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Desertpilot

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  1. I use the Topping G5 for more than a year now. Excellent DAC/AMP and drives my Meze 109Pro beautifully. Separate charging and DAC USB C ports so I can charge it while listening. Will play all codecs. It's about the size of my cell phone but that doesn't bother me. Works "out of the box" with my Android phone. Topping provides a driver that works with my Windows laptop.
  2. I use the Topping G5 DAC/Amp with Meze 109 headsets. When the G5 is attached to my laptop (via USB) I can send all audio codecs including DSD, natively, to the G5. Great. But, I also have a lot of music files stored on my phone's SD card. I tried several players which all downgraded my music to MP3. Finally, I discovered this player, USB Audio Player PRO. It's about $7. It will bypass my phone's audio system and send all audio codecs (including DSD) natively to my G5 DAC. I do not subscribe to streaming services, but apparently this software integrates with streaming services. Marcus
  3. Thanks for posting your thoughts on TRPTK. I am a long time consumer of Brendon's work. I have not tried ATMOS recordings as I prefer 5.0 surround. My most recent purchase is Mattias Spee's "Eclipse, Vol. 2: Hans Henkemans". It is a superb album and I particularly enjoyed the concerto. My download is DXD 352.8/32 (WAV format). Another new release is "Into Eternity". The first three tracks are extremely emotional and sad. See track two on YouTube: The Letter of Vilma Grunwald (Into Eternity). Track four changes direction to delightful chamber/jazz fusion music. This is a powerful performance. Again, I downloaded the album in DXD 352.8/32 (WAV format). I now download direct from TRPTK. Last year, Brendon discussed a complete revamping of his recording/mastering process to get even more sonic improvements: Lower Resolution, Better Sound Quality?. Essentially, he records in DSD 256 and masters in DXD 352.8/64. I think his new process works. Brendon promises to remaster older performances using this new process. He has already done so with "Eclipse, Vol. 1". This is a free download if you previously downloaded the album from TRPTK. I'd like to add another star recording/mastering engineer Bert van der Wolf. I download direct from his revamped website: The Spirit of the Turtle. He also offers ATMOS versions of albums (and binaural for headset users). Since I love solo piano music, my newest downloads are Hannes Minnaar's Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues, Op. 87 (2 DISCS Download) and Hannes Minnaar: Goldberg Variations (2 DISCS Download). Fantastic recordings. We are so blessed to have such dedicated professionals who strive to produce such high quality recordings. Marcus
  4. Hello everyone and Happy Holidays! Since we (ExaSound DAC owners) are audio enthusiasts, I thought this information would be helpful. Up until a few months ago, I primarily relied on Native DSD for high resolution downloads. In fact, Native DSD began offering DXD resolution for many titles which is wonderful. But, recently I have gone to two producer's websites for even more resolution choices. I hope you find this interesting. Bert van der Wolf, Northstar Recording, has completely revamped his own website: The Spirit of the Turtle. His recordings are usually made available through Challenge Classics. However, on his own website he is making available all his work in a variety of formats including, DXD, Binaural (headphones) and Spatial Audio (9.1 format). He is very responsive to inquiries. I emailed him about downloading a collection in surround DXD, the Mendelssohn Symphonies (de Vriend), and he wrote back it was an older recording so he hadn't gotten to "rendering" the master DXD file in surround. Just a few days later he wrote me that he posted the DXD surround files with this comment: "Thanks for pointing out this silly fact, it triggered some more action on this side to finally update more productions to their original source format. It will be many though, so is a lot of work... Apparently Surround is getting more common gradually after all and the appreciation for my preferred format DXD is also growing. A surprise I must admit..." You may want to read his blog post on his new Binaural format for headphones. I purchased one album and used headsets plugged into the S88 headphone jack. Pretty impressive. Binaural Playback. Here's an even more interesting development over at TRPTK. Brendon Heinst is the owner and recording/mastering engineer. In fact, he used to work with Bert van der Wolf before opening his own company. He made a BLOG post this past October called: Lower Resolution, Better Sound Quality? That got my attention. It is a great read and very worthwhile to understand what we are sending to our S88 DAC. Here is the end result of his revamping his entire production chain: "In almost all cases, we recommend the 