Digital Transports - USB Solutions, CD and SD Players, DAPs, and More!

MOTU has put out quite a range of prosumer gear that handles ethernet audio. Focusrite has a family of products as well, though more for pro installations.

 

Echo Audio gave up their nice firewire boxes (I have one of the small, two channel ones) and have gone into network-based technology too.

But we can do stuff with boxes like the Raspberry Pi. At least outside the studios and major commercial projects, there is no need for anything except ordinary, "simple," networking technology.

Slim Devices were way ahead of their time on this. A decade or more, with their Squeezeboxes. What a criminal shame that that initiative was murdered by Logitech,

 

I've had a couple Echo devices over the years and really liked them. Moreso than the M-Audio and Focusrite boxes that I've worked with.

Every once in a while I see a Logitech Transporter pop up which is supposed to be a step up from the portables. I'm always intrigued, but never took the plunge.

 

I always hear people complaining about the death of the squeezbox. I've Never listened to one but they say it was nice. I've heard daphile which is allegedly based on the same software and I thought it was nice.
Are firewire devices any worthy as a digital interface?
I have a m-audio firewire 410 sitting around idly. I've not used it in years.

 

So... after a few days of extensive reading about DDC threads mostly on computer audiophile I came out with the idea that crazyness about usb audio is reaching the pinnacle
I read about people building usb centipeds made of schiit wyrd, intona, uptone regen, sotm usb card, etc.... Thousands of dollars gaily spent on usb decrappifiers,purifiers, signal rebuilders, isolators... all to say "I think I hear a blacker background"... Is it madness?
Well my idea of finding a decent usb to spdif converter that sounds like a decent cd transport started from trying a cheap chinese breeze, then went on thinking to buy something like a mutec 1.2 or a ciunas transient, then I ended up considering a mutec 3+ usb as maybe a better suited gear.
Just to find out that in the end there could be something better in the artistic fidelity AFI USB, according to the few people in german forums (or fori, as you like it) who have tried this new gizmo comparatively.
http://www.artistic-fidelity.de/index.php/en/usb-module

But that is not all... What if usb was not the right way and ethernet was, as said above? Without spending dozens of thousands of dollars with something like a Merging product Sonore presents a ethernet audio device which swears to be a breakthrough in the DDC field, the microrendu:
http://www.microrendu.sonore.us/

Ok, I was gradually accepting the idea of spending 1k to try a mutec 3+usb smartclock with its super rubidium clocks and reclock ability but now I feel more confused that convinced. WTF is wrong with computer audio? USB onboard implementation seems like the worst evil. I understand that and I agree with it to some degree... But I still feel like I wanna punch someone in the face.

Waiting for things to clear up I'm gonna put some vinyl up and spinning 'til the answer won't show itself in a burst of light.

 

I think that ethernet is a great way forward, but that doesn't make USB wrong. If USB was as terminally broken as some claim, even in theory, then how come so many people are still enjoying the music?

Personally, I got great results, a decade ago, from a PCI soundcard, analogue out. sound like a CD player? It sounded markedly better than my CD player. Of course, this was some time before the audiophile world informed me that what I had been enjoying was simply not possible. I changed, but not because I lost faith in iinside-the-case sound, just because ...well, which of us can't resist trying some new and different stuff? I changed to firewire, and only more recently to USB.

Might be good, but be wary of things that are actually just a computer in a different-style case with the word audiophile etched on it. Not because there is necessarily anything wrong with them, but because any computer, including the one you build yourself, will probably do the same things.

Very good question.

Audiophile paranoia is what is wrong with computer audio. There are genuine things that can go wrong and cause real problems, but, if we subtract all the problems that people think they might have but don't, and all the problems that people think might happen but probably won't, and a few stupid things like using a laptop with a cheep'n'nasty power supply...
the answer is...

Actually, not much.



.

 

I had the Audiophileo 2 for a while. It really needs a good Linear Power Supply to have an effect.
A good LPS is is even better then the PurePower option they are offering.
But by that stage, you have already spend a lot of money for very little gain + a lot of small shitty little boxes hanging about.


The Mutec looks like very promising though! ….

 

The sooner I can ditch USB the better.

