ddps

I am not sure what you are doing, but even USB2 bandwidth @ 480mbps is more than adequate for playback of things like DSD512 @ 44.8mbps. I have never had performance problems with cheap USB2 drives playing any audio files even up to DSD512. Are you sure your drive doesn’t have some “advanced“ power saving issues that are causing your problems?

Appears to be a XU216-256-TQ128-C20

I received my upgrade recently. The good news? The fade-in issue is solved versus the DA1. Plus, my Linux-based devices can now directly stream DSD128 and DSD256 (I don't have any DSD512 content to try yet). I do love that. The sound quality isn't appreciably different from the DA1. It does seem that it isn't as well level-matched as the DA1 (I seem to need 1.5 dB of gain to get it to be equal to the analog inputs), which is....odd. It uses the ES9028PRO DAC, not the 9038, which might explain the lack of appreciable sound improvement over the DA1. It also has a Cirrus Logic CS495314-CVZ onboard, ostensibly to take care of the DSP and HDMI features that are touted.

Yes, this is because the Altair itself is what is doing the rescan, and the iPad app is just displaying the Altair's database in more or less real time. Your iPad could be away or turned off, and the rescan would still happen.

Review from Positive Feedback: Auralic Altair

I have not noticed any bass insufficiency fwiw.

My preference is to use the Synology software that includes all my playlists that I can access from anywhere, and that allows me to edit metadata as I listen. I covered this in detail in an earlier post.

Since there are clearly a lot of opinions on this forum about using Lightning DS, I thought I should share a few extra tidbits about the drawbacks from my perspective. First off, when I made the switch to using a NAS for my music, I did it to achieve several benefits: I wanted to move away from iTunes and the confusing, unreliable mess it had become. I wanted to ensure that when I got new music, which I do 2-3 times per week at a minimum, I could put it in one single place without having to "sync" the multiple devices I would play that music from. Additionally, I wanted metadata updates to that music (tweaks to years, song titles, etc.) to be made once, and appear everywhere, without additional work. I wanted to move to having the option of either compressed or lossless music wherever I was (I have a large CD collection dating back to 1983, as well as HD audio from more recent years; 93% of my music collection is CD quality or better). I wanted to be able to create curated playlists and smart playlists that were accessible by anyone using the NAS, so that even playlists were centralized. The net result is, anybody in my household can listen to the NAS wherever they are in the world, at any time, losslessly if they would like, and they all get up-to-date metadata and the latest music, without me doing a huge amount of work to make that happen. So, now adding Lightning DS into the mix - which, thankfully, I am not forced to use - creates the following issues: In Lightning Server mode, which is when Lightning DS is at its most reliable, it's not automatically synced to my music. I have to refresh/rescan my music every time I make an addition to the collection or update metadata (which is fairly often, because music is a huge hobby for me.) Lightning DS does not ingest the .m3u playlists that sit on my Synology, so I have to read them using Lightning DS' media server browsing mode (they are in a folder), wait for the tracks to load (which takes a long time), hit "Add to playlist", and finally create a new playlist, which luckily remains available when I am in Lightning Server mode, but which retrieves the tracks a little slowly. Of course, if I update the playlist on the Synology, I have to take action once again on the Lightning Server app. I cannot manage and edit playlists in Lightning DS while I am listening in a way where they feed back so that they are available to everyone using the Synology. Oh, and while I am at it, where is the option to shuffle playback of my entire music collection? Basically, having a separate app (Lightning DS) removes the centralization of metadata and music management that is so delightful about digital music servers today: where your music and playlists are available across browsers and mobile apps in identical form, wherever you and your family are, all up-to-date and as perfect as it can be, every day, with minimal effort. If Auralic were to do what other competing players do - and display the sampling rate on the screen of the unit the way that we know that it can (because it does so in AirPlay mode as well as when it's in pure DAC mode), then this would help users verify that the device was indeed playing an unadulterated file that didn't get transcoded somehow, and also help us all know, at a glance, what kind of file we were listening to without a lot of work. An alternative would be to have Lightning DS show the operational status of the Altair when it was being used as a DLNA renderer (which Teac's app did, FWIW). The current Lightning DS displays no playback status when the Altair is a DLNA renderer. Sad. One note after my first few weeks: I have found that, unlike the Teac and other units I was using prior to the Altair, the current Altair firmware disconnects occasionally when music is being pushed to the device via DLNA/DS Audio/Audio Station (that is, when the Altair is being used as a DLNA renderer). This is sad and almost feels like they are trying to surreptitiously push people to using Lightning DS. Let's hope not. I wrote Auralic support with this and hope they can fix this soon.

That is true - I already have that set. The Teac I was using previously showed this, so I know it is working properly, including for .DSF (DSD) files. Drew

Indeed. The Lightning DS software is buggier than average.

I have found Lightning DS buggy. Try deleting the app and reinstall it. What kind of NAS are you using? If it's a Synology, I suggest you might not need to use Lightning DS at all.

Yes, it does gapless DSD streaming, at least with Lightning DS. I still prefer my Synology DS Audio app, even though it doesn't support gapless, and I still hope Auralic can add sampling rate to the display as an option in lieu of time. Sound is great. For my setup I have been enjoying the "Balanced" filter mode the best. I am using it in a very "live" room with a lot of glass and wood surfaces, however, so YMMV, but that's why we buy configurable products, isn't it I have been enjoying music immensely and not thinking too much about the unit itself, which to me means the purchase has been a success!

I thought I made it clear that I don't want to use Lightning DS, as it doesn't support many features of the Synology DS Audio app that are key for me. Also, it's cumbersome to have to keep updating the cache of another app when I don't need to do that with DS Audio. Drew

In that I could not tolerate the muddy sound of the Teac, I would say, yes, it's worth twice the price. The Teac's case and switches were very luxe, but the overall execution was, IMO, more gimmicky than good sounding. I do believe that it's probably difficult to use one DAC per channel (as the TEAC does) and get the timing synchronization to be perfect between the two chips. I don't really understand the point of doing that, given that most modern DACs can decode 7 channels of parallel sound at a time on one chip. If you want to know how I notice the difference, well, one nice DSD track I have is from SA-CD.net - Carpenters: The Singles 1969-1981 - "We've Only Just Begun." When Karen sings "...to live" in the very opening line of the song, I always enjoy the way her voice breaks up a little - the emotion is just perfect. On the NT-503, I could barely hear that - it was pretty much "smoothed out," and the only thing I can attribute that to is the left and right channels kind of being out of sync with one another, diminishing the sound through an interference effect. One other strange thing about the Teac was that, when I used my Synology to push many high resolution FLACs from HDTracks to the unit, the sound got all broken up after 30 seconds or so of playing. Teac support could not reproduce that issue. There is no such issue with the Altair. I used an ethernet connection to the Teac as well (that is a big preference of mine - always willing to pay for that whenever possible). I do like that the Teac shows the sample rate and format on the display. Altair should be ashamed that they don't do that. But that is about the only advantage of the Teac. The Teac did not do gapless DSD streaming. I haven't tried that aspect of the Altair yet; I believe it is supposed to do that when using Lightning DS. I can say, however, that whether using Lightning DS or Synology's DS Audio, the track-to-track switching speed is impressive. The Teac was unbearably slow to switch between tracks.

I realize tonight that I said bitrate when I meant "sampling rate." Apologies for any confusion that may have caused.