Sasaki

> My question is, can an MQA encoded CD be ripped and still retain all of the MQA information? Yes you can. I used XLD on Mac and A+3. You only need bit perfect player software for hardware decoding. Also software decoding is possible with a little tweak on A+3. I did it actually and I discussed about it with Damien Plisson and Bob Stuart himself. I wrote two articles about it in Philweb JP audio magazine below. MQA-CD ripping trial http://www.phileweb.com/sp/review/article/201704/17/2496_3.html Interview with Bob Stuart http://www.phileweb.com/sp/interview/article/201707/12/471.html

I live in Tokyo. Physical media has still an edge here. You will find CDs Easily. I recommend you to visit Tower Record Shibuya. This is the biggest store near here. They also carrys premium LPs. http://tower.jp/store/Shibuya If you are looking for more enthusiastic ones, Disc Union families have more categorized stores. Mostly around Shinjuku area. ディスクユニオン･オンラインショップ Enjoy your stay in Tokyo.

I wrote up the preview report of CHORD Hugo (English version). This is based on Hugo preview event in Tokyo above. CHORD HUGO preview report

Hugo preview interview with John Franks has uploaded to Youtube. This would be a good source to English speak fellows. Part1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trype...ature=youtu.be Part2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJWnh...ature=youtu.be The interviewer in the part2 is me Enjoy!

Hugo preview interview with John Franks has uploaded to Youtube. This would be a good source to English speak fellows. Part1 Part2 The interviewer in the part2 is me Enjoy!

John Franks told me the Hugo is a reference grade product. Hugo is not in the Chordette caegory since Qute is a scale down version of QBD but Hugo employs the latest version of the advanced Pulse Array DAC FPGA. > If you've more information, perhaps you can answer a question I have which is > does the volume control work on the line outputs or only the headphone output? Yes the volume control is another highlight of Hugo and it is implemented in FPGA. John told me the volume is of high precision with 32bit depth. Anyway the volume control of prototype Hugo works both of headphone and variable line out (via RCA plug). Though I heard it may be a subject to change with fixed output. I am not so sure about the final spec.

Hugo is not a portable version of QuteEX. QuteEX is a minor update of QuteHD which employs the same generation of Pulse Array DAC of QBD76. Hugo employs new generation Pulse Array DAC (6th generation) that is able to compute 1.5 times better than QBD76. Here is my impression of prototype Hugo( though Japanese text ). Hugo preview event report - Music TO GO!

I did. RaspyFi1.0 is fairly easy to install and use. I hooked it up with xDuoo -01 to test the smallest music server system. RaspyFi and xDuoo -01 sounded very nice, good transparency and have nice bass control. I also used with Schiit Loki to see DSD capability. RaspyFi works well here too. here is my post about this setup. http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/schiit-loki-dsd-only-149-usd-17433/ RapyFi setups are very good value for the cost.

I got my Loki, thanks Jason. I hooked it up with Mac with Ardirvana first. Roki sounded natural and harsh-less while retaining good details and solid imaging. I felt it as fairly DSD-ish sound signature. I next used RaspyFI 1.0 with Roki. RaspyFi is a Raspberry PI + MPD distro which is able to use USB DAC. RaspyFI also supports native DSD playback. I tried both of DSF and DFF. RaspyFI works very well with Roki. They cost only $35(Raspberry PI) + $149(Roki) but they playback hires and also playback native DSD, sound quality is impressive. This is an awesome $200 setup.

Hi exa, thank you for the clarification.

Hi Miska, thank you. I see now I get clear view...

Hi exa, thank you for the response. So how can we use your proprietary driver on Mac OS? That is, does your driver accept DoP1.1 marker and e20 accepts 705.6KHz USB internally? ( I only see one wire on the back) Which Mac player software do you expect to run with DSD256 test?

> DoP is not limited to any particular sampling rate...To my player 05/FA just means "single wire" I see but e20 must support 704KHz via USB anyway to support DSD256. Though e20 only states it supports USB up to 384KHz. I had read Mytek supports 354KHz for DoP when DSD128 engaged. Despite Mytek only supports 192KHz PCM via usual USB input. So I guess e20 may have get similar method by this Firmware update. Yes my concern is only on Mac platform. Because CoreAudio is required. I agree there is some possibilities on Windows. I think DSD256 stream on Mac must be in PCM format to pass through CoreAudio AU. AFAIK only method to pass raw DSD bitstream is integer mode for Mac but the "hole" has been fixed since 10.7 Lion. Only exception would be Direct mode that bypass whole CoreAudio which only Audirvana supports. I wonder if any custom driver may go around this...

I wonder how they managed to playback DSD256 on Mac. DoP does not support DSD256 so far and no ASIO support on Mac OSX AFAIK.. I know some label now provides 5.6M DSD source but I do not know 11.2M DSD source on the market. Also Audirvana and Pure Music does not have software DSD upconvert feature. I think 11.2M would be upconverted internally in the e20 but not sure.

1. Audirvana Plus 2. Chord QuteHD 3. Audio Quest Dragonfly