exaSound Presents Multichannel DSD Demos at RMAF 2014

bmoura

Well-Known Member
Sep 6, 2013
417
3
248
exaSound, the makers of the 8-Channel e28 DSD DAC, will be featuring demonstrations of Multichannel DSD at the upcoming 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, Colorado in Room 505. The demonstrations will feature the company's e28 Multichannel DSD DAC playing Multichannel DSD Music Downloads through 5 full-range Magnepan 1.7 Speakers.

The 2014 RMAF event will be held from October 10, 2014 to October 12, 2014 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center. If you're planning to attend RMAF or you're in the Denver area, this is a demo worth putting on your calendar to see and hear.
 

edorr

WBF Founding Member
May 10, 2010
3,139
14
36
Smyrna, GA
exaSound, the makers of the 8-Channel e28 DSD DAC, will be featuring demonstrations of Multichannel DSD at the upcoming 2014 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, Colorado in Room 505. The demonstrations will feature the company's e28 Multichannel DSD DAC playing Multichannel DSD Music Downloads through 5 full-range Magnepan 1.7 Speakers.

The 2014 RMAF event will be held from October 10, 2014 to October 12, 2014 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center. If you're planning to attend RMAF or you're in the Denver area, this is a demo worth putting on your calendar to see and hear.

What server software is used for playback?
Is channel trim done in the DAC or on the server. If DAC, is it done in the digital domain or analog?
Is there any way to set channel delay (in the DSD domain) and if so does it happen in the DAC or on the server?
 

mojave

Well-Known Member
Oct 29, 2010
251
0
321
Elkhorn, NE
Great questions, edorr. I don't know the answer to any of them. I haven't seen that the E28 can do any channel trim or delay. Unless something changed, it just has an ASIO driver with no mixer.

exaSound did create a plugin earlier this year that lets the JRiver volume control actually control the DAC's volume control. This works with JRemote, Gizmo, or eos apps.
 

edorr

WBF Founding Member
May 10, 2010
3,139
14
36
Smyrna, GA
Great questions, edorr. I don't know the answer to any of them. I haven't seen that the E28 can do any channel trim or delay. Unless something changed, it just has an ASIO driver with no mixer.

exaSound did create a plugin earlier this year that lets the JRiver volume control actually control the DAC's volume control. This works with JRemote, Gizmo, or eos apps.

If this plug in allows you to do channel trim in the Jriver DSP (not just master volume) in native DSD this solves the biggest problem (i.e. channel trim). With speakers placed roughly equidistant, you can get around missing delay setting. Channel trim is a must in most systems.
 

audioarcher

Well-Known Member
May 6, 2012
1,396
51
970
Seattle area
It does have independent volume control for each channel in its own software. The 8 channel volume control is accessed from an icon in the system tray. It does not appear to have delay capability. Playback software is JRiver or Foobar. Here is a link to their owners manual. http://www.exasound.com/e28/e28OwnersManual.aspx

The volume control resolution is .5 db which is nice. Volume control is done in the digital domain. It is a 32 bit chip so it should not really effect sound quality. I use a 2 channel e20 and find the volume control to be transparent.
 

exa065

New Member
Jan 24, 2012
7
0
0
Toronto
www.exaSound.com
What server software is used for playback?
Is channel trim done in the DAC or on the server. If DAC, is it done in the digital domain or analog?
Is there any way to set channel delay (in the DSD domain) and if so does it happen in the DAC or on the server?

Volume control, including channel trim is done in the DAC. Volume can be controlled from the computer screen, with IR remote control and from the buttons on the front plate. All methods of volume control are synchronized, moving the volume slider with the mouse is indicated on the device display. Changing the volume with the IR remote control moves the volume slider on t he computer screen.

We use a plug-in to synchronize the J River for Windows volume slider with the exaSound hardware volume control. When you use JRiver with the JRemote iPad app, all volume sliders are synchronized. Changing the volume on the iPad touch-screen will be reflected on the DAC display, using the IR remote will adjust all volume sliders on the computer and the iPad.

Setting the volume to 0dB sets exaSound DACs in Volume Bypass mode. Here is how it works. Our drivers always stream the signal at full scale, or 0dB. There is never loss of digital resolution all the way from the player to the DAC chip. When you control the volume, our drives send commands to the DAC chip, and the volume is controlled within the ES9018 chip. When the volume is sat to 0dB, simply there is no volume command in effect.

At this time the only software that can control channel delay for DSD streams is HQ Player.
 

exa065

New Member
Jan 24, 2012
7
0
0
Toronto
www.exaSound.com
If this plug in allows you to do channel trim in the Jriver DSP (not just master volume) in native DSD this solves the biggest problem (i.e. channel trim). With speakers placed roughly equidistant, you can get around missing delay setting. Channel trim is a must in most systems.

The JRiver DSP converts DSD to PCM. If you are interested in naive DSD, you should have JRiver in bitstreaming mode. Bitstreaming disables all DSP processing. Channel trimming is controlled by the exaSound Dashboard and ultimately the volume processing is performed by the Sabre ES9018 chip.

On Mac channel trimming is controlled by the Audio-MIDI Setup application, it works both in Core Audio and ASIO mode. Like with JRiver, we only use the user interface. There is no software volume processing.
 

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