MonstaChuck

Yeah it does... A lot of the software out there can convert DSD on the fly to 192/24 or 96/24 etc I'm not sure if I had it on random between DSD and DSD as 192 if I'd really notice. If I'm really, really anal I might say DSD is a little smoother but I don't remember the last time I really focused on that. I have maybe 20 DSD albums, and whatever improvement there may have been it wasn't enough to make me go buy a bunch of new DSD albums. Instead I stream a lot of Tidal and Qobuz hi-res now so DSD use isn't really a factor. Getting the K-03x with DSD specifically was more fear of missing out. If I remember right the K-03 without DSD can also act as a preamp while the K-03x does not. Grand scheme of things that may be a cooler long term feature for a second room if the esoteric ever gets replaced in your system. For my time my OCD ness is better spent A/Bing the Esoteric to the D1100 with different interconnects and speaker cables. It's probably 80% Esoteric / 20% D1100.

I also have a K-03x which is what I use most of the time. From my MacBook I use Roon via USB to the K-03x, and I use an XLR / AES cable from the esoteric to the D1100 digitally for comparisons sake. There’s a positive here I’ll explain in the next paragraph. I forget what other settings I changed, but for either the hiccups occur I think when you change the bitrate and the USB “handshake” is invoked. Both the esoteric and the d1100 have issues here. If I remember correctly even when switching albums with the same bitrate the d1100 needed to be quickly reintroduced with my Mac and there’s the fade in. With the esoteric it only happens with changing bitrates and I get that subtle click click click. By doing it it this way, my esoteric holds on to the bitrate and sends that digital bitrate signal to the d1100 via the aes / xlr cable until the bitrate changes, no fade in or static between tracks. Kind of related is a separate roon esoteric bitrate mac rant. If I play 96khz or 192khz tracks on the esoteric it freezes when I try to play 88khz or 44.1khz tracks right after. It’s bizarre. If I use audirvana no issues. If I use jriver on a pc no issues. To get around this I have roon play 96khz tracks as 88khz and 192khz as 176khz. It’s a quirk, and I’ll eventually get a barebones pc or the roon Nucleus for a smoother experience.

Just to confirm, this will eliminate the forced muting of the initial tracks? That’s awesome. I run roon from Mac and even with the same bitrate I get jostled by the stop and start.

Hi all, thought I'd repost my post from another thread here. I just bought an iDSD, along with a dragonfly, idac, and iusb power supply from ifi. DSD isn't a real concern for me, but I'm enjoying a free track now and to be honest it sounds better than many hi-res pcm tracks I have. I guess that makes sense as it's marketed as a DSD device (which has pcm thrown in for good measure). I'll be making my decision shortly what to keep. Pardon the long explanation, but here's why I went a bit OCD on this. Step 1) I initially bought the dragonfly 1.2 for my imac to feed my mcintosh 275 amp directly. There was a shit ton of noise, so I tried connecting it to my macbook pro. Perfect. Sounds great for $150, though it lacks a little bass through my speakers (headphones were fine here). Step 2) Well, shit. I wanted it for my 2011 imac, and it turns out this noise through the usb is very, very common on this particular model. Let me try ifi's iusb power supply. Very near perfect addition. I could still hear a very slight hum through my imac->iusb->dragonfly->amp&speakers path just before and after starting a track. Just enough to bother me. For what it's worth, when running through my macbook pro I didn't hear a great improvement in the sound by adding the iusb power supply, so if I only used the macbook pro I'd probably not spend the $200 there. Step 3) The iDSD and iDAC arrived a couple of hours ago. They didn't show up straight away, and there was a bit of unplugging and plugging in and crossing fingers... but once they're a go they're pretty consistent. Again, I'm plugging my amp directly into the headphone jack of these units and using the volume control there. The reason I tried the iDSD is because the literature said the power supply was always run from the battery inside the unit, which was charged from the usb. I had hoped this battery might disconnect whatever noise was coming from the iMac, but it hasn't. On the plus side, that little bit of noise right before and after a track with the iusb power supply and dragonfly? Not present at all when replacing the dragonfly with the iDSD or iDac. Step 4) Sound. The best might just be the iDSD when running DSD from very very early impressions, but I need more tracks to really say. And this would be by a smidge over the iDac running flac files. 320 mp3s also sounded great. I'd say with pcm only the iDac is best, followed by the dragonfly and the iDSD slightly behind that. However, the iDSD will do 192/24 (and more I think) while the dragonfly is stuck at 96. Good enough for me, but a no go if I can't eliminate the imac & dragonfly hum. Step 5) Try to find a cheap way to fix my iMac's hum so I don't need a separate power conditioner and revisit the three dacs. The iDSD is just large enough to be burdensome on the go, with the dragonfly a clear winner there size wise. All sound great for the money, and for the iDSD specifically, if you're more infatuated with DSD I wouldn't hesitate. If PCM only for small home situations, the iDac, and for the road warrior, the dragonfly. Which is still quite good for home use (limited by 96/24). Additional notes: All that said, for my speaker setup I need a certain volume to really find my foot tapping. So I may end up getting a much better dac / preamp combo which can handle lower volumes better. Also, more and more the iDac is the winner among my shootout, enough so to make up for the iDSD feature set and portability and price difference - for my needs. If you want like DSD, want it portable, compatible with iphone ipad etc, definitely get it.

