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Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 digital DAC

Thank you, both Jarek and I are grateful you like our design - its nice to be able to design such affordable and high quality little boxes :)

Thank *you*! And you can forget about the Qobuz problem. Sorry. Turns out while I was switching between DACs to compare, during one of those changes the app got confused and reverted from WASAPI Exclusive Mode to Direct Sound-Primary. I fixed that, and now the DAC is detecting and playing everything correctly. How embarrassing.

To make it up to you I opened the box to check for pink+silver caps, and found only blue+silver. Hope that's good news!
 
To make it up to you I opened the box to check for pink+silver caps, and found only blue+silver. Hope that's good news!

Yes - very good news :) and just confirms what Project have told me that all units shipped to customers are with the correct Lelon Organics (Blue text / Silver body) - and not the Pink caps that appear in the photoshoot units.

Its typical that the few engineering units with the incorrect caps are the units that get used during marketing photoshoots (I guess its normal as marketing are eager to move as fast as possible)!

It was the same with the MDAC - we had early lab units with debug software (displayed debug HEX code top right corner) that where "borrow" from the lab for half an hour, the next thing we know all Audiolab marketing pictures have a unit with the debug Hex code on the screen!

So, just to confirm, all customer units are shipped with the correct Lelon Organic caps :)

The Lelons are the best sounding organics I've tested (as good as the Sanyo Oscons) - I've used atleast few million Pcs. and so far have never seen one fail with age... (have I just cursed myself)? :)
 
I opened my device.


Firmware update suggestion:
- could you add function to each input remember own last volume level ?

Thx
 
Firmware update suggestion:
- could you add function to each input remember own last volume level ?

Thx

Good suggestion! I'm only using one input (USB), and I love how the outputs remember the last volume level.

My feature request is on behalf of users who put their computer to sleep in a bedroom or dark media room: blank the display in sleep mode, or at least replace the big bright white volume numbers with a new red sleep icon.

When I sleep my PC I put the S2 on mute by pressing in the volume control or pressing MUTE on the remote. That replaces those numbers with the red mute icon, and dims the display considerably. But just a small automated change in the display would be nice.
 
Thanks John! I will continue to Mute it when I sleep the PC, but hope you can get it to dim on sleep without muting.

You dont need to Mute the DAC when your PC's sleeps - Want I wanted to say is that we will try to add an option to Dim the DAC's display during Mute.

We will also see if its possible to add an option to DIM / Standby the DAC when PC sleep is detected.
 
You dont need to Mute the DAC when your PC's sleeps - Want I wanted to say is that we will try to add an option to Dim the DAC's display during Mute.

We will also see if its possible to add an option to DIM / Standby the DAC when PC sleep is detected.

Excellent, thanks! No need to dim the display during Mute, if you can dim the display during sleep in another way. Good luck, and thanks for looking into this.
 
We will try to reduce with a firmware update - basically increasing the time before the DAC comes out of Mute after sample rate change.

We have a whole load of work ATM, so it will take us a week or two as we want to add other features (Balance control, USB volume control option and Fixed level / Digital Pre-Amp mode) etc.

hi @JohnW
just wanted to check if progress was made on firmware upgrade (specifically clicks when changing sample rate) ? Glad to be guineapig should you wish someone else to try..

Thank you so much !

PS. Though I am one on the forum with maybe crappier audiophile ears - I can not tell you how much I am enjoying the sound and wondering why to spend lot more :) THANK YOU !!!
 
I am still enjoying playing with this feature-packed little box. Normally I leave the Audio Quality set to "Best". But after I was told MQA licensing rules do not allow filters, I checked and discovered the filters in the S2 are indeed disabled in MQA mode. I suggest Pro-Ject add that information to the manual and datasheet.
 
Hi guys, I'm new here but I have been chatting with left channel and gahabana on other forum(s). I also recently bought the S2 DAC and can confirm I also have the pops/cracks between sample switches with different base (44.1 to/from 48). I solve it for now by up-sampling everything in Roon to 384khz

I thought I'll mention a small issue I found: the UNI Project drivers (v 1.61.4) on Windows 10 does not report supported sample rates correctly to Roon, you have to use a try-and-test functionality from Roon to make it aware that max sample rate is 768khz. Even then it does not report DSD512 capability.
 
One more issue, and I bet some tester is going to be a little embarrassed over this: left/right channel on DSD64 (and I would guess all DSD) is swapped.

Or maybe its my DSD files that are wrong, someone else better test this as well.
 
One more issue, and I bet some tester is going to be a little embarrassed over this: left/right channel on DSD64 (and I would guess all DSD) is swapped. Listened mainly to upsampled PCM and DSD converted to it (so no pops/clicks).

Or maybe its my DSD files that are wrong, someone else better test this as well.

hi @MagnusH ,
I have not noticed swap on DSD (which doesn't mean there isn't one) - was travelling last 10 days - will check tomorrow evening when back. Maybe on Linux as endpoint it is working fine (as I don't use Windows) ... can try Mac as well (aren't you on Mac ?).

tx
 
No, Im on Windows 10. The left/right swap is also present when up-sampling PCM to DSD in Roon, which rules out any error in DSD files.
 
Btw John, the name kinda sux, can't you give it a nick name, for example Baby-DAC
Cause it looks just like a baby from 2 normal sized DAC :)
 
When you design something for the Pro-Ject micro component line, that's the kind of name it will get. John has no control over that.

Clearly someone else names their turntables.

The name is quite descriptive, though "Baby-DAC" is certainly better. Tagline: "Oh Baby!"
 
Hi Guys,

I've not confirmed the DSD channel swap - but the root of the problem is with Pro-Jects tradition of swapping the orientation if the Left / Right RCA output connectors.

When we designed the S2 DAC series we designed the Audio outputs as you would expect - Left Channel on the Left and Right Channel on the Right - but unknown to us, this was modified by a third party.

To avoid having to redesign the PCB, we swapped the L/R channels in the ESS configuration registers - but its quite possible that the ESS has a design bug and only swaps the PCM channel data and not DSD!

There are two reasons we did not notice this bug:-

1. Early engineering units where hand modified by Pro-Ject's manufacture (unknown to us at the time) - if you look closely at some early pictures you can see Wirelink "modifications" to the rear panel RCA - these units where used for Beta testing.

2. We run our own custom software build with the channels "correct" on the rear panel (Left RCA to Left channel, Right hand RCA to Right Channel) so that we dont keep connecting the power amps incorrectly during A/B listening tests.

If its a confirmed bug in the ESS then we will try to swap the channel data in the XMOS (but there might be issue when transitioning to headphones) - and DSD channels will always be swapped via SPDIF inputs (not sure if this is a real issue).

The best thing we can do is to release a custom software that ignores the rear panel labelling and has the correct connector orientation then we dont need to channel swap in the ESS DAC all will be good (in both PCM and DSD mode).
 
Btw John, the name kinda sux, can't you give it a nick name, for example Baby-DAC
Cause it looks just like a baby from 2 normal sized DAC :)

Tell me about it! - I personally can NEVER recall the name of the DAC's - in the lab we call them L1, L2 & L3 DAC's (there are 3 versions based on the same design).

The OLED design with Dual ESS DAC's and MQA is the L3...
 


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