In Reply to: ASIO Driver for OSX posted by Mercman on September 4, 2014 at 06:24:25:
Steve, I read your review. Thanks!
George Klissarov commented:
The Core Audio sound system used on Mac OS X is much better compared to the Windows sound system, but it has the same limitations when it comes to DSD. Both Windows and Mac need a workaround like DSD over PCM (DoP) for DSD support.
In my opinion asynchronous USB Audio Class 2.0 implementations with Core Audio are inferior compared to ASIO.
- Steve, since Audirvana Plus and other Mac players bypass Core Audio completely, I'm wondering if you compared the ASIO driver vs a Mac player that bypasses Core Audio?
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More comments from George Klissarov:
There are more than the drivers to achieve high-fidelity sound with computers. There are two alternative approaches:
* To use audiophile-grade computer power supplies, special USB cards and fine USB cables. In addition, to customize the operating systems by removing unnecessary processing in order to improve the computer timing. All these improvements make computers better devices for audio playback, but they address the symptoms, not the root causes of the problems.
* To address the issues and limitations of computer hardware and operating systems outside the computer - in the DAC.
- Makes sense.
Here at exaSound we like the second approach. We try to design our hardware, firmware and drivers to solve the issues of computer playback. Basically there are four devices inside the e22 box, a DAC, a reference quality master clock, a USB noise filter and a power conditioner. Our devices are quite insensitive to the quality of the attached computer and the USB cable.
I made the comment a few times in the past that the DAC makes a bigger difference in the overall sound of the system vs the computer and associated tweaking. At least this has been my experience in my setup.
George's comments seem to support what some have been saying here all along. That is, the better the DAC, the less influence the computer has in the grand scheme of things.
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Follow Ups
- RE: ASIO Driver for OSX - AbeCollins 13:28:47 09/04/14 (3)
- RE: ASIO Driver for OSX - Mercman 13:32:25 09/04/14 (2)
- RE: ASIO Driver for OSX - AbeCollins 14:25:36 09/04/14 (1)
- RE: ASIO Driver for OSX - Mercman 15:16:13 09/04/14 (0)