352.8kHz 24bit FLAC file. It’s relatively compact, and since it’s mastered at 64bit and then converted using Saracon the sound quality is utterly amazing. If you’re adventurous and would like to experiment with adding your own DSP, sample rate conversion, dithering or noise shaping, you can check out the 64bit floating point ones, since that will save you at least one conversion step in the process. It’s actually that simple." I have a few TRPTK albums downloaded from TRPTK. He says they've remastered, using the new process, all albums, so I will re-download them and take a listen. When I buy another album, I'll evaluate if the new production chain does indeed improve sound quality. Technology changes in music production and reproduction continue to advance. Exciting times. Marcus
  5. This thread went a different direction than what I was expecting. Personally, I want no visual stimulation while listening to music (classical surround). In fact, I often wear a soft satin eye mask. I find this greatly improves my listening experience. As to the actual direction of this thread. I have several Blu-ray videos of concerts and there are plenty more on YouTube. I almost never watch them, preferring instead to listen to music without distraction. There is an exception. I have watched concert videos of SACD music I own simply to get a sense of instrument placement and especially vocalists. Once I know how it's all arranged, I will listen to the SACD. If everything is in its proper place, I will smile with satisfaction that I have indeed properly placed my speakers for best soundstage. Marcus
  6. I've enjoyed fooling around with the new preset function. Works perfect. I wish the list of presets were available on the "web dashboard". I like to select music using my Android Pad through JRemote2. I would like to also bring up the ExaSound web page to select a preset. My music server is quite a distance away from my listening position. My server is connected to my S88 via USB. What am I doing now? I have a laptop that lets me "remote" to my server (both are Windows 11). It's a bit clunky using the laptop rather than my pad. But, it works. While setting up the trim presets, I decided to answer my own question about the value of my rear surround speakers. I was playing a few of my new albums recorded/mastered by Bert van der Wolf. He masters music in 5.1. I turned the rear surround trims down to nothing. Whoa! The overall volume of my system (employing just the front three speakers) decreased dramatically. I raised the master volume control to get it back to a similar loudness and the music sounded thin. I began raising the two back surrounds and music was restored to full fidelity. Let me not disparage the need for rear surrounds again! Audiophile stuff is bewildering for sure. I don't hear my rear surrounds like my front speakers but now I know now they create a fulfilling sound in my listening space. I set one preset to "normal". This sets all the trims to an equal volume (established using my handheld SPL meter). No more having to look up the values if I need to go back to normal volume. Another preset for full orchestra. Another preset for solo instruments (solo piano, for example). I love having this capability. My recent music acquisitions (all are 5.1 DXD): Hannes Minnaar: Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues Hannes Minnaar: Bach: Goldberg Variations Simone Lamsma (violin): Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1 Marcus
  7. Thanks to the ExaSound folks! Both the new ExaSound N1 ASIO driver for Windows and the S88 firmware upgrade installed without any issues. I have not tried all the features yet, but they are there. It is comforting to know that ExaSound will improve their products through these upgrades.
  8. What are you getting from your rear surround speakers? I have my speakers set up in ITU format, 3 speakers up front and two speakers behind me. No side surround speakers. Brendon Heinst, recording/mastering engineer from TRPTK, confirmed to me that this is how he mixes surround music. I suspect that this is the standard. During setup I used JRiver test tones, trim settings on my S88 (master volume set to 100%) and my handheld SPL meter to make sure I had equal volume through each speaker to the MLP. I can't hear anything from my rear speakers. They are supposed to provide ambient sound to recreate the concert hall experience. What do I do? I turn up the rear speaker volume using S88 trim controls. This requires precision. Too much gain and the rear speakers "compete" with my front speakers. Too little gain and the rear speakers disappear. Bert van Der Wolf from Northstar says on his website, he uses "Boundary Layer Microphones" (BLM) which he developed with "Sonodore microphones". Essentially, these microphones can better receive "ambient" sounds during a recording session and are mixed to the rear channels of a 5.1 surround system. He says the SPL of the rear speakers can be increased without competing with the frontal soundstage. I have a couple of his recent releases and, Yes, I can increase rear speaker gain without too much interference with my front speakers. I read reviews that praise some recordings for their concert hall "presence" through their rear speakers. I can get an immersive experience, especially with Bert's recordings, but I still don't really get a concert hall experience. I'll keep fiddling with S88 trim controls. But, I'm curious about how you all feel about your rear surround speakers' contribution to your surround experience. Marcus
