New Frontiers: Positive Feedback writes about how ExaSound is shaping the world of DSD:
exaSound Brings Quad DSD to Mac, Support for Linux and Windows Server Enhancements.
by Brian Moura
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From the land of ice hockey, frozen wine, and decent beer, come Two DACs manufactured by a small company in Canada called exaSound, run by a smart guy named George Klissarov. Both support PCM up to 32/384 and DSD up to DSD256 over USB. The e20 mkIII will run you $2499 and the e22 will run you $3499. exaSound also sells an 8-channel DAC called the e28, for $3849. See here for a spec comparison chart.
"exaSound Audio Design has managed to carve out a conspicuous place in the high end audiophile DAC market since beginning business less than 4 years ago..."
"The first sound characteristic of the e22 that grabbed my attention was the enormous soundstage that this DAC is capable of rendering."
"The e22 struck me as being very neutral sounding without excessive midrange warmth or other colorations. Resolution, focus and definition from top to bottom were excellent. Most users will find this to be a very revealing DAC that can dig down to expose the smallest details of the music..."
Decibel - a very straightforward to use Mac OS X audio player with a clean and user friendly interface - becomes the first Mac OS X audiophile-grade player with ASIO support.
"We’ve just tested our aria music server with exaSound e28 multichannel DAC, I am happy to report that aria nicely plays both multichannel PCM FLAC and native bitstream DSD64 files via the e28 USB input. An ASIO driver from exaSound has to be pre-installed on the aria server. We believe this is another aria’s “first” in the audiophile music server market... "
The exaSound e28 multichannel DSD256 DAC was at the center of the MBL-powered Positive Feedback Online (PFO) room at T.H.E. Show Newport Beach 2014. Dr. David Robinson, Publisher of the Positive Feedback Magazine, used the exaSound e28 DAC to illustrate the sonic differences between DSD64, DSD128 and DSD256 takes from the same master tapes.