[Left Channel]

I just tried my LG V30 ThinQ with my S2D for the first time, and found the DAC does not work well with this phone. I've never bothered before, because this phone plays Hi-Res including MQA well with its internal quad DAC.

I wanted to see what the updated official Tidal app will do via USB, now that it can do MQA 1x software decoding. I doubt that would show up via USB, and I also don't see an option for bit perfect passthrough to a full decoding DAC, but it was worth playing with. I also tried UAPP.

No such luck, as unlike @Mark Dirac and his LG G6 I can neither power the DAC with my LG V30 nor play all Hi-Res and MQA files correctly through the S2D even when the DAC is externally powered. Adding a USB REGEN in-between did not help this time. No worries, the phone alone is fine.

 

[Tex Irie]

I just tried my LG V30 ThinQ with my S2D for the first time, and found the DAC does not work well with this phone. I've never bothered before, because this phone plays Hi-Res including MQA well with its internal quad DAC.

I wanted to see what the updated official Tidal app will do via USB, now that it can do MQA 1x software decoding. I doubt that would show up via USB, and I also don't see an option for bit perfect passthrough to a full decoding DAC, but it was worth playing with. I also tried UAPP.

No such luck, as unlike @Mark Dirac and his LG G6 I can neither power the DAC with my LG V30 nor play all Hi-Res and MQA files correctly through the S2D even when the DAC is externally powered. Adding a USB REGEN in-between did not help this time. No worries, the phone alone is fine.

This didn't cross my mind until you mentioned it. I'll try it with my Note 9 as well.

 

[Tex Irie]

About the audio dropouts.... This issue can be manually reproduced by Playing DSD audio in JRMC 24, closing the application then playing media from any other program while using USB input. I find that had to disconnect the USB cable between the S2 Digital and My workstation, reboot my workstation, then reconnect the USB cable to stop the audio drop outs. I still haven't tested with my gaming console.

 

[fgribas]

New driver available, an updated Thesycon driver 4.47

https://www.project-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/UNI_Project_v4.47.0_2018-09-05_setup.zip

The link will change when they update the S2D page, but this link will work for some days.

 

[Left Channel]

New driver available, an updated Thesycon driver 4.47

https://www.project-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/UNI_Project_v4.47.0_2018-09-05_setup.zip

The link will change when they update the S2D page, but this link will work for some days.

Thanks for posting! After downloading and installing, I can confirm:
* the Pro-Ject website does not yet offer this download, and
* this is a Windows driver update only; it does not include a device firmware update

 

[Tex Irie]

Does this driver resolve this annoying issue of audio dropout?

 

[Left Channel]

Does this driver resolve this annoying issue of audio dropout?

That would require a firmware update. The latest is still 2.12, but we have been promised at least one more update and maybe an optional upgrade. Fingers crossed here.

 

[Tex Irie]

That would require a firmware update. The latest is still 2.12, but we have been promised at least one more update and maybe an optional upgrade. Fingers crossed here.

That's a flaw that Mars an otherwise excellent product.

 

[educator]

New driver available, an updated Thesycon driver 4.47

https://www.project-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/UNI_Project_v4.47.0_2018-09-05_setup.zip

The link will change when they update the S2D page, but this link will work for some days.

I installed the updated driver and now there is no mqa dot when I play Tidal masters!

 

[Left Channel]

I installed the updated driver and now there is no mqa dot when I play Tidal masters!

Works for me. I got green and blue lights lights as appropriate. The control panel settings can usually be ignored unless you're playing with DSD.

How about your Tidal app? It may see the S2D as a new DAC now, so you may need to re-select it, then click "(More settings)" to turn on Exclusive Mode, Force Volume, and Passthrough MQA.

 

[Left Channel]

Well I finally got around to buying a USB C otg adapter for my new LG G6, and am thrilled to report that it plays to the S2D.

Playing Tidal, the S2D's display reports 96kHz, which puzzles me. I would expect it to show 44.1kHz or the Android's native sampling rate of 48kHz. (MQA is not available on the Tidal Android app. And I cannot believe that the app is sufficiently sophisticated to decide to upsample to 96kHz. So what is upsampling? Puzzling.)

The wall wart is needed to get the S2D to power up, but thereafter the wall wart can be disconnected, and the S2D is happy to be powered from the LG G6. Battery drain of the LG G6 is pretty high - I guess a 100%-full battery would be drained in about 4 hours. Battery drain is reduced a little by plugging back in the wall wart. (I can still hear no change in sound, on my LCD 3 headphones, with the wall wart connected or disconnected.)

It's a pity that we never found out what the wall wart is powering. Clearly, the S2D needs not only voltage but a fair bit of current over the signal USB from the host, particularly when starting up. But the wall wart seems to be powering only a proportion of that current through the power USB, and is not essential.