Hi Paddlefoot. I just bought this one, along with a dragonfly, idac, and iusb power supply from ifi. DSD isn't a real concern for me, but I'm enjoying a free track now and to be honest it sounds better than many hi-res pcm tracks I have. I guess that makes sense as it's marketed as a DSD device (which has pcm thrown in for good measure). I'll be making my decision shortly what to keep. Pardon the long explanation, but here's why I went a bit ocd on this. Step 1) I initially bought the dragonfly 1.2 for my imac to feed my mcintosh 275 amp directly. There was a shit ton of noise, so I tried connecting it to my macbook pro. Perfect. Sounds great for $150, though it lacks a little bass through my speakers (headphones were fine here). Step 2) Well, shit. I wanted it for my 2011 imac, and it turns out this noise through the usb is very, very common on this particular model. Let me try ifi's iusb power supply. Very near perfect addition. I could still hear a very slight hum through my imac->iusb->dragonfly->amp&speakers path just before and after starting a track. Just enough to bother me. For what it's worth, when running through my macbook pro I didn't hear a great improvement in the sound by adding the iusb power supply, so if I only used the macbook pro I'd probably not spend the $200 there. Step 3) The iDSD and iDAC arrived a couple of hours ago. They didn't show up straight away, and there was a bit of unplugging and plugging in and crossing fingers... but once they're a go they're pretty consistent. Again, I'm plugging my amp directly into the headphone jack of these units and using the volume control there. The reason I tried the iDSD is because the literature said the power supply was always run from the battery inside the unit, which was charged from the usb. I had hoped this battery might disconnect whatever noise was coming from the iMac, but it hasn't. On the plus side, that little bit of noise right before and after a track with the iusb power supply and dragonfly? Not present at all when replacing the dragonfly with the iDSD or iDac. Step 4) Sound. The best might just be the iDSD when running DSD from very early impressions, but I need more tracks to really say. And this would be by a smidge over the iDac running flac files. 320 mp3s also sounded great. I'd say with pcm only the iDac is best, followed by the dragonfly and the iDSD slightly behind that. However, the iDSD will do 192/24 (and more I think) while the dragonfly is stuck at 96. Good enough for me, and for $150. Step 5) Try to find a cheap way to fix my iMac's hum so I don't need a separate power conditioner and revisit the three dacs. The iDSD is just large enough to be burdensome on the go, with the dragonfly a clear winner there size wise. All sound great for the money, and for the iDSD specifically, if you're more infatuated with DSD I wouldn't hesitate. If PCM only for small home situations, the iDac, and for the road warrior, the dragonfly. Which is still quite good for home use (limited by 96/24). I'll spend maybe 20 minutes trying to find more trial dsd material but it's not a huge concern for me. Hope that helps.