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

If you want more converter's, I currently have @Hands' CIAudio Transient 2 on loan. I could probably send that to you once I'm done, if he's okay with that. I could pass it along to @sphinxvc too if he wants to do his own comparison before sending it off to you.

 

I'm a happy guy. I actually am pretty happy with my digi headphone rig, even knowing its bigger picture shortcomings. And, so far, @drfindley doesn't seem too put out by SBAFers inviting themselves over to his house. ;-) But I'm also a gear junkie to some degree, and curiosity != unhappiness. I see vinyl junkies tinkering and upgrading too. Apples and tangelos maybe, but not so different in concept.

 

I love and dislike both analog and digital for different reasons, but ultimately it boils down to $$$$ and the types and kinds of fussing that is required to tweak and use them.

Mistracking, crud in the grooves, poor electrical connections while dealing with very small electrical signals, phase shift, the greater impact that environmental conditions (heat humidity etc.) all are 'weaknesses' of vinyl (the very heart of analog), not to mention the 4-5-6 figure prices for turntables, carts, arms, etc.

Digital has its foibles as well, such as timing and transmission of the digital audio signals, reconstruction of the analog signal, and the steady creep into 3-4-5 figure pricing to name a few.

Still, on average, digital is an order (or more) lower in cost when comparing systems with 'equal' SQ, and can be far less complex, requiring much less infrastructure etc.
And can play for more than 20 minutes at a time with out needing to be 'fussed with'.

As for NEVER being happy, well I'd substitute NEVER, with delighted with improvements and enjoying the discovery of hearing my music as if anew, again, many times over.
Put another way the lowered cost of digital allows me more choices to experiment and experience and discover my music anew, again.
Along the lines of you don't really know what type and kind of veil(s) you have, until they are removed.

JJ

 

I suppose my indecisiveness is a boon right now. Too many choices/avenues with USB, so haven't yet taken the doohickey plunge and potentially been left wanting for more (or for less $$) compared to going straight SPDIF (and forsaking the convenience of computer audio).

Kind of surprised there aren't any Lightning/Thunderbolt devices that have SPDIF output at ~ Mutec 1.2 prices. Licensing costs must be prohibitive, and I suppose affordable similar USB-C devices will soon turn up; but I wonder if there's anything in the USB-C spec that makes it specifically better for audio in the context of converting to SPDIF.

 

I'm not sure if added bamdwidth will help unless there are different protocols that can be used with USB-C? Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't have much knowledge in this area, isn't the issue with digital (usb) the way that it sends information in "packets" and not a continuous stream like analag?

 

It's supposed to be due to jitter, or cable impedance, or something. All digital transmission protocols use a packet-like structure to hold and transmit data.

Ultimately, all digital information storage and transmission uses an analog signal. The difference is that the data is encoded in the analog signal; in other words the signal is interpreted to extract a discrete value.

 

USB has multiple problems and was never designed for streaming, let alone audio.
It's primary, and really it's only 'advantage' is its ubiquitousness, and its cheap.

Just removing the timing data from the signal data for a digital audio stream is (or can be) a big step up in SQ not to mention the noise (from the 5volts) the USB cable carries which screws with the data being delivered.
And SPDIF while better, is way to susceptible to extraneous noises as well.

For basic consumer level data delivery SPDIF beats USB, but AES3 is way better and in multiple ways.

JJ

 

I am dying for a Schiit Wyrd Uber... something which performs functions like the Mutec MC3+ but even cheaper, better and maybe with I2S direct to Yggdrasil.

But I guess I better go back to my audiophile dreams.

 

I wouldn't expect Marv to find any of this better than his vinyl setup but I'm curious as to how far the digital realm has come (if at all) since the o.g. dac list was made with the or5. The Singxer SU-1 would be another interesting combatant, it's reportedly not quite as good as the Lynx, Mutec 3+ or Rednet but it's much, much cheaper.

Most people with the pimp rigs seem to be using it to reclock the spdif signal rather than as a usb converter (though of course people use it for that as well, but it's still usb audio).

The interesting thing to me in digital is the move away from a direct usb connection or the pc entirely like you found with your d100 and other people are doing with stuff like the microrendu or raspberry pi.

Macs are mostly built with low power parts since Apple cares more about thinness and battery life than outright specs most of the time. If you subscribe to the noisy pc theory then that should help, but you'd probably find similar results on higher end ultrabook type pc devices. I've also heard people say putting the music on an sd card as opposed to hard drive or ssd helps, but don't know if that's a usb bus thing, hf noise from the much higher bandwidth devices or just wishful thinking.

 

From my own experience, Usb ports plays a noticeable part in the sound, this is even when the Mutec MC3+USB has galvanic isolation.

Soundstage seems more cohesive with PPA usb card v2 with NEC/Renesa driver vs Asrock Z87 motherboard usb port.

 

When I'm working in my home office I use a Macbook pro -> Wyrd -> Bifrost Multibit -> Val 2 -> HD800 (mostly redbook rips from CDs). No complaints, always sounded fine (I don't have hi def ears; too many loud noises in my past). But I'd picked up a little Thunderbolt dock to get some additional ports and it had optical out and since I had a suitable fibre cable, I thought I'd just give it a try expecting to find absolutely no audible change. Couldn't have been more wrong; it was very obviously better than the USB chain. Didn't expect that at all. Haven't gone back to usb, either.

Rob

 

FYI, on MacBook Pros the headphone output doubles as optical mini Toslink output. Though some assert it is shittier quality than the optical output of dedicated transports, in my experience connected to Gungnir Multibit it was overall better than USB but seemed to be comparatively slightly subdued in the lowest audible frequencies. Not sure how that compares to the optical output on Thunderbolt docks, but would image they're of similar quality.

Not sure if glass toslink cable would help.

Think I'll give the Pi (HifiBerry+ SPDIF) another shot with Volumio 2 (or Roon) rather than dick around with USB.