not working here! first of all running windows 10 pro 64 bit. had to install driver in windows compatability mode. that is bad to begin with. then i open jriver. everything itry i just keep getting errors and no playback! it says it is tusbasiodriver. i hope someone can help! apparently also this does not upsample at all from the looks of it? all i read were the rave reviews now this. great. i would really appreciate if someone helps out here. i know my way around a windows machine and jriver but i am now stumped. thanks.

I am currently using Win10 64 Pro, but I originally installed in Win7 and upgraded just before the new year. If I recall correctly this is how I have it setup with JRiver 20.
 
In the Windows sound manager the device shows up as "Speakers  Ayre USB Interface Audio". If it doesn't show up here then something is fundamentally wrong and the device isn't even recognized. If you see it, then It is a good idea to click Properties -> Advanced  then check both options in the Exclusive mode box. I set the default sound output device as something other than the Ayre so the Windows sound mixer doesn't try to muck with the stream.
 
In JRiver
Tools -> Options -> Audio -> Audio Devices -> TUSBAudio Audio Driver [ASIO]
 
    Click on Device Settings, the check the box that says "DSD bitstream in DoP format"
 
Then 
Tools -> Options -> Audio   -> Settings     Find Bitstreaming and set to " Yes(DSD) "
     
I recall that when installing new dacs sometimes JRiver needs to be restarted (I have 6 different Windows ASIO drivers.) The Ayre driver works pretty simply and without much fuss for me. 
 
There is also WASAPI mode, does that give the same type of behavior?

thanks. however it is broken in device manager. exclamation point with code 10 this device has failed to start. therefore not showing in audio devices of course. i'll try calling ayre tomorrow i guess. the driver has to be run in windows seven comparability mode to begin with however the driver installation does check for the device and find it to proceed with installation. just broken in device manager. not even listed as  a usb device as it shows it should on ayre's website.

got it working! apparently it will not play nice with the ifi ipurifier! perhaps that is not needed with this dac anyhow. i heard they did a lot about galvanic isolation nonetheless. it was worth working on it. in two minutes i realized this thing is fantastic. i am about to a/b it with dacs 30x the price and i am guessing it is going to come pretty close. you guys were not kidding about this one. it looks like in just a few minutes of listening they may very well have knocked one out of the park for a mere $1,700. i can tell you right now it is going to put most other 2 grand dacs to shame. wish it did not get so hot but must be class a i suppose. minor drawback. i just need to see if it powers the balanced and se at the same time. i hope so. other than that having to push the button to go to toslink for cd transport is another minor drawback but you do have to switch most dacs. just quibbles. thing appears to be very promising. mine has 600 hours on it as i requested. so it is ready to rock and roll. i do not give up easily! now 1:30am. 

one other tiny niggle so far. when i turn off the computer it makes a tiny click through the speakers. i wonder what kind of voodoo is in that ipurifier though. still sounding great.

sorry to hijack this hread. ayre tech told me if i plug into the rear balanced and se at the same time i am ruining the sound on the balanced. i can't hear a difference. balanced is lit up with both. do you find this makes a difference? astonishingly the ayre tech told me this is really a budget product and not meant to be high end! he also said i do not need usb purification with this. seems strange. kmanchu, i hope you come back and comment on myposts. sorry for so many.
thanks.

music_man said:

astonishingly the ayre tech told me this is really a budget product and not meant to be high end!
thanks.

Click to expand...

Not surprising to hear he said that.... Was it Mike?

yes it was mike. he said they will be coming out with much higher end products soon too. i understand in the realm of audio this really is "budget". i have some very high end equipment here. like gryphon and msb. so yes in that regard it is budget. however to many people this is a lot of money for a dac. i understand that plenty. on the other hand it is not in his best interest to say that. they have something here i feel is better than the ps audio directstream, bryston bda-3, benchmark dac 2, nad m51 etc. so here you have a $1,800 dac which i did not even pay full and it is already beating $5-$6k dacs. of course it cannot beat the diamond dac v but it is surprising how close it gets. this is truely a product where diminishing returns will kick in very quickly.
 
i got it working with the ipurifier in fact but not sure if i should be using that with this dac? as for him saying not to have the se connected i hear no difference and the balanced light is lit. i am sure he would know his product better than i have had 2 days though. also he does have a valid point to play files in their native format. that is honestly good common sense with any dac but i happen to like the sound of dsd. so that is just a preference. he is correct about that though. unless you just have a junk dac of course it will improve for anyone then. this is no junk dac.
 
could you look at my post in high end please about the ax5 if you know anything about it? i am considering it strongly tomorrow but i am thinking there a lot of integrated amps in the only 8-10 grand range i might also consider. i am not sure how that is 15 grand. they may be in boulder but they certainly are not ps audio! not really an insult i just mean much higher end.
 
it was very nice he answered the phone. i remember barrows at ps audio he was so nice. wonder what happened to him. i am just saying companies that answer the call go a long way with me. try to get some cheap chinese dac rep on the phone. interestingly i just encountered a mid end speaker rep that was so rude i could not beleive what he said. f-bomb directed at me. i take it this guy knows his stuff. i am so happy with this company i never tried before i guess the ax5 actually is worth the 15 grand. bet i take it home and do not bring it back! this is just in the upstairs of my bedroom. my main system is much higher end but i fully realize this is already a lot to a lot of people. i just felt kind of bad when he said it was not high end. one, it really sort of is and two there are much cheaper dacs.
 
well anyways this was worth every penny i paid. i can't say what because i know people but regardless i am very surprised. i guess i plan to get the ax5 tomorrow because my lovely 30 year old amp is now putting out 80 watts of it's original 200 lol. this is currently hooked up to the new sf extremas and it is keeping up with them just fine other than my dying amp. i wish i had waited though for their flagship model coming. i wonder if that will in fact unseat the diamond dac v. well does not matter if it does ill get it anyways. what i really needed was more ins outs which this does not have but he said the forthcoming flagship dac will have so many ins outs i might not want to count them all!
 
