PCI Interface cards

I did hear sotm and jcat pcie cards some time back and felt the jcat was superior. Both should allow for disabling bus power though, making any USB cable data only which seems advantageous. I had toyed with the idea of building a JCAT based HTPC server out of something like a Streacom FC5 Alpha with external LPS, but this stuff gets price prohibitive quickly. Now I think I'd rather go with an entry level TT instead.

 

Your report will be interesting --- but, unlike you, I would only be interested in analogue-out, ie scrapping the external DACs and going back to a simple, in-the-box, audio source. Just like the old days!

Hearing loss means I don't have to worry about audiophilia ever again, but, frankly, I still suspect that some of those sound cards, assuming that people are prepared to listen with an open ear, do measure up to many external DACs anyway.

More sacrilege from the Forum Filistine: If I want coax or toslink digital out, I'll use the motherboard. That option was simply not there in the days of my RME card. I'd do that rather than pay more to try to get over real-or-imagined USB audio problems. And Toslink is fine for me,, because I do not go over 96K with my music.

 

Indeed there is something to be said for simplicity And like you said those cards for pro use probably aren't all bad and some comparisons to external dacs and whatnot might be a good sanity check.

Personally i would not use optical since i seem to detect jitter or other problems with source quite easily, which those converters seem prone to unfortunately. AES is a bit over engineered just like balanced analog is for personal use but even if it only keeps the audio nervosa at bay then it's all right in my book.

Right now i'm using a usb/spdif bridge with AES and that works fine. But when i hear improvements switching to another usb port/controller it makes me want to skip the usb step in the chain all together. More simplicity and it keeps those audio demons away but perhaps i will also switch to a prosumer soundcard for analog in the future. Less fun though then all those external boxes

Wouldn't it be simpler and cheaper to just hookup the lps straight to the usb device? Still though having a dedicated usb controller could be beneficial.
This is what i use for my converter:

 

Yes. Genuine engineering. I'm very much in favour of that, even if it only comes under the pride-of-ownership heading,



.

 

Looking at alternatives to connect my SFD-1 to my PC. At the moment I'm just using SPDIF from my shiity MSI mobo. I am considering getting a better pro-audio sound card. I can dedicate $1000 to this experiment. What is my best option?

 

I tried the Lynx E22 and it's good, but not as good as the Mutec MC-3+USB (costs less though).

The ESI Juli@ XTe isn't quite as good as the Lynx but is cheaper still. People like to mod that one.

The Asus Xonar Essence STX is okay but not as good as the ESI and costs more.

 

That's a comparison of them purely as SPIDF transports no? I'd love to hear more about what you found better/worse on each one specifically... Haven't seen much talk about internal cards here. The Juli@ and STX seem like overlooked options for people trying to get away from USB on a budget...

Also, what DAC did you use with them? Coax or optical?

 

Ha ha... I'm trying to get away from external DACs, never mind USB.

Well, OK, in theory yes, but not in practice. I have 2 USB devices, and I am not going to throw them away because I don't like the USB idea any longer. But I might buy a Juli@ ...just for fun... some day.

 

The Juli@ XTe is actually pretty good as a DAC for the price. The Xonar STX isn't bad either. Both can be modded to some extent.

 

Well yeah, they can fill either role, they're obviously a higher value proposition if you use them as a DAC outright (or even a DAC + lower end amp in the STX's case); but compared to some of the popular SPIDF/USB converters here (or decrapifiers etc) they're still pretty attractively priced.

I've been looking to get an external DAC largely out of sheer curiosity but also because the STX won't do any DH DSP stuff for gaming from it's RCA outs (only over SPIDF and the head amp). It's probably silly of me because most game audio is so low fi it hardly matters... I should just use it's headphone out when gaming and RCA to amp or SPIDF to a DAC/amp for music.

That being said, in my case connections-wise and logistically I think it'd be simpler to just use the SPIDF out to a DAC for everything. Something for which I could probably use an even cheaper card but I already have the STX... And I'm curious how it'll compare to external DACs, so curiosity will probably kill the cat here.

Dunno whether it'll be the weakest link in my chain or not, but it still looks like the most convenient/economical way to go out of my desktop (since I already have it and all).

 

For what it's worth, when playing games, I never use external anything. I use a gaming sound card.

 

Well usb adds about 150ms latency in my experience. With xmos atleast that is. I can see how that would affect competitive gaming seeing how ppl go crazy about 1ms response times on tn panels. I reckon if you want external, a dac to that marian card with it's aes interface does about 3ms which should be fine imo. Other prosumer cards aren't far off probably.

 

150ms latency with USB? Seems rather high. I know USB won't be on the same level of a good PCI interface. I'm more familiar with chains that achieve single-digit latency from end to end.

Example of a more typical USB chain IME:

 

That's a really nice chart, and it also emphasises where the importance of latency lies.

I can understand that it might matter for gaming too. In a way, that must be a round-trip situation too.

For audio music listening it is irrelevant. I just find it a joke that people talk about reducing latency... and then say that music has to be read into and played from ROM: how much latency does that introduce! This is a recorded message: I've said it many times before... it is one of my audio hobby horses. Sorry to be boring.

 

Yeah it is weird but i tested this with 2 devices using an xmos usb bridge and they both showed the same thing, be it windows with wasapi or linux with alsa bit perfect(hw:0,1 etc). The way i noticed this is when playing video. Whenever i use usb i always see lip sync problems and with these particular converters i have to use 150ms which is even more then usual, maybe i'm sensitive to it i dunno. What causes this? I suspect it's a combination of things, the video's i watch usually are 5.1 which get converted down to 2.0, the usb bridge being asynchronous and maybe since i use quite a long hdmi cable that adds some latency as well. Not to mention the tv probably adding some latency and not having sound go over hdmi to something like a receiver also messes things up since the receiver is not compensating for it.

So yeah you're right 150ms is high but it happens in my case. But still i shouldn't blame usb for it entirely. Can't wait to try that marian card but it will cut into my Yggdrasil fund and that's not gonna happen

 

I always forget that watching video is another thing where audio latency matters

I don't watch movies or play games, so I'm not much aware of the requirements.

 

Well i'm kind of a whiny bitch when it comes to video and audio quality so it's only logical that i whine about lip sync as well

 

Actually, video and audio being in sync strikes me as one of those why the hell wouldn't it be things. It's so basic. It is a ridiculous failure of technology if it isn't.

But, of course I watched a few things on Youtube and yes, we live in a world with ridiculous failures of technology!

 

Yeah more people should follow the kiss principle imo. But no greed usually gets in the way. Or politics, pride whatever.

 

I use JCAT USB card, which suits my system and music server setup (Daphile and AudioGD USB32 input).

I have heard from others that the Lynx works better than JCAT where the USB input is limiting. Personally I'm pretty heavily invested in USB (JCAT and WW Platinum cable) and happy with the results, couple with the physical incompatibility of the Lynx with my case (require riser cable) and OS (requires drivers) and I'm content to not explore that option.