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  #41  
Old 02-28-2017, 07:19 PM
birdland birdland is offline
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I received an update today that Wyred 4 Sound worked on this issue yesterday with some progress but no definitive cause and resolution.

Last edited by birdland; 03-03-2017 at 02:15 PM.
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  #42  
Old 03-03-2017, 02:54 PM
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Wyred4Sound Wyred4Sound is offline
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Hi all,

We wanted to give everyone an update on our progress toward resolving some recently reported issues related to DSD playback with the 9038PRO chip. First, we sincerely appreciate the patience of those affected during the past week. It has been all hands on deck at Wyred, essentially dropping everything to address this.

To recap and summarize, this issue can manifest itself as scratchy, poppy, hissing or other unintended sonic artifacts while playing DSD files specifically. Some have reported this only with DSD 256 playback, but others have reported no problems whatsoever. This inconsistency certainly made things more difficult to troubleshoot, however, we were able to replicate things on our end and thus address them.

The first issue we found was heat-related. Due to their clock and processing requirements, DSD files can generate much more heat on the chip than PCM files. During some DSD playback, we found that excessive heat could be directly related to some sonic anomalies. We were told that the chip was pin-compatible which it is, however, the 9038 has a thermal pad where the 9018 does not. Despite the datasheet noting that the exposed thermal pad can be left floating, we found that with higher sample rate playback, it is necessary to be connected for proper cooling. When we cooled the chip down, these issues went away. Our solution is to add a custom-made heatsink for the chip so we can avoid this altogether, since the original design with the 9018 didn’t have the thermal pad designed into the PCB. This has proved to work extremely well.

The second issue we found was related to erroneously defaulting bits within a register which were undisclosed in the datasheet. This was causing another set of sonic irregularities. When we were able to gather the correct information and reprogram the register, the issues went away.

One other thing we’d like to point out is that during testing using the latest Roon 1.3, we’ve found that it seems to be having its own playback issues, either with a ’transport load’ error or some strange sonic artifacts during playing and pausing a DSD track. Please be aware that this is unrelated to the ESS issues and we are confident the guys at Roon will sort things out shortly.

After finding and addressing these areas mentioned above, playback has been clean. For those that have an upgraded DAC, please be on the lookout for our direct email to resolve any issues you may be having. Those with DACs currently in for upgrade, thank you for patiently waiting; you can expect shipping next week. It’s important to note that if you are not experiencing issues, we do not feel you need to worry about anything. There are only a handful of customers who have reported issues. Others have reported having none. If you are in the latter camp, please continue enjoying your DAC.

Lastly, we’d like to add that we’re thankful for being such a small and customer-centric company that and quickly adapt and correct on such short notice. We truly appreciate all of your support. We still feel that the new 2v2 DACs are among the finest available on the market today, and despite these small, very specific DSD playback anomalies, the new 2v2se with the 9038PRO chip is groundbreaking in what it has achieved.

We can always be contacted directly at support@wyred4sound.com.

Thanks,
Tony and EJ
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  #43  
Old 03-04-2017, 01:32 AM
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LovingMusic LovingMusic is offline
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Thanks for the update, Tony and EJ. Glad to see you guys are on it.
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  #44  
Old 03-09-2017, 05:37 PM
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Follow up: To those of you who sent their DACs to us for upgrade, we sent a recent update email to you. We are still planning on beginning to ship DACs back this week. Depending on what we can get to, some will ship this week and any remaining into next week. When your DAC ships, you will receive an email from us with tracking information. We're working as quickly as we can; your continued patience is sincerely appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony
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  #45  
Old 03-11-2017, 04:01 PM
birdland birdland is offline
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Default DSD noises are OUT OF HERE!

I recently was asked to to ship my upgraded DAC back to Wyred 4 Sound to fix the odd noise issues when playing DSD files. I got the DAC back and I am happy to report that the DSD noise issues are completely gone! This is good news for me since I have a large collection of DSD based files.

I tried to up-sample CD resolution files to DSD256 with no issues. I played every bitrate I had: 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz, 352kHz, DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256. Again, I had no problems whatsoever. The Wyred 4 Sound team fixed all of the problems. Kudos to them AND they fixed a broken RCA output jack for free.

I have been listening to the DAC-2v2SE even though it only has around 120 hours on the new ESS 9038PRO chip. Here is a summary of the improvements I hear as compared to the DAC-2 DSDse before the upgrade:
  • instruments are better articulated; there are nuances revealed that were not easily discernible before or very hard to hear
  • the sound stage seems to be a bit wider
  • sounds in general are fuller than they were before
  • sound stage has more layers than before making my Martin Logan SL3s disappear which is a hard thing to do especially in my 'room'
  • bass is tighter

I haven't had a chance to play with all of the filters yet. My last listening session had the IIR set to 50K and Filters set to Apodizing fast rolloff, linear phase. Volume is set to FIXED as I am using a pre-amp and USB input MAX is set to 64 so I have more leeway with the pre-amp's volume control. Jitter is still set to the default of '***'.

This is very nice upgrade and well worth it IMHO. Of course, I no longer have my DAC-2 DSDse with the 9018 chip to compare. However, I do have an OPPO BDP-105 with the same chip. The OPPO had a similar sound to the DAC-2 DSDse. Sometime soon I will compare the upgraded DAC to the OPPO.

