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Okto Research DAC8 Pro


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On 3/4/2020 at 9:01 AM, Miska said:

 

No 8 channel DSD256 though?

 

 

No, "only" DSD128. Pavel nevertheless confirmed that all incoming DSD is kept as DSD, which is good. @Miska I really believe the DAC8 PRO is worth a try as an alternative to Exasound in a multichannel setup, maybe email them to be part of the ongoing tour. 

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6 hours ago, alec_eiffel said:

No, "only" DSD128. Pavel nevertheless confirmed that all incoming DSD is kept as DSD, which is good. @Miska I really believe the DAC8 PRO is worth a try as an alternative to Exasound in a multichannel setup, maybe email them to be part of the ongoing tour. 

 

My exaSound can already do 8 channels of DSD256 or PCM 384/32, so I'm not in huge need of something that does less. Also Hapi can do the same...

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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31 minutes ago, Miska said:

My exaSound can already do 8 channels of DSD256 or PCM 384/32, so I'm not in huge need of something that does less. Also Hapi can do the same...

Neither of those options are as inexpensive as the Okto DAC8.

Kal Rubinson

Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile

 

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  • 3 months later...
On 2/20/2020 at 1:04 PM, Kal Rubinson said:

I have one now.

 

Hi Kal,

 

Will there be any reviews on the OKTO DAC8 coming out soon ?  If so, any ETAs ?

 

TIA

Software: Realtime Debian 11-64, JRMC28-64, Custom VST3-64, CamillaDSP-64 (2x8 channel 64-bit FIR multi-pass convolution), RePhase, REW, Custom Driver Level DRC-FIR upgrades, JRMC CloudPlay, Pandora, Spotify, dBPowerAmp Reference,

2 Channel: A-Tech Fabrication i7-3770K/NVMe/Passive Cooling-No Moving Parts->OKTO DAC8 PRO->QuadAmping - MagTech/Mark Levinson #336/IcePower ASP1000->Magnepan 20.1's, NEO8's & OB/Dipole Subs

Home Theater: Anthem Statement D2V->W4S 7x1000->Magnepan 3.6's/CC3/MC2's+Martin Logan Descent I Subs

Office: Core-i7 3770S/SSD->Xonar Essence STX->W4S µDAC->W4S STI-1000->Magnepan Mini-Maggies

Garage: Dell Laptop->W4S uDAC->AdCom Amp->B&W Rock Solid

 

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  • 2 months later...
4 hours ago, Snoozer said:

Has anybody successfully used Okto DAC8 Pro with linux ?  which distro and player have you used ?

 

I am struggling to make it work with HQPlayer embedded. There might be a problem with the XMOS firmware inside of the DAC. 

I've used it with the PinkFaun 2.16x and HQPlayer embedded.  

Kal Rubinson

Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile

 

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Thank you Kal.

 

Your experience is very interesting since it seems PinkFaun software is based on Archlinux. I happen to have a modified distro for audio (AudioLinux) which I have also tested without success. So no luck there.

 

If anybody has tested a public distribution and would not mind to share it, I would appreciate it. 

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/5/2020 at 11:44 PM, Snoozer said:

Thank you Kal.

 

Your experience is very interesting since it seems PinkFaun software is based on Archlinux. I happen to have a modified distro for audio (AudioLinux) which I have also tested without success. So no luck there.

 

If anybody has tested a public distribution and would not mind to share it, I would appreciate it. 

I believe that Pink Faun Streamer uses a version of AudioLinux, so you could contact the developer (Piero aka @hifi25nl) to help you out.

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9 hours ago, w1000i said:

can this be used for home theater or movies sound track ?

Sure but....................................................

1.  Do you have those sound tracks as files?

2. Do you have a HTPC capable of sending the tracks (from disc or file) out via USB?

Kal Rubinson

Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile

 

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1 hour ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Sure but....................................................

1.  Do you have those sound tracks as files?

2. Do you have a HTPC capable of sending the tracks (from disc or file) out via USB?

1. Of course not and it not what I mean.

2. This is my question, how ? :) 

 

Can a video player like PowerDVD send the sound to other sources via USB ?

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/5/2020 at 5:44 PM, Snoozer said:

Thank you Kal.

 

Your experience is very interesting since it seems PinkFaun software is based on Archlinux. I happen to have a modified distro for audio (AudioLinux) which I have also tested without success. So no luck there.

 

If anybody has tested a public distribution and would not mind to share it, I would appreciate it. 

Hey Snoozer i own the DAC8 pro and ive tried alot of distros (Moode, volumio, Dietpi,) none of them worked when ive tried DSD64 files they play as 192khz 24bit...then by accident i remembered that i have an Roon account and tried https://ropieee.org/ on my Allo USBridge Signatur NAAT and guess what it works perfect with Native DSD64 and Native DSD128 ive also tried it with my Mac and there it works too but only Dop64. Next i try to include HQplayer into roon and upsample to DSD128 5.1 yay :)

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  • 1 month later...

Well, as it happens my firmare version did not work with Linux in the DAC8. That was the problem and it was confirmed. I received a new firmware version (1.43) that did work indeed. But now I have found another problem: 

 

-> I have setup an Ubuntu 20 with HQplayer embedded and also the Desktop version. The hardware is an Intel I9 plus Nvidia RTX3070

-> Instruct HQplayer to upsample everything it receives to multichannel DSD128. My machine is very powerful, I can do higher filters and EC modulators plus work on XO with FIR filters.