I am curious as to how it would sound if I found a USB C otg adapter with a power-injection socket. The S2D seems to be well-designed to smooth away noise from the wall wart on the power-input USB socket, but would it be able to smooth away noise from a switching wall-wart supplying power into the signal (host) USB?

I have updated the summary document slightly.

I just tried my LG V30 ThinQ with my S2D for the first time, and found the DAC does not work well with this phone. I've never bothered before, because this phone plays Hi-Res including MQA well with its internal quad DAC.

I wanted to see what the updated official Tidal app will do via USB, now that it can do MQA 1x software decoding. I doubt that would show up via USB, and I also don't see an option for bit perfect passthrough to a full decoding DAC, but it was worth playing with. I also tried UAPP.

No such luck, as unlike @Mark Dirac and his LG G6 I can neither power the DAC with my LG V30 nor play all Hi-Res and MQA files correctly through the S2D even when the DAC is externally powered. Adding a USB REGEN in-between did not help this time. No worries, the phone alone is fine.

In the above posts we reported something was playing through the S2D, but the resolution readouts made no sense. Well, I've tried again after switching from the LG V30 to the LG G7 One, and am having much better luck this time! (The V30 is a higher-end phone, but the G7 One has the same quad DAC, and for business reasons its pure Android One system works better for me.)

On the G7 One both the Tidal and Qobuz apps played to the S2D, though as expected they sent USB output through the Android OS where it got resampled to 48 kHz in all cases (MQA, Hi-Res, whatever, all 48 kHz). But UAPP delivered perfect Hi-Res from Qobuz, and also blue dot MQA from Tidal. There were a few MQA dropouts, but we know this is still common, and when that happened I just went back to Qobuz to enjoy some Hi-Res! On the other hand, the LG G7 One does not support MQA decoding internally. Even though it has the same quad DAC as the rest of the G7 line and the V30/V40 models, LG has apparently decided not to include MQA support in this phone. I can live with that.

As Mark noted, the S2D needs to be started with external power but then can run off some of these phones, though that will drain a phone battery quickly so I left it on the wall-wart. The V30 specs say it has "Power Delivery 2.0" USB, while the G7 One specs say "USB On-The-Go", so that may be why the music got through this time.

 

[Left Channel]

I've edited my previous post to note the G7 One does not include internal MQA support. Many online reviewers were wrong about this when the phone was announced. It has the same internal quad DAC as the V30/V40 and the rest of the G7 line, but LG does not mention MQA on the official web page for this phone. So although it works better than the V30 with the S2D, for many of you this will be a deal-breaker. Personally, I can live without MQA in the phone. The LG interface was seriously interfering with my business workflow and I am doing much better with Android One on this one, plus I am mostly a Qobuz customer at this point anyway.

 

[naum]

Hello,
I have a problem with my Pre Box S2 Digital. I've been running it for 1. month and have been very happy with it so far. It is connected to windows 10 PC and I use mostly Tidal Hi-fi. Recently playback stops after different lengths of time. First time I think that USB cable is plugged out, replugged it and it works again.. But it started to happen again and again. The Box normal indicate on screen that input is USB on 192k.. Now I recall it first started to happen on bad tidal tracks (non hi-fi) - it stops playback at some point, and when i play more quality track it plays again.. But it now happens regardless of track quality, and there is no sound on Box even though I changed the track. When play stops, i try to play Youtube from chrome but there is also no sound here. Sound is back only when i replugged usb cable.
I would like to hear your advice, what to do next. Thanks
P.S. firmaware is 2.12 and windows driver is new (link from previous posts)

 

[Left Channel]

Hello,
I have a problem with my Pre Box S2 Digital. I've been running it for 1. month and have been very happy with it so far. It is connected to windows 10 PC and I use mostly Tidal Hi-fi. Recently playback stops after different lengths of time. First time I think that USB cable is plugged out, replugged it and it works again.. But it started to happen again and again. The Box normal indicate on screen that input is USB on 192k.. Now I recall it first started to happen on bad tidal tracks (non hi-fi) - it stops playback at some point, and when i play more quality track it plays again.. But it now happens regardless of track quality, and there is no sound on Box even though I changed the track. When play stops, i try to play Youtube from chrome but there is also no sound here. Sound is back only when i replugged usb cable.
I would like to hear your advice, what to do next. Thanks
P.S. firmaware is 2.12 and windows driver is new (link from previous posts)

That's a new one. Have you tried plugging into a different USB port on your PC? Changing the USB cable? Using a different ASIO driver?

 

[naum]

That's a new one. Have you tried plugging into a different USB port on your PC? Changing the USB cable? Using a different ASIO driver?

Yes it's new one. I have a good one USB cable and it works normally, I do not believe that the cable is the cause. Today i plug USB into another port on motherboard (asus z97a with high quality PSU), so I'll follow the situation...