Review and Measurements of Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital

[allhifi]

You are funny Anyway, do you own this DAC/Amp? Can you share your impressions?

Truthful, I'd like to think -but 'funny' is good too.

My Pre Box S2 should arrive today sometime.

pj

 

[allhifi]

If it has the same specs and measurements as another, no difference.

Just like a DAC. Replacing one with another with equivalent measured specs will result in no audible difference.

Brilliant ! What would we do without you experienced guru's ?

pj

 

[allhifi]

Indeed.

Indeed.

Hmmmm ... says the Avatar man-boy.

pj

 

[vkvedam]

Truthful, I'd like to think -but 'funny' is good too.

My Pre Box S2 should arrive today sometime.

pj

Good, let us know what you think!

 

[BDWoody]

Brilliant !...

pj

Thank you. Happy to help.

Given the level of your questions/claims/(trolls?), clearly some remedial work was needed.

Course, that won't stop you from throwing out more troll nonsense, which is a lot less clever than you seem to believe.

 

[Kane1972]

I wonder if the DAC only version would measure exactly the same as this preamp version?

 

[Thomas savage]

Member @allhifi has been banned , he's just here to massage his own ego and I don't think the fallout from his behaviour is worth anyone's time.

Cheers

 

[Music1969]

There is at least a second one: noise or pops when playing a DSD file after a PCM file.

I haven’t seen this reported by anyone else and never had an issue myself so I can’t say it’s a known issue, like the known MQA bug.

What is your USB source and playback software?

If you trial Audirvana on PC or Mac (example only) you won’t have any pops.

If your USB source is running an old outdated Linux kernel you may have pops.

 

[Newk Yuler]

I wonder if the DAC only version would measure exactly the same as this primped version?

This? https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/dac-box-s2/

Because I have one too and I've wondered the same although expecting different but maybe somewhat similar measurements. There are differences in the DAC circuitry. One is the use of a single Sabre chip instead of two in the Pre. I would like to believe it would be similarly optimized if designed by the same guy but that's just wishful thinking.

 

[PaulZH]

I haven’t seen this reported by anyone else and never had an issue myself so I can’t say it’s a known issue, like the known MQA bug.

What is your USB source and playback software?

If you trial Audirvana on PC or Mac (example only) you won’t have any pops.

If your USB source is running an old outdated Linux kernel you may have pops.

https://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum...ox-s2-digital-dac.201691/page-12#post-3236306

 

[AudioSceptic]

This? https://www.project-audio.com/en/product/dac-box-s2/

Because I have one too and I've wondered the same although expecting different but maybe somewhat similar measurements. There are differences in the DAC circuitry. One is the use of a single Sabre chip instead of two in the Pre. I would like to believe it would be similarly optimized if designed by the same guy but that's just wishful thinking.

John Westlake has designed more gear than you can shake a stick at, a lot of it highly rated, so you can expect competence at the very least. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Westlake#Designs>

 

[amirm]

Hmmmm .... So, you're disappointed, in this "specification":

" ...We see a rise in noise floor with some peaks and valleys. Nothing of audible concern but a bit disappointing."

Are you guys for real ?

You measured : Jitter and noise over S/PDIF and vs. USB. AND between 135-to-140 db down, you BELIEVE it's
nothing of "audible" concern -yet disappointing nonetheless ! Priceless. As you guys are.

You are misunderstanding the measurements. Here is the graph again:

I trust you read the vertical scale and though that -135 dB was real. It is not. FFTs have what is called "gain." They artificially reduce the noise floor by how many audio samples are used in their computation. Here, 32K points are used which provides a gain of 42 dB. In other words, the actual noise floor is -135+45 = -90 dB. That is a far cry from -135 dB you assumed. CD's 16 bit dynamic range is 96 dB as a way of reference.

This is explained here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

Asks questions before shooting from the hip this way.

 

[Music1969]

https://www.pinkfishmedia.net/forum...ox-s2-digital-dac.201691/page-12#post-3236306

John Westlake replied there:

“The odd thing is that we use Foobar in the Lab exclusively and I've not experience what you described.”

As I asked before, what hardware and software are you using?

If you connect the DAC to a Mac or PC and use Audirvana or Roon, you won’t have this issue at all... The software plays silence for a brief moment so you never hear these transition pops.

