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

That's nice... but I would not agree with you that latency, except of the DPC kind, is worth even thinking about, let alone mentioning. It is of no consequence whatsoever unless people start doing stuff like multi-tracking. If somebody wants to lay down a piano track, then sing to it and record that, latency matters. So the home-studio people are right to talk about latency, but the listeners are not.

When you have to wait, after pressing play or pause, for instance, for anything to happen, then you have a latency problem. Otherwise... you don't.

The sound does not deteriorate while it is spending a few extra ms somewhere in your system. For those that think that it does, I wonder how many of you also believe in reading a whole track into RAM before playing it? That certainly causes latency!

It is certainly true that stuff needs to happen at the right speeds: it is no good having bits delivered to a buffer faster than they can be read, or, of course slower. Missing music or gaps are going to result. However, this is mostly something that everybody except audio software developers can forget about.

OK... it can matter to the user in environments such as JACK, which can need "tinkering" (as discussed elsewhere) to match those things. Generally, though, sorry but there are no prizes for "reducing your latency." It was a non problem in the first place.

Nor does it matter how fast data reaches your device, as long is it is not too fast and not too slow, and if that should be the case, there is something seriously wrong with one of the devices at the ends of your USB cable. Or your cable is broken.

 

Latency, and round trip latency can effect your host, as far as delays, gaps in playback such as a small delay and silence for a few seconds or more. This was the case I was experiencing , even with a new computer with USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports on my host computer, and like I said, it even caused my JRiver to freeze and crash every once-in-awhile.

Otherwise, I agree with you, and I like your posts.

 

There is always the possibility that, in a given situation, something went wrong. One thing that then happens is that we try different things to fix it. Having human brains, we then attribute success to the thing that we think did the trick. Sometimes, we are even right!

As I mentioned, JACK gives me the possibility of fiddling with buffer sizes and periods, and sometimes people do find it necessary to tinker therein. Several years ago, I did. Since then, I have found that, hey, these days, and with the current undemanding DAC, rather than some badly-supported-by-Linux Firewire thingy, defaults just work. And JACK, once considered obscure, also just works.

I don't know much about J-River, so forgive me if I am being unjust here: I freely admit the possibility, and that I have certain prejudices --- but isn't it designed to sell into an audiophile market that likes to tinker? Once we start tinkering, we believe. Been there, done that. In fact, no doubt, I still do.

Thanks! Nice talking to you. Disagreeing and discussion here is so much more pleasant and productive than certain other places on the net

 

Thank you @Thad E Ginathom - I have learned that listening to others opinions and knowledge helps me learn and to see others points of view. I am the last person who thinks "I am always right" and it helps me a great deal to listen to others opinions, impressions and knowledge on subjects - people like you and other members are great assets to SBAF and help people like me to learn and grow as an audiophile.

 

I have a healthy pinch of skepticism about Alchemist's impressions (should it really reduce latencies that much? is there a particularly bad USB implementation in his motherboard?) but agree with others that at least this box seems to have a whole lot of serious parts and processes that are definitely altering the signal, regardless of subjective impressions of the result. I don't suspect it will stop the cheaper boxes as most people will simply want the "insurance policy" and $100 is a purchase small enough you don't have to think too hard, or discuss with spouse. These are more expensive but seem likely to get reliable USB out of almost any computer setup.
For those talking about the Yggdrasil, it already seems to have one of (if not the) best USB implementation out there. I wouldn't expect much difference if any. But this could be a considerable upgrade for most other DACs.

 

In DAC devices such as the Schiits (and perhaps most/all others), is the data stream that is input to the USB receiver first converted to S/PDIF and then passed along to the DAC, or is it transmitted directly via the I2S protocol?

 

It's understandable that you have a bit of skepticism about about my impressions, and that's good, a healthy debate is constructive. I will say though that my motherboard is only a few months old and is a very nice board indeed (Gigabyte Ultra Durable Z97x-UD5H-BK Black Edition with 168 hour Server Level Durability Tested) and has USB 2.0 as well as USB 3.0.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4978#ov




The transfer rates without the Intona are great, however, the Intona High-Speed USB Isolator increases those speeds and reduces round-trip latency. Even if one has a state of the art motherboard, you will NEVER achieve the USB speeds that manufactures claim they can get, they only specify what speeds you can get if conditions are optimal, which they never are. After 20 years building, and maintaining computers, as well as being Microsoft Certified DST I can tell you this by experience.