  9. This is probably my last update. Unless something goes terribly wrong, the NUC12 is a keeper for me as my music server. I went ahead and splurged on a Western Digital 4TB WD Red SN700 NVMe drive. The NUC accepts three NVME drives so I had an empty space for it. The drive is Gen 3 PCIe which was more affordable than 4TB Gen 4 drives. Per Crystal Disc Mark, it clocks in at 3,300 MB/s. That's plenty of speed for music files. Moved all my classical surround files over to it. No more external drives! Updating the JRiver library to locate music files on the new drives is a pain but it's done. I always write all tags to the music files AND JRiver sidecar files. All tags came through just fine. The NUC12 continues to function extremely well as a music server. I did buy some new thermal paste for the CPU but I am not ready for that project yet. I also bought two AC Infinity AIRPLATE S7 external fans (dual 120s). One set for each side of the NUC. I know they are designed for cooling cabinets but they work fine for me in this application, Plus I have AC Infinity cooling for my audio equipment. I have built up lots of trust in their fans. Temps, including the three NVME drives stay cool (45 to 55 degrees C for CPU and 45 degrees C for all three NVME drives). All good. Of course, the NUC12 is music only and no video card so I don't push it very hard. My equipment is in the back of my listening space, about 20 feet away from the MLP. I don't hear any fan noise at all. At some point, I will re-paste the CPU. Maybe then, no need for the fans, we'll see. I've installed a 3rd (and final) filterset, loaded into JRiver's Convolution setting, from Mitch at accurate sound. The NUC handles employing the filterset with ease. No buffering and no hesitation or hiccups. As I said before, I have JRiver convert DSD files to PCM which then employs the filterset. It all comes through perfect. Music is glorious. Should I have built my own server? Yeah, probably. But, I'm tired of building PCs. This works for me. Thanks Marcus
  10. Day 2. The NUC12 continues to perform flawlessly. I added a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro SSD. I loaded on it my Jazz/Swing/Blues albums. JRiver, of course found the files and they play perfectly well. My classical music is over 3TB and is currently on an external 4TB SSD. I probably will add another 2TB drive (max in the NUC 12 is three NVME drives) and load the rest of my music files. For future planning: The NUC12 has two ethernet ports. one port is 2.5 gig and I use it to connect to my LAN. The other port is 10 gig. I am likely to get the 10 gig add-in card for my QNAP NAS and connect it directly to the NUC12. It would be wonderful to play off my NAS (with no hiccups). Safety tip: I tried to load the Samsung NVME 3.3 driver but got an error message. I researched this and it turns out the Samsung driver does not support the Samsung 980 SSD (weird, I know). Do not try to force it to install as the 980 Pro won't use it anyways. Just use the Microsoft driver that installs with Windows 11. Performance of the 980 Pro is tremendous. Both of my drives clock in at over 6,500 MB/s per Samsung Magician. The only concern I have with the NUC12 is CPU temperature. 99% of the time it is between 45 and 55 degrees Celsius. Perfectly normal. However, sometimes, for unknown reasons, the temp will jump to 95 and even up to 98 degrees. I use Core Temp to monitor temps. It is so infrequent that I may ignore it. But, I may get to a point where it will bother me. On my laptop, I had consistently high CPU temps. Tech support was useless. Finally, I repasted the laptop CPU with a high quality thermal paste and high temps were gone forever, no matter the CPU load. So, I may do this with the NUC12. Listening to music is a pleasure. On my laptop, I always had to close out all running programs or I would suffer dropouts and hiccups. This morning, I forgot to close out running programs on the NUC12. There were no issues at all, even while it was crunching high resolution files and applying DSP filters. I am likely to close out programs anyway for listening sessions, but it is nice to know that nothing appears to interfere with playback. I am on a 30 day return schedule. Typically, I let my computers run 24/7, now including the NUC. I'll push it during this return period but at this point, it is a keeper.
