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[moophone]

I have an Exasound E20 DAC with JRiver 22. If I enable upsampling to 4xDSD, it stutters like crazy. If I increase the Exasound buffer from 50ms to 500 it plays, but after a while the stuttering will return (probably as it slowly eats away at the larger buffer)

What I don't understand is why. Its: Gigabyte Core i3-5010U Ultra Compact Mini PC Barebone Support 2.5-Inch HDD (GB-BXi3H-5010) running Windows 10, 8GB ram. This is the only thing running on it.

CPU Usage is only 25% or so which is why I'm wondering why it is stuttering. Its clearing not maxing out the CPU. I'm playing files from my synology NAS and it doesn't seem to matter if I play back from memory or not.

What can I do to fix this?

[moophone]

I went ahead and just placed an order for a new NUC - this one will be i7-6600U based with 16GB DDR4, so if that stutters as well there is seriously something wrong.

I'd still appreciate any insight into getting my existing setup working as expected given the low CPU usage...

[Awesome Donkey]

Converting to DSD, as far as I know, is one of if not the biggest CPU taxing features in MC.

[DJLegba]

Those are Higgs boson particles. They are a response to the negative mass lost when you create something from nothing.

[moophone]

Your attempt at humour notwithstanding? More accurately, I am creating less/different "something" from "nothing". I am bypassing the DAC's internal multiple levels of upsampling by feeding it with the highest capable resolution and letting the software do it.

Those are Higgs boson particles. They are a response to the negative mass lost when you create something from nothing.

[DJLegba]

^ I apologize for the attempt at humour. I so often want to but resist in almost all cases. This time I was weak.

I have an e22 and I'm very happy with whatever it's doing internally. It's all software, even if the hardware does it. I have more faith in the software used by exaSound.

[moophone]

It was a pretty good attempt - don't let me discourage you!

^ I apologize for the attempt at humour. I so often want to but resist in almost all cases. This time I was weak.

I have an e22 and I'm very happy with whatever it's doing internally. It's all software, even if the hardware does it. I have more faith in the software used by exaSound.

[Ninouchka]

Just some questions to exasound owners, I would like to add DSD to my recording studio, which I am a noob at (DSD).
I always used wav and flac multichannel to create my 7.1 files. No problem with low latency 5 ms while recording with asio with my RME audiocard.
But if you tell that you have to up the buffer to 500 for DSD4, I wonder if I can achieve my goal with the E28 MkII?
Is the difference between DSD and DSD2 or DSD4 that big for our ears, if the original recording is DSD?
I want to hear this, so I better make contact with exasound for a demonstration.

The music you listen too, is this always upsampled, or do you buy original DSD files? I would update my two PC's to at least the new 6 Core CPU's.
And from the exasound E28 straight via the xlr's to yamaha powered studio speakers.

[DJLegba]

Just some questions to exasound owners, I would like to add DSD to my recording studio, which I am a noob at (DSD).
I always used wav and flac multichannel to create my 7.1 files. No problem with low latency 5 ms while recording with asio with my RME audiocard.
But if you tell that you have to up the buffer to 500 for DSD4, I wonder if I can achieve my goal with the E28 MkII?
Is the difference between DSD and DSD2 or DSD4 that big for our ears, if the original recording is DSD?
I want to hear this, so I better make contact with exasound for a demonstration.

The music you listen too, is this always upsampled, or do you buy original DSD files? I would update my two PC's to at least the new 6 Core CPU's.
And from the exasound E28 straight via the xlr's to yamaha powered studio speakers.

First, in reply to the original poster's question, while normally I do not upsample, I did experiment with upsampling to DSD, DSD2, and DSD4. I also got the Higgs boson effect when upsampling to DSD4. My NUC has a lowly i3, but the CPU utilization wasn't pegged. I didn't experiment further, as I have no trouble playing native DSD4 material and I'm not interested in upsampling.

As for your question, when playing DSD sources it's not necessary to use a large buffer. I left MC at the default setting of 50ms. DSD, DSD2, and DSD4 all play flawlessly. I buy almost all of my DSD material at nativedsd.cm, which claims that everything listed is sourced from DSD masters or analog tape. I have also bought some DSD downloads from prostudiomasters.com, but only when I am reasonably confident it's not something converted from a PCM original.

Could I identify the hi res format in a listening test? No. In general I don't pay attention to the source format when listening to music, but over the past couple of years when I've been impressed enough by the sound to bother looking, more often than not it's DSD. I have only a handful of DSD4 recordings, but they sound very good indeed.

Finally, George at exaSound is very helpful. You can find his contact info on the exaSound web site.

[kr4]

Is the difference between DSD and DSD2 or DSD4 that big for our ears, if the original recording is DSD?
I want to hear this, so I better make contact with exasound for a demonstration.

IMHO, not big.  There are other, more important things.