Lynx PCIe AES interfaces: AES16 and E22

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by purr1n, Sep 8, 2016.

  1. kirayamato

    kirayamato Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2015
    Likes Received:
    91
    Trophy Points:
    28
    just looking cause i dont see it on the manual i have the cable
     
  2. Abhishek Chowdhary

    Abhishek Chowdhary Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    420
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Location:
    India
  3. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    4,171
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Switched out my Aes16e for a Digigram VX-222e since the Lynx is a bitch to get to work under linux. Basically it can only be done with pci passthrough and windows in a VM. And even then after much f'ing around it still is not perfect(Fpga's and virtualization don't mix). Sometimes there are cracks and pops/skips.

    Anyway, the Digigram also has it's quirks but i worked around them, soundwise i perceive the Lynx to be a bit smoother/warmer while the Digigram has a bit more detail/depth with both feeding Yggdrasil A1 with AES.

    Some tips for linux: with alsamixer set the 1st pcm to 49 and not higher, look at the gain if it's at 51 there is 0.25db gain and i can hear very slight distortion, this increases the further you go. With modern distro's shoving pulseaudio down our throats this also fucks things up a bit, basically don't go over 20% on the volume or you will get distortion quickly.

    Preliminary conclusion: meh, will have to see which one goes...
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2019
  4. Aklegal

    Aklegal Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2016
    Likes Received:
    623
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    ^^^^^@Riotvan
    Man, I could not get my VX222e to work with linux at all. I only tried Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Linux Mint though. I had to abandon linux and switched to Windows 10.

    Appreciate your comparison of the Digigram to the Lynx. I had been curious about how the two compare.
     
  5. Riotvan

    Riotvan Snoofer in the Woofer

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    4,171
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    The Netherlands
    Well if you want to give it a try again, this is how to do it:
    Boot your distro of choice and make sure you can install packages, this can be done with a full install or most live usb enviroments.
    Open a terminal and run alsamixer, if it can't be found make sure alsa-utils is installed, you can do that inside a live usb as well. Anyway in alsamixer select the digigram with F6 and notice the gain in the in the top left corner, select the first PCM. If there is an M in the bottom it is muted and you have to press M to unmute it. Now adjust the volume till the gain says 0.00db.

    Now install Audacious or something and have it use alsa as output and it should play music fine.

    As for desktop use with pulseaudio, it is a mess and i'm still messing around with it. Only getting mono playback which sucks, i'll post a fix when i find it.

    Edited with a fix for pulseaudio:
    If your card is hw:0,0 then use the following, you can find this out by using aplay -l
    Your asound.conf needs to look like this:

    pcm.!default {
    type hw
    card 0
    }

    ctl.!default {
    type hw
    card 0
    }

    Then you need to edit your default.pa:

    load-module module-alsa-sink device=hw:0,0
    the next section needs to be commented out like so:

    ### Automatically load driver modules depending on the hardware available
    #.ifexists module-udev-detect.so
    #load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0
    #.else
    ### Use the static hardware detection module (for systems that lack udev support)
    #load-module module-detect
    #.endif

    In your daemon.conf set the following to make pulse sound less like ass:

    avoid-resampling = yes

    It should work now in stereo everywhere and be "bit-perfect" if you set the gain to 0db in alsamixer.

    Edit: Been listening for a good while and comparing the cards. Honestly the Digigram is just as good as the Lynx imo, maybe even better depending on taste and synergy. The differences are slight, like i said a bit more detail on the Digigram vs a bit smoother on the Lynx. The fact you can get a used VX222e for $184 makes the choice clear imo.
    It does not come with a cable so you'd have to make one yourself, or the digital breakout cable is maybe $30 used? But hard to source apparently. It's in the manual how to make the cable, but i can tell you how to do it. Get a microphone or aes cable, a 15pin HD dsub connector(like vga) and an xlr. Connect hot to pin 14, cold to 15, leave the shield floating on the dsub so don't connect it. The Hot to 2, cold to 3 and shield to 1 on the xlr.

    All in all i'm selling the Lynx.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2019
  6. Overkill Red

    Overkill Red Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Dec 17, 2015
    Likes Received:
    390
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Location:
    Singapore
    Don't think this was mentioned before, but if I only wanted to use digital AES to a DAC, is there any benefit in getting the Lynx AES16e over something like the E22 or RME HDSPe AIO? Couldn't find if anyone had compared the models before or if anyone had upgraded to a higher end model. Will be using a PC with Windows 10.
     
  7. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,268
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No.
    In fact the E22 is said to be better for that purpose.
     
  8. AdvanTech

    AdvanTech Friend

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    May 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,667
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    NYC
    A little PSA/reminder:

    After 3 or so months of using Gen 5 USB with my Yggdrasil A2 thanks to an Apple OS X update that made my E22 card unrecognizable, I just realized Lynx updated the drivers/firmware late-March. After updating everything and plugging my external thunderbolt enclosure back in, it only took 5 minutes of listening to realize that until Schiit releases a next generation USB solution, this is a superior way to feed my DAC. I'm not that good at explaining what I'm hearing but I think it's an increase in clarity, immediacy, focus, ease.

