Exasound E32 DAC Review and Measurements

[Blumlein 88]

I have a few measurement that is not made by me but I think they are okay and i have not manipulated them. First is non isolated
Second is isolated USB

What DAC and what ADC and what isolation?

 

[Bjorn]

Great review. Thanks.
Did you ever measure the Exasound E32 with a different power supply? I see they sell the unit with a Teddy Pardo PS.

I did try a an older multichannel Exsound device some years ago and compared it directly to a Lynx Two-B sound card. The Exasound sounded very non fatiguing. I couldn't get anything to sound harsh with it. However, it was quite clearly lacking in openness and transparency compared to the Lynx. I don't know whether the extremely smooth sound was a result of distortion or not.

 

[Bjorn]

It's quite disturbing by the way they so few manufactures are willing to send their units for reviews with measurements like this.

We're working on a commercial class D power amplifier and I would happily sent it to you for you to test it when it's ready.

 

[amirm]

Great review. Thanks.
Did you ever measure the Exasound E32 with a different power supply? I see they sell the unit with a Teddy Pardo PS.

Don't quote me on this as it has been a while but I thought I did and it only made a difference in mains leakage and nothing else.

 

[Jinjuku]

Hey Amir,

Seems ExaSound has a different take on your measurements. Can you comment/set the record straight:






Ron,
We've been exchanging emails for more than a week regarding a b-stock e38 unit. I've been very patient and I've answered all your questions without delays. For the record, here is our email exchange regarding the e32 measurements published by Amir.



-----------------------

From: Ron
Sent: April-01-18 6:25 PM

Hi Ron,

I’ve seen this “review”. We stand behind our measurements.
https://exasound.com/e32/e32DACMeasurements.aspx



Amir is experiencing an unusual periodic pattern of harmonic distortion which requires investigation, it is not typical. However I am not sure about his emotional state and motif:


• He was within the 30-days trial when he published the review, yet he said “Everyone please shed a tear for me”.
• He never asked us to return or to test his DAC. The source of distortion was never investigated.
• He asked for industry accommodation and he states publicly that he is not happy with the discount after he agreed with the purchase.
• He talks against the use of a switching power supply, but he lost it and he couldn’t repeat the tests.
• It is not clear if he is short-cutting the galvanic isolation during measurements, this can be the explanation of the extra power supply noise that he is talking about.
• He didn’t calibrate his measurements at 0dBfs , which is lazy, unprofessional, disrespectful and misleading.
• He is using equipment with noise floor that is higher than the noise floor of the DAC.
• I am not sure whether he is using the USB or the SPDIF. They are not equal.
• His choice of test signal format is less than optimal (44.1)and with unknown distortions.
• He never discussed the test conditions and the test results with us before publishing them.



He never contacted us after the purchase and we don’t feel like registering to his forum to play his game. Replying to another forum may just bring more bad publicity, so for now we are ignoring Amir.

 

[amirm]

I must say, I am very surprised in the tone of voice in their response. It gets personal which is unprofessional. Anyway, answers below.

Amir is experiencing an unusual periodic pattern of harmonic distortion which requires investigation, it is not typical. However I am not sure about his emotional state and motif:

They should have contacted me if they thought this was unusual. What stopped them???

• He was within the 30-days trial when he published the review, yet he said “Everyone please shed a tear for me”.​

30-day trial? I purchased the unit direct from them at a discounted price (NOT through any ecommerce transaction). It would never occur to me that it would come with any kind of trial. Had I known, I would have likely returned it.

• He never asked us to return or to test his DAC. The source of distortion was never investigated.​

Per above, I didn't think I had return privileges, nor that the device was broken.

• He asked for industry accommodation and he states publicly that he is not happy with the discount after he agreed with the purchase.​

I didn't say I was unhappy with it. This is what I said:

"I asked for accommodation pricing on E32 DAC and I received a good discount. As a professional courtesy I don't want to say how much that is. Suffice it to say it is similar to dealer margin for high-end products. Should this have been a transaction with someone I know, the discount is usually 10 to 20% higher. Still, I thought it was a reasonable offer and I received the unit from Canada a couple of weeks ago."​

I get accommodation pricing from other companies at much deeper discounts. So I stated that as a fact. And that readers should be aware that I am not in Exasound pockets because I received deep/ridiculous discount.

• He talks against the use of a switching power supply, but he lost it and he couldn’t repeat the tests.​

Why are they complaining about this? My lab supply produced better results. They should bank that and not complain.

