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

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by zerodeefex, Sep 28, 2015.

  1. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    Not sure if it's urgent or anything, but do wait for a couple of weeks before going for the Singxer.
     
    Last edited: Jun 29, 2017
  2. winders

    winders boomer

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    I second what landroni says, do wait if you can!
     
  3. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

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    Lynx is the way to go, but I ended up using two different, rather cheap, solutions for my PCs:
    For my dedicated music PC I bought Xonar Essence STX (app $140-$180 used) and use coax SPDIF out to the DAC. Additional benefit is that for casual listening the STX headphone amp is pretty good.
    For my home Win 8 PC, no room for additional cards, I bought Gustard U12. The improvement over USB surprised me greatly.
     
  4. mrflibble

    mrflibble Friend

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    M-Audio Audiophile 192 or ESI Juli@ are also worth a look if you can find one cheap second hand. The 192's seem to come up quite often on the 'bay (at least in the UK).
     
  5. haywood

    haywood Friend

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    There's also the 502DAC detailed in this thread...

    http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/raspberry-pi-i2s-to-spdif-hat.1990/

    ...which has a really good digital out section.

    The Pi solution basically replaces your computer so if you're married to your particular flavor of software it might not be for you but if you're willing to adapt a little then there are a lot of advantages and bypassing USB entirely is one of them.
     
  6. Mshenay

    Mshenay Barred from loaner program. DON'T SEND ME GEAR.

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    Oh a dac/solid state upgrade will be on my plate no earlier than February of next year lol! I spent way to much this year chasing tubes and closed back headphones. No more upgrades for me till I can get some stuff sold

    An yea that's my issue, I have my FooBar set up just right. I really need to rebuild my ENTIRE pc as it's 6 years old and isn't super stable. But I figure I'll upgrade my Dac first, then start looking at rebuilding my PC at home. I'm really only thinking of moving to Roon, as I didn't like jRiver
     
  7. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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  8. jexby

    jexby Posole Prince

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    Exit stage left....
    it always puzzled me why the Rendu takes a potentially better delivery channel (ethernet) and dumps it to USB out.
    most are trying to get rid of USB....
     
  9. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Because most inexpensive down-chain DACs are expecting USB in and Rendu plays in the inexpensive-ish playground.
     
  10. winders

    winders boomer

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    Over on CA I asked this very question. The answer that I got from the developer was that he already made that product, the Rendu, and no one bought it. Well, I looked up the old product and discovered why no one bought it. It wasn't the feature set, it was the price...$2895.00.
     
  11. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Exactly; He was trying to play in the high end area and failed for whatever reason. So selling a billion cheap widgets is the next best thing.
     
  12. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    The microRendu (let alone the ultraRendu) is not exactly a cheap widget. A microRendu with a good LPS comes to ~$1K. The top Auralic Aries is ~$1.5k. I can imagine an Ethernet endpoint with a good LPS AES or S/PDIF coax output at around $1.2K, saving on some of the Aries features.
     
  13. winders

    winders boomer

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    I can (reasonably) imagine it for a hell of a lot less than $1.2K!!
     
  14. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Valid point. I bought one earlier this year for $700 with cheapo LPS, for some reason I was remembering the cost as even less.

    Bottom line, adding a higher-end output was not needed to drive sales, I think that point is made with the success of the product.
     
  15. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    Of course if you read how many people ended up with a variety of USB to S/PDIF or AES boxes downstream, it's one of those cases where you start with a lower-priced item and end with a total cost that is comparable to a higher-priced item after you finish the cycle of "upgrades" ;) But for anyone who has the determination to stick with USB, it is a good choice.
     
  16. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    ... there's a big gap between what could be designed and built and what a manufacturer is willing to create given their profit goals and opportunity costs of producing something vs something else.
     
  17. ogodei

    ogodei MOT: Austin AudioWorks

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    Exactly, part of the sales strategy for aspirational buyers. Instead of offering the $1500 model to someone who cant afford it, sell them the $650 device they can use today. You get part of the sale, they get something they can use now, everyone is happy.

    I now own the MicroRendu, sMS-200, Singxer SU-1, and the WyredForSound PS-1. I could have just bought the Aries and been done with it, saved $$$. But I would have missed out on the experience of the upgrade path.

    BTW, look for my For Sale listings soon ;)
     
  18. alubis

    alubis Acquaintance

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    This is exactly what happened to me when I was following advices on Computer Audiophile forum. I ended up with small purchases that if I sum up costing me more than USD 2k. Thankfully, I'm using Rednet d16 now which sounds wonderful.

    I don't get why people insisting on using usb on a DAC which has aes or spdif input unless you need to play dsd files.

     
  19. landroni

    landroni Friend

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    USB is convenient, ubiquitous, and some are simply not that nervous about their inputs. Especially when you've only started with all this audiophile madness, and don't yet have say a spare 3rd DAC lying around, next to that 5th amp.

    I have a Modi Multibit, and I'm very happy with how it sounds via USB, thank you. To get SPDIF input, that would require one more box and even more cables, which could even be reason enough for me to get booted out of my own house... ;)
     
  20. earnmyturns

    earnmyturns Smartest friend

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    I caught the USB avoidance bug when I was at a local audio store buying some rather expensive analog gear and as I was about to check out, I noticed a (in comparison) cheap used Bel Canto mLink USB>S/PDIF converter and thought "HTH, won't add much %-wise to the bill so why not try it?" It made an audible difference, so off I went into the proverbial...
    [​IMG]
     

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