The ***Unofficial*** Multichannel DAC Thread

bonzo75

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Feb 26, 2014
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I spend a lot of time at Barbican, Royal festival Hall, and Wigmore Hall in London. It is precisely for full symphony orchestra and for reproducing, say the brass section in Scheherezade that I experienced in the Barbican that I preferred the Auro 3d Multichannel. That, Bach chorals, and opera duets. For piano box speakers have inherent limitations due to cabinets and I prefer a 2-ch Analysis Audio (the Soundlabs should do the same as the AA). For other baroque stuff, and Cecilia Bartoli arias, it was very good, but not that much better over a good 2-ch system. All that I heard on Auro was upmixed from 2-channel
 

edorr

WBF Founding Member
May 10, 2010
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I spend a lot of time at Barbican, Royal festival Hall, and Wigmore Hall in London. It is precisely for full symphony orchestra and for reproducing, say the brass section in Scheherezade that I experienced in the Barbican that I preferred the Auro 3d Multichannel. That, Bach chorals, and opera duets. For piano box speakers have inherent limitations due to cabinets and I prefer a 2-ch Analysis Audio (the Soundlabs should do the same as the AA). For other baroque stuff, and Cecilia Bartoli arias, it was very good, but not that much better over a good 2-ch system. All that I heard on Auro was upmixed from 2-channel

Orchestral music benefits the most from MCH rendition in my experience with 5.1 discrete MCH sources. It is apparently no different with processed MCH.
 

bmoura

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Sep 6, 2013
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Orchestral music benefits the most from MCH rendition in my experience with 5.1 discrete MCH sources.

Very true when you have some of the excellent Multichannel DSD recordings from Channel Classics, Challenge Classics and Challenge Jazz. Really excellent in 5.1 !
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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Nov 3, 2014
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Unfortunately, for my classic music taste, multichannel is almost non-existent. I buy my classic music irrespective of format, and my collection only includes less than 1% multichannel.

I have trouble comprehending what you are saying. Mch is in my view very strong in the classical repertoire and still growing. In about 7 years since discovering hi rez Mch, I have a collection of 2-3,000 Mch classical albums from SACD and BD-A & V plus downloads. Kal Rubinson at Stereophile has at least that number and perhaps more. Have you not heard of sa-cd.net? I listen to essentially no CD whatsoever, and forget LP. They are not worth my time sonically, in spite of some unsurpassed performances. Are there holes in the available Mch repertoire? Yes, but fewer as time goes by. I have never been happier as a classical music lover/recording collector. Finally, with hi rez Mch I can hear a plausible replica of the frequent live concerts I attend.

I am a recent convert to the superb e28 used with Dirac Live. I have heard no better sound anywhere in my travels and in my extensive networking with other audiophiles. I never thought I would ever be at this level, but it is really beyond my wildest dreams, starting as I did with assembling a basic mono system and buying LPs in my teens with my meager grass cutting and snow shoveling income in high school.
 

bmoura

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Sep 6, 2013
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I have trouble comprehending what you are saying. Mch is in my view very strong in the classical repertoire and still growing. In about 7 years since discovering hi rez Mch, I have a collection of 2-3,000 Mch classical albums from SACD and BD-A & V plus downloads. Kal Rubinson at Stereophile has at least that number and perhaps more. Have you not heard of sa-cd.net? I listen to essentially no CD whatsoever, and forget LP. They are not worth my time sonically, in spite of some unsurpassed performances. Are there holes in the available Mch repertoire? Yes, but fewer as time goes by. I have never been happier as a classical music lover/recording collector. Finally, with hi rez Mch I can hear a plausible replica of the frequent live concerts I attend.

Very true. And we're even seeing that in the DSD Download market.

Well over 300 of the 370+ DSD Downloads on Native DSD.Com are available in Multichannel DSD format. The same is true on the Pentatone Music web site with almost 200 more Multichannel DSD Downloads there. Some excellent Multichannel choices out there - enjoy!
 

bonzo75

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Feb 26, 2014
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bonzo75

Member Sponsor
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London
Interestingly MBL had also set up a Datasat room in one of the shows, read that on audiocircle.
 

edorr

WBF Founding Member
May 10, 2010
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exaSound will be introducing their new Mark II edition of their e28 Multichannel DAC at AXPONA in the Chicago area this weekend. Updates to Mark II will be available to current e28 owners.

View attachment 20058

http://exasound.com/Blog/tabid/74/a...und-Audio-Design-Upgrades-Reference-DACs.aspx

Seems like there is nothing in the MKII that will make it sound better than the MKI though ...... Do you know if they have a MCH system setup playing at Axpona?


New Mark II features include auto–power up after sleep and adjustable power down after inactivity, a maximum volume limiter when the output of either DAC is used to directly drive a power amplifier, and MP3Safe™ software protection against clipping caused by faulty or erroneous signal processing and data manipulation. The limiter allows the e22 and e28 to directly drive a power amplifier while protecting loudspeakers from damaging overloads.

In addition to the firmware and driver components, the hardware has also been upgraded. New features include a new, more substantial and deeply sculpted front escutcheon, the ability to extinguish the display light via the included IR remote, and a 12V Trigger output for the e28.
 

edorr

WBF Founding Member
May 10, 2010
3,139
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Smyrna, GA
The LS1's are a complete ground up system, pre/power, asynchronous USB, A/D and D/A are built in, DSP for crossovers and to correct driver anomolies, Bruno Putzeys (Mola-Mola and hypex) designed the electronics.
Grimm make their own stand alone converters and are quite keen on DSD.
Keith.

What digital source is used and how do you get one channel digital signals into the individual speakers?
 

john925

Well-Known Member
May 3, 2013
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FullSizeRender.jpg
24bit/96kHz/3 channel is upsampled to DSD by HQPlayer

Have no idea if this is the world premiere!!

I've been talking to exD Audio about a multichannel DDC and with his research and effort, it is just released and tested in my system.

I am using a windows server 2012 R2 in core mode with AO, Fidelizer Pro and HQPlayer to do the upsampling to DSD. My MCH DAC is the vintage but still very tough EMM Labs DAC6e SE, which accepts DSD signal via ST Optical. The MCH exD DDC is a usb-based ddc, which can be hooked to the computer. It will convert Dop from the computer to Native DSD and send via ST Optical to EMM Labs DAC.

exD MCH DDC.jpg

I am now very excited about the breakthrough on MCH music playback, especially on computers. Now I don't have the center speaker, but will try to set surround speakers and play some 4.0 music from Pentatone RQR, and will report back.

John
 

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