So I understand you skepticism. If you feel so inclined, do a USB transfer rate test on your USB ports and see if you get the transfer rates your motherboard claims you will get, then add the Intonia HIgh-SPeed USB Isolator and you will see a big difference in speed and a reduction in latency.

 

Someone should start an Intona loaner program. I'd love to hear comparisons on how it affects your chain vs. the regen.

 

By the way, have you guys seen/discussed this post on the What's Best forum about the Jitterbug and Regen? Are there any flaws in this person's argument? http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...t-Jitterbug-and-Uptone-Regen-USB-Conditioners

The TL;DR of it is that these devices are at best doing nothing and at worst adding distortion.

 

Umm, for the past 10 years I've always maxed out my external USB HDD speeds on pretty much any computer and USB port I've used. Are you saying Intona somehow makes them faster than physically capable? What exactly are you saying we should test? It's pretty hard to test USB DAC "speed", either it works full speed or it doesn't. And what does "latency" exactly mean in this context?

 

Keep in mind that USB 2.0 never reached its maximum speed, and since you stated for 10 years you were able to max out your USB HDD speeds I would be very impressed since USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 have NEVER reached their maximum speeds. Do some research on this if you find my reasoning flawed.

Now I am not trying to argue with you, or contradict what you are saying is true, I just know from over 20 years of research that USB 2.0 and now USB 3.0 have NEVER reached their maximum speeds. Take a look into it

The fastest drives currently available use a dual channel controller, although they still fall considerably short of the transfer rate possible from a current generation hard disk, or the maximum high speed USB throughput.

Typical fast drives claim to read at up to 30 megabytes/s (MB/s) and write at about half that speed. This is about 20 times faster than USB 1.1 "full speed" devices which are limited to a maximum speed of 12 Mbit/s (1.5 MB/s).

So you are saying you can get 480mbps for the past 10 years with your USB HDD? If so , congratulations, as no one else has ever achieved those speeds.

 

Sure! While I'm pretty damn content with Regen, high quality PS, using the hard adaptor - I'm always happy to give something new a try. It'd have to be a loaner / meet swap though, as I'm content enough to not want to spend anymore in this area.

 

Whoa (Neo voice), Just sayin'.

 

I'm getting the speeds generally expected. Of course it isn't the full 480Mbit spec, everyone knows that.

Yet you didn't tell us what speeds you were referring to and how much Intona increased it. How exactly did you verify this? Why would it "raise the speeds" and "lower latency" of an USB device, which still goes through the mobos USB port into Intona, which acts simply as an extra hub, and not reducing the steps for data transfer?

 

Did you read my review?

Please read the specifications and features here:

http://intona.eu/en/products

If my review does not answer your questions, you can contact Intona and they will explain in more detail. I have already wrote my findings in my review. I apologize if it does not satisfy your questions.

I will be shipping the unit to Marv shortly, if he wants to add more measurements or provide information that I have not, then hopefully that will answer the questions you have. In my review, I explained how it decreased latency, and reduced buffering on my host software from 50ms down to a mere 2ms. If you want to see pics of the actual transfer speeds then I will make it a point to post the pics -but I have not slept in 2 days s I will have to post them later this evening or tonight.

And please do not misunderstand, I am not saying you are wrong, I am not arguing with you, I am just explaining my findings. If my findings do not satisfy you, then I apologize, everything I tested is in my review and if Marv has anything to add or more measurements when he receives the unit which I will be shipping to him shortly, perhaps he will answer your questions.

 

Ah sorry for the noise, somehow I missed reading the last page where these were debated..

 

Just wondering if it's ok to have Schiit wyrd, Corning optical USB extender and the intonia together in the chain.

Also is the standard 1kv sufficient or do we need the industrial version.

 

Seems like an awful lot to add to the chain in order to get the most out of current USB implementations (both sides)...

Would moving to USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 offer any benefit in this domain other than much more data bandwidth?