[thomaspf]

Hm, you have an issue to use the W2 on a windows 10 PC or Notebook ? That is strange because on my notebook it works immediately and in the device driver section of the OS I can even see that the used Audio driver is a L&P W2 driver.
If you use W10 then i suggest you de-install all the Audio drivers that you used with W2 so far and basically just plugging in the W2 should automatically install the right driver that works with your device. The latest OS of W2 is V1.0.1.3 and since all of them who were sold are "still fresh from production" I am almost sure that is the version that you have on your dongle.
I do have my notebook connected to a separate screen via HDMI and the screen also has loudspeakers and HDMI can play audio - so maybe you also need to check on which output you are going to play your sounds - because the PC or Notebook may use the other output and then you don't hear anything on the W2 of course...

It's this little symbol that you need to right-click on your mouse to open the sound settings and there on the top you choose the output source... If it says (like in the screenshot below Realtek something - it is NOT sending the Audio signal to the W2. But if you select the other one Speaker (LuxuryPredcision UAC) then you are IN.
Maybe you already anyway know all that - so don't take me wrong to have explained all that so in detail

I never said I had a driver issue on Windows 10. I stated that the W2 has a firmware problem decoding DOP encoded DSD data. I assume you have not tried that? In order for that to work it is actually better not to make the W2 the system sound device and grant the Audio player exclusive access to the device so the Windows mixer does not get in the way...

 

[FooFighter]

this image made me believe that only 3.5 output would work as line output


Now if you look well in the next photo, it can be seen that the side that the Oriulus amplifier cable is connected to the w2 is through the 3.5 output, if I'm not mistaken:


@twister6 Going back to your experience with the C9 amplifier, I see that it has worked normally, so yes it can, I do not understand why those images confused me at the beginning, thanks for the clarification, also to @FooFighter

Interesting picture, thx, I haven't seen that before.
Anyway the Aurelius BA300S I am going to receive is a different model than on the picture and is fully balanced dual tube amp which I will connect to balanced out of W2. As it has only a fixed amplification of +3db I will need to control volume through W2 and therefore cannot work with a fixed 100% LO signal anyway.
I will report back because I think this will be a more mobile and price wise appropriate pairing to W2 than the flagship amp C9

 

[NinjaGirayaZ]

Interesting picture, thx, I haven't seen that before.
Anyway the Aurelius BA300S I am going to receive is a different model than on the picture and is fully balanced dual tube amp which I will connect to balanced out of W2. As it has only a fixed amplification of +3db I will need to control volume through W2 and therefore cannot work with a fixed 100% LO signal anyway.
I will report back because I think this will be a more mobile and price wise appropriate pairing to W2 than the flagship amp C9

Only in the old model with blue light does the BA300S gain 3db ... in the new model there is no gain, it stays at 0

 

[FooFighter]

Only in the old model with blue light does the BA300S gain 3db ... in the new model there is no gain, it stays at 0

OK, it's a used old one but I think still good enough for me

 

[NinjaGirayaZ]

OK, it's a used old one but I think still good enough for me

I didn't hear the old one, but they say the tube sound is more striking than the new one, but it has a little less detail and clarity

 

[twister6]

Anyway I am not getting so much the sense of such an optical out port as that would imply that the target DAC will do the DA conversion and could therefore be directly connected via USB from your actual source phone / laptop etc and don't need to go through W2 for that?
I would have preferred rather a SPDIF in to do conversion from a different digital source

Electrical, not optical But the whole idea is that your DAC has to receive a digital data to convert from Digital to Analog, right? So, when you connect DAC from usb port of your laptop using a generic usb cable, it is all 0s and 1s but it is a timed sequential data where ideally you would want to have clean square edges. But the noise, interference, poor isolation of power and data wires inside of your usb cable will skew the timing, edges will not longer be perfectly squared, and also you will introduce jitter. That could cause some 1s to become 0s and vise verse. W1/W2 has FPGA with a local clean clock (crystal oscillator) that will re-time the data to clean up the jitter. You can think of it as a buffer to output a cleaned up digital signal going into your external DAC/amp.

 

[NinjaGirayaZ]

OK, it's a used old one but I think still good enough for me

I also recommend buying an iematch, as the BA300S hisses in sensitive IEMs, and I believe its andromeda is

 

[FooFighter]

Electrical, not optical But the whole idea is that your DAC has to receive a digital data to convert from Digital to Analog, right? So, when you connect DAC from usb port of your laptop using a generic usb cable, it is all 0s and 1s but it is a timed sequential data where ideally you would want to have clean square edges. But the noise, interference, poor isolation of power and data wires inside of your usb cable will skew the timing, edges will not longer be perfectly squared, and also you will introduce jitter. That could cause some 1s to become 0s and vise verse. W1/W2 has FPGA with a local clean clock (crystal oscillator) that will re-time the data to clean up the jitter. You can think of it as a buffer to output a cleaned up digital signal going into your external DAC/amp.

Thx for that explanation!
Still wondering though which current midfi to hifi DACs won't be able to do exactly the same
Maybe then useful for low tier or older DACs...

 

[FooFighter]

I also recommend buying an iematch, as the BA300S hisses in sensitive IEMs, and I believe its andromeda is

Yep, thx, I yet own one
Primary use case will be anyway to calm down my DX220 max for too harsh recordings.
W2 will be a nice bonus experiment

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Interesting picture, thx, I haven't seen that before.
Anyway the Aurelius BA300S I am going to receive is a different model than on the picture and is fully balanced dual tube amp which I will connect to balanced out of W2. As it has only a fixed amplification of +3db I will need to control volume through W2 and therefore cannot work with a fixed 100% LO signal anyway.
I will report back because I think this will be a more mobile and price wise appropriate pairing to W2 than the flagship amp C9

Anyone know where I can get an SPDIF Cable to connect the W2 to a Hugo 2? 3.5mm to 3.5mm Coax is unusual to say the least.

edited to note. Found it on Aliiexpress
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32971398688.html

 

[W1ll1eTheP1mp]

Found out that the W2 looks just like my garage door opener!

 

[thomaspf]

Found out that the W2 looks just like my garage door opener!

Which one sounds better

 

[bluestorm1992]

Found out that the W2 looks just like my garage door opener!

This is so funny!! Now you have both W1 and W2.

 

[FooFighter]

Found out that the W2 looks just like my garage door opener!

I am sure you will find the SQ very opening

 

[jsmiller58]

Hey bud, what current draw are you measuring?

So far, here is what I'm getting in high gain:

Lotoo S1 - 0.070 A
L&P W1 - 0.090 A
L&P W2 - 0.110 A

AudioQuest DF (OG 1.2) - 0.100 A
AudioQuest Cobalt - 0.070 A
Hidizs S9 - 0.130 A
iBasso DC01 - 0.090 A
Cozoy Aegis - 0.130 A

Yeah, while I need to do some real experiments I found last night that my W2 was draining my R6 Pro battery much faster than my S1, from recollection. Will need to spend a few hours listening to music this weekend to conclude anything (what we won’t do in the name of science...). I do find the W2 gets rather warm compared to the S1...