Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
I found this from the thread: I was configuring foobar2000 for DSD following the Yulong instructions (http://www.yulongaudio.com/en/shownews.asp?id=32). The foo_dsd_asio driver was not appearing. Then reading the foo_input_sacd component installation readme.txt file I realized that the ASIO Proxy needs to be installed. Yulong instructs to set the foo_dsd_asio PCM do DSD Method to none. This will allow foobar2000 to play PCM as PCM and DSD will be bitstreamed to the DAC as DoP. Then I became curious about this PCM do DSD feature. If you choose any method from the list the driver will upsample the PCM source to DSD. It really works. I installed the latest version (0.6.5), just released. The proxy not only works with foobar2000. It is installed into the Windows and become available to players that use ASIO. I tried it with JRiver MC 18. You just need to select the foo_dsd_asio in the output mode settings. Clicking on "Open Driver Control Panel" will open the driver's control panel window. There you can choose to upsample PCM to DSD. The bitstreaming must be set for Custom/DSD. Do not set DSD over PCM (DoP). I still need more time to decide whether the upsampled output sounds better or not. My first impression is that I liked the original not upsampled better. To my ears the upsampled output sounds smoother but the dynamics is smoothed too. The music sounded slower and less engaging. I only tried the SDM Type A and SDM Type D(FP32). I was using the speakers and still need to experiment the various options with headphones.
To download the latest foobar SACD decoder (includes the ASIO proxy): http://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/foo_input_sacd/ To download just the proxy: http://sourceforge.net/projects/sacddecoder/files/foo_dsd_asio/
I'm not sure whether I have ASIO proxy installed as above mentioned, need to read foo_inpu_sacd readme tonight.
Edit: Disregard that, forget about the sox resampler, just set the foo_dsd_asio to SDM Type B, DOP Marker 0x05/0xFA . I think set DSD64 for 2.8mhz, DSD128 for 5.6. Confirmed working, front panel says USB DSD and filter mode changes to 50,60,70 khz. Used the 64 bit asio binary btw and 64 bit asio output in foobar, though I am running windows 7 x64 so the 32 bit binary didn't even show up in foobar.
Also yes, it seems you need to turn the DA8 on for the usb to recognize, so it should be turned on to ensure the drivers install correctly. Its similar to the audio-gd usb32 in that the usb power seems to come completely from the DA8 itself and not from the computer's 5v line.
Second Edit: Seems its possible to put it into DSD mode using the foo_dsd_asio plugin, then setting the SoX resampler to 384khz. Of course, since the DA8's screen says USB - DSD I have no confirmation its doing just that, but it appears to play, which is a positive step.