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I have a rather nice Gold Note DS-10 Plus streaming DAC, which will "play nice" with DSD 64 files served up to DS-10 Plus through its Ethernet socket; I use the GN control app to do that, pointing the DS-10 to the MinimServer-managed material on the Multimedia folder of my QNAP NAS dive. Where I need help from gurus here is in understanding how to get higher-res DSD files (up to DSD 512 f/s, in theory, according the User Manual for the DS-10 Plus) recognised and played by the Gold Note DS-10 Plus. The User Manual for the DS-10 Plus makes it clear that such >64 f/s DSD files need to be fed to it via the USB B socket on the rear panel. Link to the manual: https://www.goldnote.it/download/manual/DS-10.pdf But how to achieve that, and what control software to use? As I understand it, the USB standards only accommodate a maximum USB cable length of 5 metres. I could perhaps drag my (large) MacBook pro into the same room as the hi-fi kit, and connect a USB C to USB B cable from the MacBook to the back of the DS-10 Plus, and juggle with e.g. Audirvana Plus or some other fancy software on the MacBook to do this .... but that seems a horribly clunky approach (and rather ties up my MacBook). I'm asking because I've downloaded a few DSD 128 and DSD 256 files (via NativeDSD and HDTT), and I'd like to appreciate what they have to offer. through the DS-10 Plus, which is not cheap, and which is clearly specified as able to recognise DSD files of high resolution, up to 512 f/s. I realise this is an extremely basic question, am just looking for suggestions for a practical way to get high-res DSD files into the DS-10 Plus through its rear panel USB B socket ... Can some helpful soul to whom this is more obvious perhaps help here? (If it helps, I am not a ROON user - should I be? The DS-10 Plus is I believe ROON-certified.) Thanks in advance ... Sidemounter, Guildford, UK QNAP NAS drive, Naim HDX-SSD, Gold Note DS-10 Plus + Gold Note PSU, Linn Klimax 320A (active) speakers, Sunfire Signature sub-woofer

I have just read a positive review in July number of Italian magazine AudioReview about this new little DAC from Project http://www.box-designs.com/main.php?prod=preboxs2digital&cat=s2-line&lang=en A very reasonable entry level price for experimenting with MQA, but apparently not at all entry level performance. Main specs from Pro-Ject infosheet: • Dual mono construction • High end ESS Sabre ESS9038 dual DAC • Proprietary clock circuity design • Organic polymer capacitors and thin film miniMELF resistors • MQA hardware decoding • DSD64, DSD128, DSD256 & DSD512 (DSD over PCM) • Up to 24bit/192kHz for optical & coax inputs • 7 selectable digital filter characteristics • 1 proprietary optimum transient digital filter • Headphone output on the front (6.3mm) • Synchronization of all internal oscillators • Jitter as low as 100 Femtoseconds! • Gold plated four layer PCB • Full alu/metal sandwich casing in silver or black SRP: € 349,00

I have just completed installing an Intel Skull Canyon NUC6i7KYK motherboard into an Akasa Galactico fanless chassis: NUC6i7KYK 8GB DDR4 SODIMM Samsung 850 EVO 1TB M.2-2280 SATA SSD Akasa Galactico case Windows Server 2016 OS HQPlayer 3.16.4 This NUC can deliver stutter-free playback of 24/192K or 24/352.8K (DXD) PCM upsampled to DSD512 going out USB with the following settings: Poly-sinc-xtr-mp-2s AMSDM7 512+fs CPU utilization is about 52% when upsampling 24/192K to DSD512. A thank-you to @tboooe for providing these settings. I did have to set Windows power plan to "High performance" and enable "Multicore DSP" in HQPlayer for the DSD512 output to be stutter and crackle free. By itself, the Skull Canyon NUC has by far the noisiest cooling fan among all the NUCs, and that fan doesn't stop even when the unit idles in Windows, so the stock NUC really has no place in the listening room. This is where the Akasa fanless chassis comes in. From what I can tell, the passive thermal solution works very well to cool the 45W Core i7-6770HQ CPU, using four heat pipes and large cooling fins. I suspect this NUC6i7KYK is possibly the only Intel NUC model that's up to the job of up-sampling PCM to DSD512. It takes a 4-core/8-thread recent generation CPU with a high turbo frequency, since there is no NVIDIA CUDA offload option. The Core i7-6770HQ mobile Skylake CPU makes the NUC6i7KYK the highest performing NUC in retail today. Even the Core i7-7567U Kaby Lake CPU in the latest NUC7i7BNH Kaby Lake NUC is only dual-core/4-thread with a smaller cache. There are of course many other ways to build a PC for running HQPlayer, but this NUC6i7KYK just meets the "up-sample-to-DSD512" mark. It may not be the most energy-efficient either, as another fanless PC I built with Core i7-6700T (35W Skylake desktop) CPU is ironically less power hungry with the same workload. The lower NUCs are easily made into NAA boxes, but it takes the NUC6i7KYK for HQPlayer to pull off up-sampling to DSD512.

At Munich 2018, Rohm demoed a prototype DAC chip which they boast of: DSD512 S/N 130db THD -115db How it sounds? Who was there to listen and report? This is a salient point, power line impedance and how the DAC interacts. This means even more concentration on the quality of power supplies! Current conversion is not a new technique, but it does have a few plusses! Usually a downside to demos that look good, the reality of delivery