i never tried this brand but i am seriously pleased with the products and most certainly the cs. if you can comment on the ax5 that would be great. thanks 

A new higher-end version ! ))

bmi, what do you mean? i am smitten with this. it is good enough for the system it is in. it is end game unless i up the other components. we are talking about mark levinson and sonus faber extrema the new ones. there you have 70 grand of other stuff and this dac is good enough to me with that. call me crazy. if ayre makes a better one of course i will buy it. especially with more ins and outs. this is already serious business. at the store they had it going in a $300,000 system for their demo of it.
 
only questions i have is why did he say not to connect the se or it will ruin the balanced sound? i hear no difference. balanced lamp is lit. also the heat is an issue. not sure how long this thing will live like that. never had a dac this hot.
 
also i am now playing in native format. this dac does indeed work better at 44.1 than upsampling to dsd. most dacs i prefer to upsample to dsd.
 
anyways this is a serious dac much better than directstream which is six grand imo. of course it is not as good as the gryphon or msb. it is not far off though which is simply amazing. perhaps why they were demoing it in a $300k system.  
 
it's good stuff maynard.

I think you are right in that when in dac mode it runs in balanced only regardless of the connections in the back. I think it switches to SE mode only when running SE headphones. I still like the sound of the Codex running into my SE tube amp than through the Codex's own balanced output, but with burnin the codex has gotten better.
 
Those a big words, I remember when the Directstream came out everyone was freaking out about how it was the greatest dac ever, it seems to have fallen out of favor.
 
Ayre makes a $25k preamp and I don't even know how much the MX-R 20 monoblocks cost. They are a very committed high end company who have been very progressive on the USB-dac front. They will not put their name on a product it they don't believe in it. If I were building a top end system I would build it around Ayre and/or Audio Research. One very good combination I heard a few times was Audio Research LS-27 with the Ayre Vx-5 (more powerful, power amp only version of Ax-5.) The Ax-5 will blow you away though. I heard it with a pair of Aerial 7T. It is very, very good and very expensive. But if you are playing in this league then it offers good performance for the money. I don't know that I will ever spend that much on a component unless it is some kind of powered speakers/monitors which effectively replaces multiple components (right now I am salivating over the Kii Three.) 

you may not be aware in another thread i posted i got the ax5 twenty yesterday. my old amp was very high end but dying now. it is powering the new sonus faber extremas in my bedroom via all crystal cable cables. i even used several usb noise reduction devices in series. of course it does not require those. this is just my compact bedroom system and the sound is so good it is obscene. i am very pleased with ayre. i had not even known about them a week ago. i enjoy high end audio but i am not an audiophile perse. i do not really keep on this stuff. just take what my salesman of 40 years recommends. he has neverlet me down and this was a very good decision on my part. well, his but i am the one listening to it. this stuff is off the chain. i cannot wait for their flagship dac. i will most certainly have it. here it stands a mere $1,800 dac is knocking the big boys out of the park. as you say they know what they are doing. very well done ayre.

i discovered the ayre ech was very correct. trying to upsample redbook to dsd on the codex sounds downright awful. using native resolution for a given file i maintain at this point is fantastic on this dac. it seems things only improve from upsampling on very cheap low quality dacs. although the teacs do benefit from that. they are cheap dacs but not at all junk. likewise with msb and gryphon stick to native resolution. it is odd to me that better dacs fall on their face when trying to upsample. or perhaps it is just that they are operating properly when not trying to create something that is not there. this was interesting. however, as usual i find in jriver using the dacs driver wrapped in the foo_asio proxy the sound does improve. just make sure the resolution is native to the file being used. that is not a surprise because i find this to be the case with all higher end dacs but not lower end ones. the lower end ones stand to sound better. the better dacs just let them do their thing. glad i took two minutes to try it on this one as well though. that is one mark of a better dac if it sounds better in native resolution of the file. even so dsd may well go the way of sacd that birthed it. redbook reigns supreme in my book.

I purchased a Codex about a month ago. I am running it for about 6 to 12 hours per day. I think I have about 150 on it hours now. The sound seemed to change after 100 hours. I always thought it sounded good, but it is much more musical sounding after 100 hours. I hope it improves even more after more hours. The biggest change in sound is the lower end, especially acoustic bass instruments. At first I thought I was going to need an EQ, but now the bass is not nearly as harsh and punchy as it was before 100 hours. It's very musical now throughout all ranges, acoustic guitar sounds awesome through the Codex.

Connecting to MAC is plug and play. I also switched to Roon and the combination is glorious. My simple setup is Mac > Codex > Audeze LCD-X (balanced), controlled by Roon. I really enjoy the big sound coming from such a small device.

coolmilo said:

I purchased a Codex about a month ago. I am running it for about 6 to 12 hours per day. I think I have about 150 on it hours now. The sound seemed to change after 100 hours. I always thought it sounded good, but it is much more musical sounding after 100 hours. I hope it improves even more after more hours. The biggest change in sound is the lower end, especially acoustic bass instruments. At first I thought I was going to need an EQ, but now the bass is not nearly as harsh and punchy as it was before 100 hours. It's very musical now throughout all ranges, acoustic guitar sounds awesome through the Codex.

Connecting to MAC is plug and play. I also switched to Roon and the combination is glorious. My simple setup is Mac > Codex > Audeze LCD-X (balanced), controlled by Roon. I really enjoy the big sound coming from such a small device.

Click to expand...

I am using Roon with Windows and it has been very good, at least on par with JRiver. What balanced cable are you using with the Audezes?