About 2 weeks ago when I again was looking for dsd support for the exaU2I, I started thinking about the similarities between I2S with 32 bit data length and raw DSD.

I2S has a bit clock of 64*Fs, a Fs word clock and two 32 bit data words for a stereo channel
Raw DSD has a bit clock of 64*Fs, a Fs word clock (not allways used) and a data rate of 64*Fs for each channel

So an quad 44.1kHz I2S connection will have the data rates needed for a raw dsd connection to a if we connect like shown below.

I2S dataclock -> DSD data clock (Data clock)
I2S data channel 1/2 -> DSD data 1 (D1)
I2S data channel 3/4 -> DSD data 2 (D2)
I2S wordclock -> not connected

Note it will only work because exaU2I support 32bit data, two+ I2S data channels , and the ESS9018 dac do not use the wordclock for DSD data.

So I ordered an exaU2I
I got the exaU2I unit this Friday and started playing with the software using the C# Asio wrapper from here Low Latency Audio using ASIO Drivers in .NET - CodeProject as a starting point.

I am now listening to Alison Krauss's Live album in DSD playing back from my WinXP PC

If anybody will like to try, I will be happy to supply the software, but "as is".
It is only a proof of concept and have to be used with extreme care.

I also tested that the ES9018 have support for both DSD64 and DSD128

Originally posted by flemming3520 at diyAudio.com