This is why this issue has been very very rarely reported as a problem. It’s been fixed by most software and hardware.

When I say hardware I mostly mean Linux based USB streamers but as I already mentioned, up to date Linux kernels don’t have this issue.

 

[James Romeyn]

Anyone using this dac and have an opinion?.

I love my S2 DAC powered by Ciunas lith ion battery. S2 DAC > Electrocompaniet ECI-5 MkII > AudioKinesis Gina/SuperStand (sealed sub + Space Generator)/2 Outboard Subs/2 kilowatt sub amps in Griesinger's Phase Quadrature Tuning.

Server: Sonore i5, Roon, Tidal
Streamer: Sonore UltraRendu (Ciunas lith ion battery PS)

Going by audio memory, the above rig positively crushes my old $12k Krell CD transport > $10k Wadia 12ix DAC.

 

[Jimster480]

I love my S2 DAC powered by Ciunas lith ion battery. S2 DAC > Electrocompaniet ECI-5 MkII > AudioKinesis Gina/SuperStand (sealed sub + Space Generator)/2 Outboard Subs/2 kilowatt sub amps in Griesinger's Phase Quadrature Tuning.

Server: Sonore i5, Roon, Tidal
Streamer: Sonore UltraRendu (Ciunas lith ion battery PS)

Going by audio memory, the above rig positively crushes my old $12k Krell CD transport > $10k Wadia 12ix DAC.

This just looks to me like a setup that will be easily dethroned by a LG phone or maybe an Apple iPad dongle...

 

[James Romeyn]

This just looks to me like a setup that will be easily dethroned by a LG phone or maybe an Apple iPad dongle...

Let me know when you find a neutral party with moderate quality (or better) DAC/amp and speakers or head set, that prefers any Apple/PC/Android based server/streamer over the server/streamer I listed above. A link would be helpful.

 

[SIY]

Let me know when you find a neutral party with moderate quality (or better) DAC/amp and speakers or head set, that prefers any Apple/PC/Android based server/streamer over the server/streamer I listed above. A link would be helpful.

If I were going to predict, an iPhone with a dongle will likely not sound any different (better or worse) with matched levels and ears-only (no peeking). I don't have your particular setup, but some pretty nice hardware cycles through here (I have a multikilobuck unit right now for review), and the iPhone/dongle sounds exactly the same as the high price spread, lacking only visual impact, input flexibility, and more direct user interface.

Do you need a link to this post?

 

[Jimster480]

Let me know when you find a neutral party with moderate quality (or better) DAC/amp and speakers or head set, that prefers any Apple/PC/Android based server/streamer over the server/streamer I listed above. A link would be helpful.

As SIY mentioned; its unlikely that any other compentent gear would sound different to your setup in a blind test. Setups like yours typically are nice lookers with fancy names. This creates expectation and/or confirmation bias, rather than additional objective quality.
Considering the number of extremely expensive pieces of gear have been measured here to have extremely poor performance.... its possible for a simple setup to sound even better in a blind level matched test. Although if your gear does measure well enough; then it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to tell the difference in a true blind test.

 

[James Romeyn]

As SIY mentioned; its unlikely that any other compentent gear would sound different to your setup in a blind test. Setups like yours typically are nice lookers with fancy names. This creates expectation and/or confirmation bias, rather than additional objective quality...

Nice lookers? My server and streamer are plain tiny little black boxes, totally invisible. Neither is much bigger than a flask. Your comment lacks credibility and is irrelevant to my $645 server and $800 streamer.

Blind test "expectations?" A tester challenged blind test promoters. The tester said he swapped mains cables, but instead he swapped the polarity of one channel. Several blind test promoters said A and B sounded "identical." IOW blind test promoters fulfilled their expectations, and could not detect the difference between both channels in phase vs. one channel inverted phase.

 

[James Romeyn]

If I were going to predict, an iPhone with a dongle will likely not sound any different (better or worse) with matched levels and ears-only (no peeking). I don't have your particular setup, but some pretty nice hardware cycles through here (I have a multikilobuck unit right now for review), and the iPhone/dongle sounds exactly the same as the high price spread, lacking only visual impact, input flexibility, and more direct user interface.

Do you need a link to this post?

List all the gear, especially the server/streamer which sounds identical to an iPhone/dongle.