Now, I have to say that I am not using my under powered laptop to play music as I was before I shipped the DAC a second time to Wyred 4 Sound. I am setting up a new laptop to replace my wife's laptop. It is a Windows 10, I7 based laptop. I will have to use the older laptop to see if any of the sound stage changes are due to the new laptop.

Last edited by birdland; 03-11-2017 at 04:06 PM.
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  #46  
Old 03-13-2017, 12:35 PM
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Wyred4Sound Wyred4Sound is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by birdland View Post
I recently was asked to to ship my upgraded DAC back to Wyred 4 Sound to fix the odd noise issues when playing DSD files. I got the DAC back and I am happy to report that the DSD noise issues are completely gone! This is good news for me since I have a large collection of DSD based files.

I tried to up-sample CD resolution files to DSD256 with no issues. I played every bitrate I had: 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz, 352kHz, DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256. Again, I had no problems whatsoever. The Wyred 4 Sound team fixed all of the problems. Kudos to them AND they fixed a broken RCA output jack for free.

I have been listening to the DAC-2v2SE even though it only has around 120 hours on the new ESS 9038PRO chip. Here is a summary of the improvements I hear as compared to the DAC-2 DSDse before the upgrade:
  • instruments are better articulated; there are nuances revealed that were not easily discernible before or very hard to hear
  • the sound stage seems to be a bit wider
  • sounds in general are fuller than they were before
  • sound stage has more layers than before making my Martin Logan SL3s disappear which is a hard thing to do especially in my 'room'
  • bass is tighter

I haven't had a chance to play with all of the filters yet. My last listening session had the IIR set to 50K and Filters set to Apodizing fast rolloff, linear phase. Volume is set to FIXED as I am using a pre-amp and USB input MAX is set to 64 so I have more leeway with the pre-amp's volume control. Jitter is still set to the default of '***'.

This is very nice upgrade and well worth it IMHO. Of course, I no longer have my DAC-2 DSDse with the 9018 chip to compare. However, I do have an OPPO BDP-105 with the same chip. The OPPO had a similar sound to the DAC-2 DSDse. Sometime soon I will compare the upgraded DAC to the OPPO.

Now, I have to say that I am not using my under powered laptop to play music as I was before I shipped the DAC a second time to Wyred 4 Sound. I am setting up a new laptop to replace my wife's laptop. It is a Windows 10, I7 based laptop. I will have to use the older laptop to see if any of the sound stage changes are due to the new laptop.
Really appreciate your thoughts, @birdland! We're glad that the previous issues you experienced are gone for you as well. We also think that the improvements to the upgraded DAC are readily apparent compared to the previous version. Let us know your thoughts after you get more time on the new chip. We feel things will just get better with burn in.
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  #47  
Old 03-15-2017, 06:13 PM
birdland birdland is offline
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So the DAC now has over 200 hours on it and I don't think I can add more to what I said before except maybe the DAC is a bit more organic than it was many hours ago.

A couple of weeks ago, I found frequency graphs of the various filters for the 9028/9038 chips. I thought I saved the URL but I cannot find it and I cannot seem to find the link in a search engine.

It would be really nice to see the various curves.
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Digital W4S DAC-2v2SE, W4S Recovery powered by Uptone Audio LPS-1, OPPO BDP-105; Office: iFi micro iDAC2 Home Office: iFi nano iDSD with iPurifier2
Analog Rega Planar 2 (original) heavily modified; Benz Micro Ace; Aesthetix Rhea phono pre-amp
Pre-amp/amp Audio Research REF 5SE, Audio Research REF 150, Martin Logan SL3s, Shunyata Research power cords throughout
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  #48  
Old 03-15-2017, 06:52 PM
paulphoosreal paulphoosreal is offline
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The frequency chart doesn't really show much change between 9026PRO and the 9028-9038. Where the differences occur is in S/N and Dynamic Range. I have the Dac1V2 and I am blown away! I've been in the business as CEDIA installer and consumer. Never,ever have I heard the difference in sound quality that I experienced with this DAC. I'm sure their are further benefits as you go up to the top. But for me and my ears this is the waaay biggest improvement in my system I ever made and that includes getting my Aerial 7Ts.
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  #49  
Old 03-15-2017, 07:22 PM
birdland birdland is offline
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Actually, I wasn't talking about S/N or Dynamic Range. I was talking about how the frequency is rolled off as you reach 20kHz. The various filters start rolling off the high frequencies either later or earlier. Also, at least one has less pre-ringing.
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Digital W4S DAC-2v2SE, W4S Recovery powered by Uptone Audio LPS-1, OPPO BDP-105; Office: iFi micro iDAC2 Home Office: iFi nano iDSD with iPurifier2
Analog Rega Planar 2 (original) heavily modified; Benz Micro Ace; Aesthetix Rhea phono pre-amp
Pre-amp/amp Audio Research REF 5SE, Audio Research REF 150, Martin Logan SL3s, Shunyata Research power cords throughout
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  #50  
Old 03-16-2017, 10:48 AM
paulphoosreal paulphoosreal is offline
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I've experimented with different settings on this DAC. I've found you can subtly change the sound depending on the filter you select on the menu available. My best results were with W4S default setting. Yes. There is a difference and only you can decide what sounds the best to your ears. All DACs run the full frequency spectrum. It's the bells and whistles that accompany them that make the difference. Choosing where you want to run the setting is personal choice. I have run the new OPPO DAC as well with the 9038 Pro and didn't think it's performance was near as good as the DAC1V2. Even with a supposedly "better chip". Again, we all hear differently. Good luck!
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