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eXaSound e22

davidavdavid

davidavdavid
just brought it home
it is set up and configured
and was WELL WORTH the wait

after much agonizing and evaluating the e22 has landed safely :)

i listened and demo'd the Chord Hugo, Mytek 192, M2Tech Young DSD, Auralic Vega, and Wyred4Sound and when it came down to it eXaSound won.

the battle was tough and came down to the wire with the Auralic and Wyred4Sound. What clinched it for me was the following:

1, portability
2, external/universal power supply
3, integration with Apple remote
4, the GLORIOUS sound

i love my dear little FOSTEX HP-A4 to death, but with the e22 in the room, its much like the school bully who pockets your lunch money - NO COMPETITION. That being said the HP-A4 is going to be at home with my desktop computer system and since it powered over USB, i'll take it with me on my travels. :)
 
just brought it home
it is set up and configured
and was WELL WORTH the wait

Congrats - nice choice.

I've been looking at this converter for some time, and there's an interesting AudioFest video staring George Klissarov I believe.

Best of luck,
Peter
 
Keith,

A friend of a friend came over with his and we played a bunch of files through my system with his Young DSD.
 
Peter,

The search is over, as 99.95% of my source material is digital, it made sense to really splash out on a DAC. Nice to give Canada some Audio Love :)
 
Peter,

The search is over, as 99.95% of my source material is digital, it made sense to really splash out on a DAC. Nice to give Canada some Audio Love :)

Agreed.

It really deserves more attention.

I used to only have praise for Classe back in the day. Great product!

Peter
 
just brought it home
it is set up and configured
and was WELL WORTH the wait
after much agonizing and evaluating the e22 has landed safely :)
i listened and demo'd the Chord Hugo, Mytek 192, M2Tech Young DSD, Auralic Vega, and Wyred4Sound and when it came down to it eXaSound won.
the battle was tough and came down to the wire with the Auralic and Wyred4Sound. What clinched it for me was the following:
1, portability
2, external/universal power supply
3, integration with Apple remote
4, the GLORIOUS sound
i love my dear little FOSTEX HP-A4 to death, but with the e22 in the room, its much like the school bully who pockets your lunch money - NO COMPETITION. That being said the HP-A4 is going to be at home with my desktop computer system and since it powered over USB, i'll take it with me on my travels. :)

Can you shed some light on:

Computer and OS
Software player
DSD or PCM
Your system

Thx
Matt
 
Matthias - here you go:

The System is Comprised of:

Bel Canto Designs S300 Integrated Amplifier
eXaSound e22, Fostex HP-A4, Centrance Dacmini CX DACs (in order of preference)
Audio Physic Tempo Speakers
Project Carbon Turntable with Ortofon "Blue" Cartridge (for the occasional/rare vinyl)
Mac Mini 8 GB RAM, running Mavericks attached to 12 TB of RAID storage
Source Material: DSD (dsf/dff) SACD ISO, FLAC REDBOOK -> 24/192 (everything in between)

Cardas and AudioQuest Interconnects
Silver Stranded Speaker Cables along with Transparent Audio & Kimber copper

Listening room is 12 feet wide by 15 feet long and ceilings are 11 feet high
Speakers stand roughly 6 feet apart - allowing them each 3 feet from the side walls and 2.5 feet from the back wall

I've done the configuring, and I've done the tweaking. No doubt I've broken some cardinal rules of HiFi but it all works and that's more than you can ask of any man.

As for music am so thankful for HDTracks back home in the States as well as countless websites for hi-res WAV, FLAC and DSD files.
 
Matt

Audrivana Plus is my go-to software - i don't care much for JRiver although it does have ONE neat feature - the ability to upsample all of your files to 2x DSD.

You should also take a look at the very nascent HQPlayer for the Mac (Beta) from Signalyst.
 
Matt
Audrivana Plus is my go-to software - i don't care much for JRiver although it does have ONE neat feature - the ability to upsample all of your files to 2x DSD.
You should also take a look at the very nascent HQPlayer for the Mac (Beta) from Signalyst.

Yes, regarding upsampling to DSD128 or DSD256 HQPlayer should give the best SQ.
 
Mattias, HQPlayer is really fun to play around with, it would be nice if there would be a feature to tag albums with filter profiles so the software automatically recognizes the tracks and employes the desired filters.
 
Matt if your computer and DAC and support it you can set the custom audio upsampling in Audirvana Plus to play all your files at 384 mHz - adds a little something something to REDBOOK audio.
 
Yes, but there are multiple reports on CA-Forum that converting RB to DSD256 is so much better than upsampling to PCM 384kHz. HQPlayer is the best software for this task and Audirvana is not able to convert PCM to DSD.....

Matt
 
Matt

In the real world. HQ Player is still not the mot stable and is prone to crash. It still needs some work, but it is really new and will take some time. Am telling you that upsampling to 384 kHz is nothing to sneeze at.

The User Interface for HQPlayer also needs some work. For dependable playback Audirvana Plus is the one .... for now.
 
Whatsnext

it is something to try, at first I too was skeptical, am doing it all in software - download HQPlayer and give it a shot - if your computer is powerful enough use the "poly sinc" filer, if that is too much of a burden try "poly sinc 2s"
 
We're hearing some pretty stellar feedback from customers with exaSound and W4S DACs running HQPlayer upsampled to DSD128 or DSD256.

Although it's expensive software - and I'm not sure it was really warranted before DSD resampling USB interfaces came of age - it's looking like a 'player' for 2014 on . . .

It has been dawning for a few years now that you either want to configure a computer for minimal damage (ie Linux/XP, modest processor, simple app, small quiet PSU) and not resample, or go to the other extreme and massively upsample using the best possible algorithms (ie, XXHighEnd/Phasure, HQPlayer, etc). But only now, I think, has DSD made the latter approach viable. But it mandates very different hardware: HQP in particular is a resource hog: running a typical quadcore at north of 50%.

Interestingly, it seems the higher you set the bar, the better. No pain, no gain. I get the feeling exaSound and W4S are racing to bring the first DSD512 capable firmware to the table. Although maybe Schiit, iFi or Yulong will beat them to it for bragging rights!

As you say, David, the real issue seems to be combining the smart math engine of these players with a slick remote interface that can keep pace with the rapidly-changing smorgasbord of streaming options.
 
Whatsnext

it is something to try, at first I too was skeptical, am doing it all in software - download HQPlayer and give it a shot - if your computer is powerful enough use the "poly sinc" filer, if that is too much of a burden try "poly sinc 2s"

I spent last night a) trying to install HQplayer despite my Mac security settings (approved developers & App Shop only) and b) getting it to add flac files to a Playlist then play. Gave up in the end.
 


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