    Thanks SBAF members for bringing this to my attention. I'm happy it's back in my chain.
     
  9. Clemmaster

    Clemmaster Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,268
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Even with Schiit’s Beta USB card, I feel the Lynx AES16e is still better overall.

    Incidentally, I just reinstalled my Lynx card in my desktop workstation. I had been using Unison in the Yggdrasil A2 for a couple months until then.
    While Schiit’s new interface has a log of merit, I still feel the Lynx sounds more real and is more easy on the ear.
     
  10. gridmaster

    gridmaster Facebook Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2018
    Likes Received:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    United States
    I've had a Lynx AES16e for the longest time, but since I don't listen to music near my desktop, it was sitting in my storage bin for half a year. I recently purchased a thunderbolt enclosure to use it with my Macbook. I went from Integrated USB -> Singxer SU-1 -> Eitr, each step being quite a decent upgrade from the previous. Now that I'm running the Lynx it's a quantum leap forward over the Eitr. Super nice I can run multiple dacs at once for a/b with it too.

    I'm super interested in the Singxer SU-6 tho. I've read rave reviews about it, but from nobody I trust. I don't really want to throw down $650 just to confirm the Lynx is better. SU-1 was pretty meh to me, better than Schiit gen3 usb for sure, but not worth the money imo. People are saying the SU-6 isn't even in the same league as SU-1 tho, it's far and beyond better (but again from nobody I know or trust, just random forum posts).

    Matrix X-SPDIF 2 also looks nice, but also read the SU-6 is still better than that. Basically all these new "femtosecond" DDC hitting the market as of late has be thinking.
     
  11. AdvanTech

    AdvanTech Friend

    Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    May 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,667
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    NYC
    You have a Lynx card. I'm not sure why you're even paying attention to what random people say about a new Singer doodad.
     
  12. gridmaster

    gridmaster Facebook Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2018
    Likes Received:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    United States
    It has direct i2s output which interests me, as one of my dacs has i2s input. Which is nice because i2s bypasses spdif conversions. Not that, that would make it better, just curious if it would live up to the hype.
     
  13. data.noodle

    data.noodle Acquaintance

    Joined:
    Mar 29, 2018
    Likes Received:
    48
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Location:
    NYC
    i just noticed this thread and wanted to say that i have had a lynx e44 for about 1.5 years and i absolutely love it, my only complaint is that in windows setting the sample rate via the mixer application does not work which can be confusing depending on your configuration.
     
  14. msommers

    msommers High on Epipens

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2016
    Likes Received:
    2,750
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Calgary, Alberta
    Home Page:
    I've got a breakout cable that is in a box somewhere if someone needs one.
     
  15. Josh358

    Josh358 Facebook Friend

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2018
    Likes Received:
    149
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    CT
    Question -- my system is triamped and I'm currently using an Exasound e38 Mk II, but not entirely happy with the sound (preliminary impression -- the LPS hasn't arrived yet). I've wonder about using the an AES16e with multiple 2 channel DACs, a really good one for my midrange/tweeter panels and humbler ones for the high and low bass panels. But since most consumer DACs don't have clock inputs I'm wondering if they'd sync adequately. Even if I could adjust offsets with sufficient precision they'd have to remain constant to avoid phasing effects.

    Do you or anyone else have any experience with this?
     
  16. gridmaster

    gridmaster Facebook Friend

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2018
    Likes Received:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    United States
    To my knowledge the Lynx mixer doesn't have offset adjustments. Although I haven't setup my dacs in a dual output to different speakers setup, I did use an a/b switch to go back and forth between them, and I didn't notice any delay when flipping the switch, not even a millisecond. Music picked up exactly where it left off when I flipped the switch from dac A to dac B. Somebody might be able to verify better if they've used a dual dac setup with speakers tho.
     
  17. Josh358

    Josh358 Facebook Friend

    Contributor
    Joined:
    Mar 14, 2018
    Likes Received:
    149
    Trophy Points:
    33
    Location:
    CT
    Thanks. I was thinking that I could compensate for a fixed delay in software, but I'm not sure that it has a sufficiently fine adjustment to avoid phase problems in the XO region. And of course that's assuming that the latency of the DAC is constant -- though I can't think of a reason why it wouldn't be, for a given setting, anyway (I suppose it could potentially change if sample rate did and the DAC used different reconstruction filters).
     
  18. Drifterxny

    Drifterxny Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2016
    Likes Received:
    84
    Trophy Points:
    28
    Location:
    NYC
    is there any way to use the lynx card with a laptop?
     
  19. bazelio

    bazelio Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 16, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,417
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Yes. You'll find info about this in the thread.
     
  20. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Oct 25, 2015
    Likes Received:
    3,070
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Cape Town, South Africa
    FWIW the Dangerous Convert 8 is only a grand more than the Convert 2. Channels to spare...
     

Share This Page