I was impressed with the Eversolo DAC Z8 after hearing favourable reviews from various sources, my much loved Topping E50 after two years of faithful service was now replaced by the young upstart.
The sound on the Eversolo was clearly better even though I had been listening to my music through DOP rather than native DSD512.
The XMOS ASIO USB driver software for the Eversolo DAC can only handle DOP not native DSD. PCM DOP conversion to DSD maxed out at 256. It worked OK on JRiver, XMOS was totally buggy on FooBar2000. It worked fine also on Resonic, it automatically converted the files to PCM 192KHZ from DSD512, it was OK but I was beginning to miss the extra clarity I was getting from DSD512, when I had the Topping.
If you've listened to DSD at very high resolution, it's difficult to ask for anything less, it has this smooth vinyl quality about it, which is difficult to find on PCM.
The Eversolo Customer Service are trying to help me fix the stability issue on FooBar2000. I'm not sure, it will ever play DSD512 using XMOS drivers. The Topping software just worked out of the box. I'm sure in the course of time, there will be a fix, so I'll make do with DOP for now.
On another forum, someone suggested a work around, namely I can use a CD Transport player such as the Audiolab or one of the elitist brands costing in excess of 4K wha?
Seriously though there's a dearth of CD Transport players on the market and expecting them to play music files from a USB drive and in different formats is almost impossible to find at a reasonable cost, unless you want to pay crazy money for a Lumin player. There are some signs that manufacturers are starting to think and re-evaluate their marketing strategies, a modern CD transport player with those spinning shiny silver things, need to do a lot more than turning 1s and Os into music, there is no room for one trip ponies, it has to do much more, jump the fence, make the coffee, cut the grass. I don't think there's sufficient mass or choice because it holds the niche sector of the market but we are starting to see CD transports with more functionality, integrated DACs or with streamers or all of the aforementioned. Still, it's crazy expensive for many people.
Anyway, after a couple of days of searching, hit it Bono, I found what I've been looking for. I haven't purchased it yet, pay day is next week!
But I shall be ordering from AliExpress (delivery takes a few weeks, hopefully conflict in Taiwan doesn't erupt)
So yes, let me spit it out, it's the JF Digital Pro -MX-1 transport Player. It's a streamer and operates on Android OS, so you can customise to your own liking. Only the MX-3 version has thev built in DAC but the cheaper Pro MX_1 sibling can pump out 32Bit 768KHz DSD512 to an external DAC via USB. It has touch screen and lots of visuals, I love the album covers you can just flick over touching the screen, yes so sad.
Really affordable, £369 plus free delivery.
Yeah finally I get to play native DSD's without it being chopped into bits from PCM DOP conversion but also, I like the idea of separating my PC from my Hi-Fi, the noise from the case fans whoosh, whoosh, is a bit distracting and not having the RGB lighting from the computer blaring at me in different colours, would be welcoming.
Hopefully, when it arrives, I'll feed back to you all but I'm all ears if you have any other suggestions before I say goodbye to my hard earned cash.
The sound on the Eversolo was clearly better even though I had been listening to my music through DOP rather than native DSD512.
The XMOS ASIO USB driver software for the Eversolo DAC can only handle DOP not native DSD. PCM DOP conversion to DSD maxed out at 256. It worked OK on JRiver, XMOS was totally buggy on FooBar2000. It worked fine also on Resonic, it automatically converted the files to PCM 192KHZ from DSD512, it was OK but I was beginning to miss the extra clarity I was getting from DSD512, when I had the Topping.
If you've listened to DSD at very high resolution, it's difficult to ask for anything less, it has this smooth vinyl quality about it, which is difficult to find on PCM.
The Eversolo Customer Service are trying to help me fix the stability issue on FooBar2000. I'm not sure, it will ever play DSD512 using XMOS drivers. The Topping software just worked out of the box. I'm sure in the course of time, there will be a fix, so I'll make do with DOP for now.
On another forum, someone suggested a work around, namely I can use a CD Transport player such as the Audiolab or one of the elitist brands costing in excess of 4K wha?
Seriously though there's a dearth of CD Transport players on the market and expecting them to play music files from a USB drive and in different formats is almost impossible to find at a reasonable cost, unless you want to pay crazy money for a Lumin player. There are some signs that manufacturers are starting to think and re-evaluate their marketing strategies, a modern CD transport player with those spinning shiny silver things, need to do a lot more than turning 1s and Os into music, there is no room for one trip ponies, it has to do much more, jump the fence, make the coffee, cut the grass. I don't think there's sufficient mass or choice because it holds the niche sector of the market but we are starting to see CD transports with more functionality, integrated DACs or with streamers or all of the aforementioned. Still, it's crazy expensive for many people.
Anyway, after a couple of days of searching, hit it Bono, I found what I've been looking for. I haven't purchased it yet, pay day is next week!
But I shall be ordering from AliExpress (delivery takes a few weeks, hopefully conflict in Taiwan doesn't erupt)
So yes, let me spit it out, it's the JF Digital Pro -MX-1 transport Player. It's a streamer and operates on Android OS, so you can customise to your own liking. Only the MX-3 version has thev built in DAC but the cheaper Pro MX_1 sibling can pump out 32Bit 768KHz DSD512 to an external DAC via USB. It has touch screen and lots of visuals, I love the album covers you can just flick over touching the screen, yes so sad.
Really affordable, £369 plus free delivery.
Yeah finally I get to play native DSD's without it being chopped into bits from PCM DOP conversion but also, I like the idea of separating my PC from my Hi-Fi, the noise from the case fans whoosh, whoosh, is a bit distracting and not having the RGB lighting from the computer blaring at me in different colours, would be welcoming.
Hopefully, when it arrives, I'll feed back to you all but I'm all ears if you have any other suggestions before I say goodbye to my hard earned cash.
Last edited:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram