Calyx DAC 24-192 windows specific question and opinions sort!

[Gramophonic]

Hi all,
I just got a Calyx Audio DAC 24-192 and the amount of detail I'm getting is amazing, it sounds great, though perhaps not as warm as I prefer. I do have a startingpoint systems dac3 for that, though, and this Calyx is amazing at soundstage or at least compared to other things i've had.

I have a very specific question about my new DAC.

I'm running windows 7 64 bit. The DAC came with drivers on cd which I installed before plugging in, they are Thesycon drivers that come with the tusb audio control pannel. When I open the control pannel it says device 0 and I can't see how to add the Calyx as a device. It shows up in the windows sound devices and lets me select 24/192, sounds great etc, but the Thesycon drivers use asio which should sound better, right? I'm not too sure so would love your opinion on that, too.
Do any of you have this dac? it sounds a little harder than I'm used to, what are your opinions on it?

[antonio]

I use a Calyx 24-192 and have done for 5 yrs, although I have been out of the country for the last 18 mths. I found it to be an excellent dac, far better than the Starting Point which a friend lent to me and he borrowed my Calyx. It has never imo sounded 'hard' always easy to listen to and non fatiguing. I run it on Windows 10, downloaded the Thesycon driver, and a friend did the rest since I'm not so good with computers, although I do remember it was a touch tricky. Sorry I cannot be of more help.

[Gramophonic]

I use a Calyx 24-192 and have done for 5 yrs, although I have been out of the country for the last 18 mths. I found it to be an excellent dac, far better than the Starting Point which a friend lent to me and he borrowed my Calyx. It has never imo sounded 'hard' always easy to listen to and non fatiguing. I run it on Windows 10, downloaded the Thesycon driver, and a friend did the rest since I'm not so good with computers, although I do remember it was a touch tricky. Sorry I cannot be of more help.

thank you, David, that is helpful!
Did you get the external power supply with yours? I did and that definitely helps. Maybe I'm just not used to this much detail in my own system (quad 33 and 303, Mordaunt short ms10 mark 1 speakers) a fairly new system to me.

The startingpoint is definitely a different beast altogether isn't it? My wife prefers it to anything she's heard but she says herself that she doesn't like all that much detail. It has it's own sound, which a dac is probably not really supposed to do... The Calyx has been bringing out things I never knew existed in very familiar recordings since yesterday and I'm loving it!

[Gramophonic]

Quick update:
I had my mum look at the computer end of it and it is actually properly set up.

Note for windows 7 users:
When you install the drivers from the cd, they come with a control pannel (tusb audio control pannel) but if you have things set up properly in your windows 7 control pannel (the one in the start menue) you're golden. I assumed that the tusb audio needed messing with, it doesn't.
At the risk of this not being at all useful I'm going to outline the steps one by one because it might not be obvious. Please tell me if this is useless but I haven't seen this documented for dummies (like me) anywhere.
Driver cd: stick it in, hit setup, it really does baby you through the process however at some point (22% I think it was for me but could be different for you) windows security pops up to tell me I'm installing drivers and asks if I want to trust them. Yes, I do, so I finished the installation.
Once they're installed, then (and only then) plug the dac into the computer.
Good time to mention here that if you don't have the driver cd, you're in trouble. People talk about this working off the shelf without it on windows 11 and mac, it sure doesn't on windows 7 and since I assume all of these dacs for sale are now second hand it's a good idea to double check the seller has the driver cd. I nearly didn't get this cd as I forgot to ask until it was almost too late, but the seller being the great guy he is rummaged in his loft and found it. If he hadn't I'd have been up a creek without a paddle.
Now let it do it's windows device installation stuff and when it's done that (could take a while) go to your windows control panel, go to sound settings and click the xmos audio device (this is the calyx, that's what windows calls it). Set that as the default device if you want (I'm totally blind so I didn't do this for fear it might wreck my screanreader if something went wrong at this point, but I have now done this). If you don't do this you will need to open your mediaplayer and set it as the output in there EG foobar (what I'm using) winamp, etc

This is the important bit. In the advanced tab of the sound settings, make sure it's set to 24 bit 192 khz. This is the place where this setting matters as the drivers you've just installed need the windows settings to match, otherwise you've just bought a great dac you won't be using to it's potential.
That is pretty much all there is that needs doing. What I thought before I got it was I was going to need to do a lot of jiggery-pokery in the tusb audio control pannel, in fact I did not! yay!
I hope this has been useful to someone or will be in the future...

[brucew268]

Quick update:
Good time to mention here that if you don't have the driver cd, you're in trouble. People talk about this working off the shelf without it on windows 11 and mac, it sure doesn't on windows 7...

Hi Rob, Where did you hear that Windows might support XMOS-like USB DACs without need for drivers? I can't find anything related to that topic.

