USB Nervosa Thread Decrapifiers, pro interfaces, and bears oh my

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. Lynx + Thunderbolt enclosure seems like the way to go.

If I'm understanding correctly, is this how the setup would work?

MacBook (via Thunderbolt) connects to something like this: http://www.sonnettech.com/Product/echoexpressse1tb3.html
Lynx PCIe card outputs into Gungnir Multibit.

Doesn't seem too inconvenient unless there's something I'm missing.

 

@Faker
If possible, I’d go for a PCI (not PCI-e) enclosure as the old PCI AES cards can be found for a lot less compared to the newer PCI-e cards. There is no significant difference, if any at all, between newer and older cards. As far as I know at least.

 

While Gungnir Multibit and Yggdrasil have great clocks, they are not immune to crappy USB signals. Since I have an Yggdrasil and a Singxer F-1 along with a MacBook Pro with iffy USB signals, I have first hand experience here. I get better sound quality out of Yggdrasil using the Singer F-1 than I do going straight USB. I posit that the Singxer F-1 is less affected by the crappy USB signal than Yggdrasil is and the Singxer F-1 puts out a nice clean appropriately clocked SPDIF signal that Yggdrasil has no problems processing. Also, Crystek 575 clocks, as used in the Singxer F-1, are very good clocks!

 

Inconvenient as in you have to pay a lot ($250) for an enclosure the size of (possibly bigger than) a Magni/Modi stack just to fit the Lynx card. $250 can get you a full-fledged PC with a PCIe port for the Lynx card. But if you want macOS to be your music OS of choice (since you use Spotify, you probably do), that's the only way.

 

The ultimate solution is to skip all this entirely and go with something like the Auralic Aries and use AES with Yggdrasil or SPDIF with Gungnir Multibit.

 

“Ultimate”, and quite an expensive solution.

 

With the other solutions being recommended, a used Aries isn't really any more expensive and would arguably be a better solution.

 

Oddly enough, my CPU never seems to be working too hard. This is what it looks like with Spotify and Chrome (20 tabs) running in background:

Barely under load.

Another thing too is that I changed which USB port I used for output. Dropouts didn't immediately start appearing after, but I had no problems before I changed ports. Thing is, the cable no longer reaches the old port in my new setup arrangement. I should probably get on to testing that

 

Yeah a used Aries if you're lucky runs about 900. For PCI vs PCIe be aware that for Gungnir Multibit you can't use AES (unless you convert AES to BNC so the PCIe is useful for that reason. I used a lynx e22 card in a akitio enclosure off amazon for like 200ish. Then the breakout cable has both AES and BNC connectors.

 

I've looked into the Aries, and I'm still not completely sure what it can do. It doesn't seem to offer streaming with Spotify, only Tidal. If someone primarily listens with Spotify like me, do they have an option to somehow stream through Wi-Fi? Looks like a great solution otherwise though; love how it doesn't need to be connected to a computer.

 

Doesn't the Aries support AirPlay?

 

One USB port has the trackpad, camera, etc. attached to it. You can see which by doing "about this mac" from the Apple menu then system report and then clicking the usb item which shows the device trees.

Fwiw the only time I ever saw dropouts with my rmbp + audirvana was very rarely when the fans were really going, but I don't upsample and had my audio files on an sd card (attached to the pcie bus so no usb conflicts and not the boot drive so no hassles with system task contention). Lately I've been using a raspberry pi with spdif output hat and audio tuned os which sounds good, is more convenient (because it's always on), and liberates the mac from audio duty.

 

A new quote from that thread I quoted from earlier:

"Speaking of tweeking...just listened to that star quad silver/teflon shielded DC cable I made this morning. Vs the stock twisted silver teflon - on the RuR...well I'm again shocked at the SQ improvement. The biggest improvement - great inner detail, more focused detail, and a bit more detail (already pretty amazing). Not much change in the bass - maybe a touch better defined.

Also a bit more of that ease and musical sweetness added. Nothing negative."

Why does that make me think of this quote from Casablanca?

"I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here."

Of course I almost fell off my chair laughing.....

 

i actually found the SU-1 just okay, though I had it primarily for the Holo Spring. I didn't have Mutecs to compare it , but i think it fell below the 3+USB (the tight version, not the floppy one), and I ran both of these on a microrendu. Maybe the upcoming Schitts will be as good?

 

Another relatively cheap way to mitigate USB is using something like a Sonore SonicOrbiter or Auralic Aries mini, toslink and coax-out, respectively. AES and BNC-out are another story.

I actually inquired to Sonore today as I was curious of specifications regarding the Sonore Rendu/Signature Rendu ethernet -> I2S devices, and specifically said I was wanting to keep USB out of the chain. Their response:

I ran across some Auralic news today that they're upping their game beyond the current Aries femto, with the G2 series, connecting the various new devices through "Lightning Link" HDMI protocol. It seems like a lot of boxes to me, external word clocks and processors (ie: cha ching).

Auralic Aries supports Airplay so with an iOS device you could stream to the Aries whatever you wanted. It can also use it's internal Lightning OS software to index/create it's own library or serve as a UPnP renderer (can't be both).

 

It sounds like Sonore missed the entire point of your question. Regardless of their USB output, maybe you want to avoid using the USB input on the DAC. Typical...

 

I think they are right that their USB is better than random USB from a PC or Mac, especially with a good power supply. But they are leaving out that USB requires a USB receiver, which generates switching noise at the receiving end. That's why interposing something like an SU-1 between a microRendu+LPS-1 and a DAC that takes AES or I2S is a win. At least in my experience. If your DAC takes AES, the current Aries is not more expensive and is less complicated than microRendu+good PS+SU-1.

 

Although I don't have a technical explanation, but in my experience wifh the Yggdrasil,
I have found that the usb is slightly aggressive or forward sounding compared to the spdif input.

I tried the sdif input and have not tried any other inputs.
As I have noticed an improved sound of relaxed delicate ambience and slight increase of dimensionality with using an "F1",
Which I believe is stripped down version of the SU1...

Upgrading my laptop also changed my choices of l these "Decrapifiers",
And I found the WRYD and some other stuff useless..
The WYRD did work well with my old crap laptop, but useless for the new one.

Also found using a "Regen" changed the performance of the F1 slightly better, I believe due to a better USB power/signal when feeding the F1.

Then I sold the F1 once I attained the DXIO Pro3Z, (not the Pro3a)..
It has twice the processing lower of both the "SU & F1" units..

I only noticed a very small improvement,
until I also fed it better USB, with the "Regen".
There are better units than the Regen, but I not bother.

I also bought a better power supply for the Pro3z, called an " iPower",
But it did not directly benifit from this..
Instead, feeding the Regen with this better PSU, improved the whole configuration.

So bottom line is you need to find out what best work with your setup.

The "Decrapifiers" actually work, but not in every situation.
Too much variability in setups.

From my situation, next would be changes to my source, but I already bought new laptop and don't want to go further..

Saving my pennies for headphones instead.

 

One of the things that brought me to this site was the thread on NOS dacs where I saw mention of the Audial company. Audial announced in a newsletter a USB to Spdif/I2S/Simultaneous transport. At 410 Euros it is really expensive, but I'm wondering if there is merit to this unit?

https://www.audialonline.com/topics/usb-to-simultaneous-data-or-i2s-converter-series-2/