experienced this?

I don't have HQPlayer and I'm on a Mac

[left channel]

@GUTB & @Miska I notice the Roon update released today includes "HQPlayer stability improvements". Please let us know if that fixes the problem. Chris has a link to the release notes here:

 

[GUTB]

Okay, testing directly through HQPlayer revealed that the 48 kHz rate family won't work. If you have auto rate family checked, the track won't play and HQplayer appears to immediately reset. If you un-check auto rate family, HQPlayer works fine, but it won't output to a 48 kHz stream, even if you select 48 / 512 from the options menu. The drop-down menu in the player screen only shows 44.1 kHz rates, even when the file is 96 kHz.

 

Is there something in the Pro-Ject's ASIO driver that is messing up?

[Jamesroy]

I'm looking at Pro-Ject DAC BOX DS2 Ultra I think it's an upgrade to the one your talking about. I'm asking a lot of questions because 650.00 is a lot of cash to me. I'm on a Mac Book Pro running AudirvanaPlus as my music player. Some rumors say Pro-Ject won't make friends with the Mac OS El Capitan or Sierra. Can't get a straight answer on that. I hate to admit it but I'm running old Yosemite because I thought there was a bug in A+ (AudirvanaPlus) But I like the way it catalogues and sounds.

[left channel]

33 minutes ago, Jamesroy said:

I'm looking at Pro-Ject DAC BOX DS2 Ultra I think it's an upgrade to the one your talking about. I'm asking a lot of questions because 650.00 is a lot of cash to me. I'm on a Mac Book Pro running AudirvanaPlus as my music player. Some rumors say Pro-Ject won't make friends with the Mac OS El Capitan or Sierra. Can't get a straight answer on that. I hate to admit it but I'm running old Yosemite because I thought there was a bug in A+ (AudirvanaPlus) But I like the way it catalogues and sounds.

 

It is not an upgrade. As I explained on your DS2 Ultra thread, it is an older product with a very different design and fewer features.

I believe I provided you a straight answer on the macOS issues, which are not rumors and are clearly stated on the Pro-Ject website. The only thing not straight about the answers is that Apple made these problems hard to fix, but I directed you to online resources for further research and assistance.

You are taking this thread off-topic. Please take these questions back to your DS2 Ultra thread. I'll be glad to help you there. https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/37920-pro-ject-dac-box-ds2-ultra-in-black-os-el-capitan/

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, GUTB said:

Okay, testing directly through HQPlayer revealed that the 48 kHz rate family won't work. If you have auto rate family checked, the track won't play and HQplayer appears to immediately reset. If you un-check auto rate family, HQPlayer works fine, but it won't output to a 48 kHz stream, even if you select 48 / 512 from the options menu. The drop-down menu in the player screen only shows 44.1 kHz rates, even when the file is 96 kHz.

 

Is there something in the Pro-Ject's ASIO driver that is messing up?

 

Sounds normal, this is feature of Thesycon drivers, not limitation of the DAC itself. Thesycon drivers support only 44.1k-base DSD rates. So for those, leave the "auto rate family" unchecked and HQPlayer will convert 48/96/192 material to 44.1k x512. You'll possibly need to use -2s filter variants for that to work from CPU load point of view.

 

[GUTB]

Just now, Miska said:

 

Sounds normal, this is feature of Thesycon drivers, not limitation of the DAC itself. Thesycon drivers support only 44.1k-base DSD rates. So for those, leave the "auto rate family" unchecked and HQPlayer will convert 48/96/192 material to 44.1k x512. You'll possibly need to use -2s filter variants for that to work from CPU load point of view.

 

 

.....WOW I had no idea that Thesycon was such trash. I only have Amanero in my other interfaces so I never noticed this was actually a thing. Please fix Pro-Ject.

 

And I just figured out that it won't take 48k rate family at all...I guess that answers that question. Thanks Miska.

[filhodoassis]

Actually, I can use the pro-ject S2 up to DSD128 x 48khz in foobar. The DAC will display 384khz PCM, but it is DSD128 x 48khz DoP.

With the older Windows driver in RELAXED buffer setting, it went up to DSD256 x 48khz in DoP  768khz PCM, with the new Windows driver only up to DSD128.

[Jamesroy]

On 9/22/2017 at 11:27 AM, left channel said:

 

Interesting. None of their products include a headphone amplifier.

This is my point. I don't think there talking about the New DS2 Ultra, if I'm mistaken I apologise.

[Miska]

10 minutes ago, filhodoassis said:

Actually, I can use the pro-ject S2 up to DSD128 x 48khz in foobar. The DAC will display 384khz PCM, but it is DSD128 x 48khz DoP.

With the older Windows driver in RELAXED buffer setting, it went up to DSD256 x 48khz in DoP  768khz PCM, with the new Windows driver only up to DSD128.

 

You are not using native DSD with the ASIO driver. DoP naturally doesn't have that limitation because driver has no idea you are sending DSD in first place when using DoP.

 

Although if I send 48k x128  DSD over DoP to the S2, it doesn't say any sample rate on the display. Same as 48k x512 DSD rates (on Linux).

 

[left channel]

37 minutes ago, Jamesroy said:

This is my point. I don't think there talking about the New DS2 Ultra, if I'm mistaken I apologise.

 

You are mistaken. For one thing, the DS2 Ultra is not "New". It is a 2016 product.

This will be my last response to you here. Feel free to continue this conversation on your DS2 Ultra thread.

 

[filhodoassis]

11 hours ago, Miska said:

 

You are not using native DSD with the ASIO driver. DoP naturally doesn't have that limitation because driver has no idea you are sending DSD in first place when using DoP.

 

Although if I send 48k x128  DSD over DoP to the S2, it doesn't say any sample rate on the display. Same as 48k x512 DSD rates (on Linux).

 

If you play a DSD X 48khz over DoP file in the S2, the display shows nothing, if you pause the playing, it shows the respective DoP PCM 48khz rate.

[Miska]

7 hours ago, filhodoassis said:

If you play a DSD X 48khz over DoP file in the S2, the display shows nothing, if you pause the playing, it shows the respective DoP PCM 48khz rate.

 

Depending on what software you use when you pause...

So no, doesn't happen for me, stays blank until I play 44.1k-base DSD or some PCM.

 

[filhodoassis]

Quote

Same as 48k x512 DSD rates (on Linux).

So Miska, the pro-ject already does DoP at 48kHz X 512 DSD in Linux?

In other words, in Linux it accepts for DoP duties, 1536kHz/32bits PCM ?

Then we need just an updated Windows driver to access DoP sample rates up to DSD512 (44.1k and 48k).

Besides, with this bandwidth, it might be programed to do native DSD1024. 

John Westlake said in another forum: "We just might be able to upgrade the DSD to support DSD1024 via a firmware update."

[Miska]

23 minutes ago, filhodoassis said:

So Miska, the pro-ject already does DoP at 48kHz X 512 DSD in Linux?

In other words, in Linux it accepts for DoP duties, 1536kHz/32bits PCM ?

Then we need just an updated Windows driver to access DoP sample rates up to DSD512 (44.1k and 48k).

Besides, with this bandwidth, it might be programed to do native DSD1024. 

John Westlake said in another forum: "We just might be able to upgrade the DSD to support DSD1024 via a firmware update."

 

No DoP, native DSD...

 

Here's my original tweet about it:

https://twitter.com/Signalyst/status/919499416855302145