At the current time this means:
- buy/build a dedicated streaming box ala Aurender/SoTM with an AES output card. I don't really like this one because I still have to use a control app or remote control of some sort. I would rather just play directly from my laptop since I am often working in some kind of DAW as well as listening with Audirvana/Roon.
- buy a DAC that does Ethernet transport directly like Merging NADAC/Horus/Hapi. I see this as the best solution as the DAC implements the buffering and clocks it's own stuff internally (or it can do a word clock). It can accept input from anything with Ethernet so you can have a dedicated streaming PC/appliance like above or just hook it up straight to your DAW.

I'm hoping Ethernet (actually TCP/IP so include wireless) transport makes major inroads soon. IMO it's by far the best solution in all aspects; performance, flexibility, cost etc....

 

Though I'm not entirely certain if the prosumer ethernet dacs actually use the ethernet port to plug into the computer, or if that port is merely for linking up with other devices (maybe a little of both depending on the devices in question).

 

You can hook up a NADAC (Network Attached DAC) direct. It uses RAVENNA/AES67.

 

How many raging crazy computer audiophile do you know? In my circle the most part are integralist vinyl believer or cd spinner. And they are friggin' right. Even a (currently) cheap old cdp like a Carver SD/A-490t recently proved itself to be a game changer compared to cheap DDC like, say, a gustard or any onboard usb (be it xmos or c-media). I could have tolerated top cd transport but this is a little offensive for computer audio!
I can dig online and became madly confused with people buying miles of usb gizmos and raving or either dry out my credit card in search of the holy grail.
I do not enthuse about neither of the two option.

Thad, I don't know if usb is terminally broken, but based on my experience above there's clearly something wrong with it, at least with dac onboard usb or low end DDC, despite the hype and the praise they get if you have the misfortune to read some threads in various forums. People enjoy music even through an ipod, but that doesn't make the ipod the right or the wrong way to listen. You just know there are better sources.
More than a decade ago I enjoyed too my first soundblaster card, but found it was not superior to my cpd. The I went for firewire, other pci and usb. Then USB dacs came out. And I was like "Oh man, if it has usb onboard it can be worse than an equivalent cdp". Years ago, Trashing my cdp and all my cds for a dac and a pc looked like a smart move, but retospectively I'm starting to regret it soundwise. Now I'm totally devoted to pc media entertaining. I have pcs all over my house, even in my garage, all networked. And it is wonderful.
Now You're right, this could all be audiophiliac paranoia... but as you understand I can't ignore my empirical evidence that something is not working properly.

I am loaning a cdt for a longer period, I'll start there, and work my way down until something notable (minus the hype) come out and decide to try.

@Chris F
Merging solution, though very promising, is no solution for those who cannot afford or want to spend ten thousands of dollars.

 

The merging solution is certainly on the right track. If I consider for a 'quiet' PC solution we're talking a new HTPC with a $700 card, all of a sudden we're in the same ballpark as Hapi quite easily. If you're building a surround system, Hapi plus an DA8 card will run you $3500...not bad considering the $11k price they want for the Nadac. Of course you need the GB Ethernet switch as well, but that's not expensive.

If they release something along the lines of a stereo bridge with two channels out over AES, Coax and Optical SPDIF running over Ravenna for $500 it would be a game changer.

 

Man... I'd kill for that to happen Absolutely a game changer, though your price seems too tight.

 

You have to manifest your destiny . For $1k I'd buy it. Honestly, if they could bring the tech to the mass market, say a null-ether cable and a direct connection that just works so you can't actually 'network' it...they could make big inroads into making a market. Hell wifi...despite the technical challenges, absolutely wifi. Sell the bloody access points too, with built-in QOS for Ravenna.

Should I have another beer?

 

My first soundblaster was true to its name and horrible, My first RME card, on the other hand, is what beat my CD player hands down and I wish they still made 2-channel analogue i/o cards.

I'm keen on TCP/IP (yes, wireless as well as wired) as the way forward, but I'm horrified at the idea of taking a common-commodity thing and making it into a $$$$ audiophile thing. Of course, though, it is inevitable. God forbid that precious audio data should ever travel over anything cheap!

 

So I turned my Mutec MC-1.2 on and it made a looud physical whine, gradually settling to something I can still hear from few feet away.. I guess bad switching psu / cap or something. Typical Thomann B-stock and my luck lol. I guess I can still evaluate it, sounds good.

 

RME card... that makes sense

@Hekeli
What are you comparing the mutec to for evaluation?