  11. My initial plan was to build a music server. Using my laptop, part time, was a hassle plus it often choked on file computations. I've built several computers over the years. I looked at doing it again. But, decided I didn't want to spend the time to research all the parts and build it. I looked at the many servers offered here on Audiophile Style. Too expensive for me. Finally, I watched many reviews of the new Intel NUC 12 (i9 model). Since many audio enthusiasts use NUCs as their music server, especially for ROON, I thought this would get the job done. I was correct. I spent this past weekend installing RAM, (Kingston FURY Impact 64GB (2x32GB) 3200MHz DDR4 CL20), SSD, (SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4), and Windows 11 Pro. RAM and SSD worked perfect. I loaded Windows 11 Pro (I never hook up to the internet until Windows is functioning). Important tip: Download the LAN driver from Intel (LAN-Win10_Win11-27.4) plus the Intel driver updater (Intel-Driver-and-Support-Assistant-Installer) and put it on a USB drive to load after Windows installed. Without it, my LAN (ethernet connection) would not connect. Once the driver was installed I was connected. The driver updater did the rest, including BIOS update. There is another program called Intel_NUC_Software_Studio_Service-v1.15.25.3, that gives you BIOS type functions within Windows. Most important, it lets you turn OFF the LED lighting. I did NOT install a graphics card. I turned off (in BIOS) both the wireless and Bluetooth functions. Once fully loaded, it has performed flawlessly. I use JRiver Media Center as my player along with the ExaSound ASIO driver to USB music files between my NUC and my S88 DAC. Music files are currently loaded onto external SSDs. I could add two more SSDs internally but that will come later. The fans are pretty quiet. I play multichannel classical music, DSD 64 up to 256 and PCM up to DXD 32/352.8. I have convolution filters installed (thanks, Mitch Barnett from Accurate Sound). JRiver won't use the filters on DSD files, so I created a "zone" to convert DSD to PCM. The NUC handles all of this with no buffering or delay. I can switch zones (using JRemote) at the MLP between bitstreaming the file natively to the DAC (when I am playing PCM/DXD music) or convert DSD to PCM when playing a DSD file. I am very pleased with the result. The NUC does everything I need it to do as a music server. Thanks Marcus
  12. Thank you for posting this thread and including Mitch's thoughts. Mitch is working with me right now to "tame" my 5.1 system, using Audiolense XO, through an ExaSound multichannel DAC (S88). I'm very excited to hear what his DSP filters can do for my system. My music is classical surround (nowadays, I typically download the DXD 24/352.8 surround version). I love what I get now but anxious to hear with his filters. Marcus
  13. Hi Steve. I love TRPTK's music. I must have a dozen of their albums. I tried ATMOS and Auro 3D using 2L's releases on Blu-Ray. I really didn't get much from it as it's just ambience. I prefer using my S88 for 5.1. Epic fail today on my channel mapping journey. Yes. I can get the sub signal to my side left and side right channels for independent trim control. Using the test tones (requiring I use 7.1) in JRiver, I can get tones through all the speakers. BUT, when I went to play music only my front three speakers were active. I spent the entire day swapping cable inputs, outputs and changing settings. Nothing worked properly until I went back to my original setup with a Y connector. This was just a "nice to have" capability. I gave up. Funny, along the way I completely confused myself over "side surround" and "back surround". Converting DSD to PCM is working like a charm. Speaker correction is employed. The ExaSound channel trim VU meters show amplitude by each channel. One victory is enough for me.
  14. Nevermind. I figured it out. JRiver (using Parametric Equalizer) offers a remapping capability. I can "copy" the LFE channel to SR and again to SL channels. I will test this out but wanted to let everyone know there is this capability.
  15. A little help. I have two subwoofers. Currently, I use the LFE output (XLR) of my S88 to a Y splitter and then on to each subwoofer. Thus, each subwoofer plays the same LFE content. However, I never use the SL and SR outputs on my S88. Is it possible to hook up each subwoofer separately using the unused outputs and still get LFE to the subwoofers? Example, left sub connects to SL channel and right sub connects to SR channel. Somehow, I would need to route the LFE channel information to the the SL and SR outputs on my S88. Can this be done? I looked at both the S88 owner's manual (I can edit the names of the channels is all I can do) and JRiver Wiki. No luck. Why? I will be analyzing my room with Audiolense XO soon and I'd like to analyze each subwoofer separately. Thanks Marcus
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