...
Something of note though, when I run derod I get audio cracks whenever I play a video (VLC/Youtube/Twitch). This has never happened on this PC for the 6 years of its life.
...
I also reported that the new daemon appears to be very resource-hungry while syncing. It dramatically reduces CPU/whatever use when it does finally get all caught up, however.
Yes, from what I can tell it utilizes all CPU cores to increase performance. Most applications keep core0 open to not disrupt minor operations.