-> Big pop/click at the beginning of a new track is the family rate is different from the previous track (either going from 44.1kx128 to 48kx128 OR from 48kx128 to 44.1kx128). It is a huge spike on the output that is not present in the original music content and that might well damage a twitter. I consider that a big engineering design flaw unless my unit is defective, of course. 

 

After weeks, many indeed, of waiting for support from Pavel (OKTO Research) now he says my unit might be defective. Do you guys happen to have tested DSD upsampling with HQplayer on Linux ? Did it work as expected ?

 

thanks

Pepe

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55 minutes ago, Snoozer said:

-> Big pop/click at the beginning of a new track is the family rate is different from the previous track (either going from 44.1kx128 to 48kx128 OR from 48kx128 to 44.1kx128). It is a huge spike on the output that is not present in the original music content and that might well damage a twitter. I consider that a big engineering design flaw unless my unit is defective, of course. 

 

This happens when DAC doesn't mute it's outputs during mode transitions on begin/end of DSD stream.

 

DAC should mute it's output for at least 50 ms duration during beginning and end of DSD. So mute before DSD stream starts and unmute after it has started. Same for the end. If this is not done properly, you will get those pops, because it takes time for DSD conversion to establish a state.

 

1 hour ago, Snoozer said:

Do you guys happen to have tested DSD upsampling with HQplayer on Linux ? Did it work as expected ?

 

Yes, a lot, because Linux is the primary HQPlayer development platform. So it is used a lot every day.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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48 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

DAC should mute it's output for at least 50 ms duration during beginning and end of DSD. So mute before DSD stream starts and unmute after it has started. Same for the end. If this is not done properly, you will get those pops, because it takes time for DSD conversion to establish a state.

 

Thank you very much for chiming in Miska (I am a client of yours, own an embedded license for my Linux machine).

 

It is very interesting, and maybe coincidental, because one of the things Pavel (OktoResearch) recommended  before asserting that my unit could be defective was precisely that .... "to allow my Roon player insert a silence after each track". I tried that and it kind of seemed alleviating a little bit the problem, but still .... the huge spike between tracks is there.  

 

I was hoping that maybe there was some other Okto DAC8 owners who could report if they suffer from the same problem. I know for a fact that there are some other DACs in the market based in the same XMOS platform and Sabre DAC that suffer from this very problem. If there is anybody in this situation, I would appreciate if you'd share your experience.

 

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On 11/30/2020 at 2:30 PM, Kal Rubinson said:

I doubt it.  I use JRiver but I play them as files.

I would like to amend that statement.  Since one can set JRiver to be the Windows default audio device and one can set Jriver to use USB or any other target output, it should be possible.

Kal Rubinson

Senior Contributing Editor, Stereophile

 

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On 4/6/2021 at 12:10 AM, Snoozer said:

"to allow my Roon player insert a silence after each track". I tried that and it kind of seemed alleviating a little bit the problem, but still .... the huge spike between tracks is there.  

 

It helps, but it doesn't fix the problem. Only proper way is to have enough analog mute time before and after the DSD mode transition. One of the reasons mute relays/transistors must be there.

 

DSD spec requires about 50 ms mute period around the transition.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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10 hours ago, Miska said:

...

   One of the reasons mute relays/transistors must be there.

 

DSD spec requires about 50 ms mute period around the transition.

....

 

 

 

Does it necessarily mean a hardware solution ?. It seems to me that relays and transistors is the "hard" way to solve. Do you happen to be aware if that has been solved via firmware by telling the XMOS to mute the Sabre by 50ms ?. Maybe there is something else involved that I do no envision, but if that is not the case, muting via software is fairly straightforward within the XMOS microcode. 

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On 4/8/2021 at 3:12 PM, Snoozer said:

Does it necessarily mean a hardware solution ?. It seems to me that relays and transistors is the "hard" way to solve. Do you happen to be aware if that has been solved via firmware by telling the XMOS to mute the Sabre by 50ms ?.

 

Well, I've seen many attempts trying to solve it through Sabre without mute relays/transistors and so far failing every time. Sabre doesn't support mute functionality when it's digital filters are bypassed OR when it is operating in DSD mode...

 

In addition, the settling also applies to the analog filter stage following the DAC chip.

 

On 4/8/2021 at 3:12 PM, Snoozer said:

muting via software is fairly straightforward within the XMOS microcode

 

It is and it is not, because it requires look-ahead buffer, so that you can mute at least 25 ms before any DSD data goes out to the DAC. And 25 ms before the last bit goes out to the DAC. And then of course the mute needs to actually do something... XMOS just sends out control signal, but that control signal actually needs to control some mute functionality too. This is especially important with Sabre where you cannot tell over I2C/SPI interface to switch between PCM and DSD modes like other DAC chips. Instead it automatically switches the mode based on detected pattern on input data pins - but this takes some amount of time, during which the output is just a mess.

 

If you use DoP, this becomes even more crucial, because the detection requires 32 samples which equals to 512 DSD bits. Which is not long at 181 µs, but still you have audible glitch if you don't handle it properly.

 

 

These days, problems in this area are not common anymore in new DACs, most handle it properly now.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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