• It is not clear if he is short-cutting the galvanic isolation during measurements, this can be the explanation of the extra power supply noise that he is talking about.​

Huh? How does an end-user shortcut galvanic isolation inside the unit?

• He didn’t calibrate his measurements at 0dBfs , which is lazy, unprofessional, disrespectful and misleading.​

This is impossible to do. In all of my measurements, I show two different devices with two different outputs. As such, it is impossible to calibrate 0 db to both of them at the same time. I have pleaded with Audio Precision to help solve this problem somehow but for now, the presentation does not allow such calibration. If I were just testing their device, sure, I could set it to 0 dBR.

• He is using equipment with noise floor that is higher than the noise floor of the DAC.​

This shows extreme misunderstanding of how Audio Analysis using FFT works. They should read my tutorial on audio measurements here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/. Briefly, due to power of wider FFTs, we are able gain some 30 dB of noise reduction. That allows us to now see distortion spikes that would normally be hidden to noise.

And why would they complain about this anyway? Using an even better analyzer would uncover more issues in their design, not less!

He is also confused thinking older Audio Precisions don't work as well as the new ones. See this current comparison on Audio Precision website:

Mine is a close cousin of the 2700 on the right. Note that the 2700 beats all but the highest end new generation AP to the left. And it loses by just a few dbs to the APX-555. I have been in communication with Audio Precision to potentially purchase the newer generation units but I have to tell you, the performance gap is exceedingly small, making the huge ($28,000) expense hard to justify.

For their measurements by the way, they used very wide FFTs resulting in artificially lower noise floors.

• I am not sure whether he is using the USB or the SPDIF. They are not equal.​

My bad for not being specific here. This is one of my earlier reviews. Answering anyway, it is USB. Later in other reviews I have shown S/PDIF.

What is not equal about them anyway in a high-end DAC?

• His choice of test signal format is less than optimal (44.1)and with unknown distortions.​

Boy are they confused. The test signals are coming from a file in digital domain. They have no in-built distortions because they are computer generated (sans dither as appropriate).

• He never discussed the test conditions and the test results with us before publishing them.
As it should have been. It is not like they loaned me a free unit for review. I bought the unit for my own use and measured/published the results. And clearly mentioned at the end: "As always, I am open to suggestions, corrections, additional data/comments from everyone." They sat around to complain now and in a different set of communications???

I am not beholding to them on such purchases anyway. If they saw something they did not like, they could contact me just as other manufacturers have. Why would I want to go and chase them when it is not important for them to follow up with me???

• He never contacted us after the purchase and we don’t feel like registering to his forum to play his game. Replying to another forum may just bring more bad publicity, so for now we are ignoring Amir.

Playing games? This is so unprofessional. This is their business. They need act like proper business people. I don't care how they feel. They need to bite their lip and follow up with me and help get better outcome for their devices. And what game am I playing that involves me spending real thousands of dollars to buy this unit???

So that it is clear: my #1 issue with this DAC is the requirement for proprietary drivers. I cannot recommend any DAC this way. Period. Such DACs won't work on Linux devices for example since they have no drivers so forget about using them with any streamer. They know this and it is absent in this reply here. If I were them, I would revise the design and make it UAC2 compliant. I don't care what the performance of the device is. I will always recommend against it if it requires proprietary drivers.

From engineering point of view, I have frequently shown the Exasound to beat all other DACs such as their competitor, Schiit Yggdrasil: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...ents-and-review-of-schiit-yggdrasil-dac.2358/

And in Bryston review: https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...w-and-measurements-of-bryston-bda-2-dac.2388/

Clearly I give them credit where it is due.

So no, I play no games. I measure things and if there is an issue with them, I welcome manufacturers to contact me. When give a discount, I also don't think about returning gear to manufacturers. I am assuming I am stuck with them and don't have return privileges like retail customers do.

 

[Blumlein 88]

They also didn't mention their measurements are with a 12 lithium battery for the power supply and not connected to the mains. And for those paying attention their plots are 1 million point FFTs instead of the 32 k point FFT in Amir's AP unit. And they averaged the measurement 8 times.

Taking those into account everything actually isn't far off except the harmonic distortion of the unit.

I do wonder about this. Below their noise floor measurement:

FFT spectrum (1024K points averaged 8 times) showing the noise floor measured on the e32 DAC XLR line outputs. The e32 DAC is connected with a standard USB cable to a PC. The noise floor is extremely clean. There are no visible traces from the computer high-frequency noise usually transmitted via the USB connection. The power line related noise (60Hz and its harmonics) is below -160 dB (0.000001%).