BTW, a CD is not necessary as long as they have the Windows 7/8 Thesycon driver meant for the Calyx 24/192, which I have. But for Windows 10 that old driver is unreliable and one might want either a Linux-based player or a DDC to convert USB to SPDIF or AES/EBU.

[Gramophonic]

Hi Rob, Where did you hear that Windows might support XMOS-like USB DACs without need for drivers? I can't find anything related to that topic.

BTW, a CD is not necessary as long as they have the Windows 7/8 Thesycon driver meant for the Calyx 24/192, which I have. But for Windows 10 that old driver is unreliable and one might want either a Linux-based player or a DDC to convert USB to SPDIF or AES/EBU.

Hi Bruce,
I was told by a couple of guys that I should just be fine plugging this into my computer,, the chap I bought this from had tried it on win 11 and said it worked instantly. I just thought that Calyx wouldn't have sent a disc with a driver on it if they didn't need to, and my hunch turned out to be correct.
the problem seems to be that the driver cannot be downloaded from Calyx website without being logged in, and as of a few days ago I couldn't register to download it even if I wanted to, so the cd was the only option, it's just a good job the seller found it.
Where did you get your driver?
and, how do you find this DAC, out of interest? what are your impressions of it?

[brucew268]

Good to know about the Windows 11 possibility.

Up through 2019 they had an international website with all the drivers and firmware www.calyxaudio.com/cgi/bbs/board.php which now seems to be gone. They still have http://www.calyx.kr/xe/notice but it seems to be missing the most recent firmware (3.3.0) for Calyx 24/192 on Windows, though they do have it for OS-X.

Here is the rub, in order to get on the current driver 1.61.0, one needs to first update the DAC’s firmware to 3.3.0, but one can’t see what firmware version exists except from the Thesycon app which is part of driver software and they don’t have the older driver software on the website any more, nor firmware 3.3.0.

So if you know the DAC is on vers 3.3.0, you can update the Windows driver to 1.61.0. If you don’t know but have the original driver on CD, you can install that first but can’t get 3.3.0 any more so can’t use 1.61.0 ! Since my DAC is on firmware 3.3.0, I can install 1.61.0 on any older windows machine. Whew, their website is a patchwork mess!

Tip: note the search icon at the bottom left of http://www.calyx.kr/xe/notice which will help find what is and isn’t there.

Note: 1.61.0 only works reliably up through windows 8.

[Gramophonic]

Good to know about the Windows 11 possibility.

Up through 2019 they had an international website with all the drivers and firmware www.calyxaudio.com/cgi/bbs/board.php which now seems to be gone. They still have http://www.calyx.kr/xe/notice but it seems to be missing the most recent firmware (3.3.0) for Calyx 24/192 on Windows, though they do have it for OS-X.

Here is the rub, in order to get on the current driver 1.61.0, one needs to first update the DAC’s firmware to 3.3.0, but one can’t see what firmware version exists except from the Thesycon app which is part of driver software and they don’t have the older driver software on the website any more, nor firmware 3.3.0.

So if you know the DAC is on vers 3.3.0, you can update the Windows driver to 1.61.0. If you don’t know but have the original driver on CD, you can install that first but can’t get 3.3.0 any more so can’t use 1.61.0 ! Since my DAC is on firmware 3.3.0, I can install 1.61.0 on any older windows machine. Whew, their website is a patchwork mess!

Tip: note the search icon at the bottom left of http://www.calyx.kr/xe/notice which will help find what is and isn’t there.

Note: 1.61.0 only works reliably up through windows 8.

Hi Bruce,
I literally have no idea what fermware mine is running, is there a way to find out?
Do you think it's worth upgrading, if I can manage it and/or you can help me manage it, or should I just leave well enough alone lol

[brucew268]

Hi Bruce,
I literally have no idea what fermware mine is running, is there a way to find out?
Do you think it's worth upgrading, if I can manage it and/or you can help me manage it, or should I just leave well enough alone lol

In Windows' Hidden Icons box at the lower right of your screen, whilst connected to the DAC, you should see a Thesycon icon 'T' opening that should show you the driver version and the firmware version.

Is it worth it? I don't know. Perhaps the primary change is, "Manifest of all applications (setup, control panel etc.) adapted to support Windows 8."

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[Gramophonic]

In Windows' Hidden Icons box at the lower right of your screen, whilst connected to the DAC, you should see a Thesycon icon 'T' opening that should show you the driver version and the firmware version.

Is it worth it? I don't know. Perhaps the primary change is, "Manifest of all applications (setup, control panel etc.) adapted to support Windows 8."

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Hmm, I don't seem to see this when I type Thesycon into the start menue.
the driver is 1.11.0.0 from 2010 but I had to get that from device manager...