I wonder if this measurement shows such little 60 hz main+harmonics because it is on battery power?

 

[amirm]

They also didn't mention their measurements are with a 12 lithium battery for the power supply and not connected to the mains.

Ah, I forgot about them doing this.

 

[amirm]

Oh, I just noticed they don't have the top of the line AP (555), but the mid-end one:

I can tell you that my analyzer matches it performance.

 

[amirm]

I wonder if this measurement shows such little 60 hz main+harmonics because it is on battery power?

That's my conclusion too.

 

[Palladium]

So at the end of the day, why should anyone bother with this or the Schiit, when the Benchmark DAC3 exists and also, gasp, $300-1200 cheaper? Because:

 

[Blumlein 88]

So at the end of the day, why should anyone bother with this or the Schiit, when the Benchmark DAC3 exists and also, gasp, $300-1200 cheaper? Because:

Well I don't see the Exasound as having bad measurements. Just not quite what you are lead to expect and not better than some inexpensive gear. Their gear looks very nice.

But the superlatives in this overview page promises many zero this or infinite that and best possible other thing when it doesn't seem to be the case with any of it.

https://www.exasound.com/e32/e32DACOverview.aspx

Or maybe it does, but the devilish Amir managed to find a way.

He made their zero jitter USB interface, their vanishingly low distortion and noise, their ultimate clean power supply with 11 conditioning stages, and so much more they have accomplished somehow come undone for his own devious purposes which others can only guess. They are class A S-phile recommended, but no design can withstand the hidden destruction of design testing done by the gamester.

 

[watchnerd]

So at the end of the day, why should anyone bother with this or the Schiit, when the Benchmark DAC3 exists and also, gasp, $300-1200 cheaper? Because:

Because you can buy an RME ADI-2 Pro for pretty much the same price as the DAC3 and it does more?

 

[Blumlein 88]

Because you can buy an RME ADI-2 Pro for pretty much the same price as the DAC3 and it does more?

Now on the other hand, if we aren't in need of special features is anything audibly better than the Topping gear?????

 

[Wombat]

Well I don't see the Exasound as having bad measurements. Just not quite what you are lead to expect and not better than some inexpensive gear. Their gear looks very nice.

But the superlatives in this overview page promises many zero this or infinite that and best possible other thing when it doesn't seem to be the case with any of it.

https://www.exasound.com/e32/e32DACOverview.aspx

Or maybe it does, but the devilish Amir managed to find a way.

He made their zero jitter USB interface, their vanishingly low distortion and noise, their ultimate clean power supply with 11 conditioning stages, and so much more they have accomplished somehow come undone for his own devious purposes which others can only guess. They are class A S-phile recommended, but no design can withstand the hidden destruction of design testing done by the gamester.

Amirm makes some brands squirm.

 

[Sythrix]

However I am not sure about his emotional state and motif

WTF? What is this guy even talking about? Like Amir got up in the morning, threw ten darts at the exaSound logo, and began his tortured journey into damning the E32 with a “not really that bad except for a few things here and there" deceptively low-key review that was clearly a personal affront against them because... reasons.

I don’t know whether to call it megalomania or paranoia. The Hipsters are on alert, so watch out guys... they aren’t going to play this game.

 

[Palladium]

WTF? What is this guy even talking about? Like Amir got up in the morning, threw ten darts at the exaSound logo, and began his tortured journey into damning the E32 with a “not really that bad except for a few things here and there" deceptively low-key review that was clearly a personal affront against them because... reasons.

I don’t know whether to call it megalomania or paranoia. The Hipsters are on alert, so watch out guys... they aren’t going to play this game.

Logic don't and won't work on these people. It's character assassinations, appeal to emotions, teapots and ad-hoc rationalizations all the way down to the turtles.

 

[sonci]

It seems they read only the Exasound review, but they should check all the reviews, because Exasound is very good imo..
Why everybody is sure that Benchmark and RME will measure better?

 

[watchnerd]

Now on the other hand, if we aren't in need of special features is anything audibly better than the Topping gear?????

Or the DAC built into my iMac, for that matter, given I'm using powered speakers that already do ADC?

 

[watchnerd]

It seems they read only the Exasound review, but they should check all the reviews, because Exasound is very good imo..
Why everybody is sure that Benchmark and RME will measure better?

I never said the RME measured better. But it definitely has more features.