Musiland Monitor 01 USD 24/192 USB to SPDIF - Page 10

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Jtam,
I already have that pic (I may even have posted it) but that's the US model (the one with PCM1793DAC) - what I'm trying to establish is whether I2S is also used in the USD model (no DAC).

Jtam,
PM sent!

Musiland Monitor 01, the USD model:

Pic 1
Pic 2
Pic 3
Pic 4

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Thanks Jtam,
For these pics, Do you have a link to where these came from? I could only find internal pics of Monitor US model & review.
I see 2 Pulse transformers - it looks like one for RCA output (JK1) & one other output? (JK3). In what format are these signals? The optical Torx is S/PDIF format, I think.

What I'm trying to get is an I2S signal, usually consists of 3 or 4 lines. The reason being that it is a lower jitter way of communicating (over short distances) with a DAC than a S/PDIF signal. Why? Because the clock signal is on it's own separate line in I2S but is intermingled with data signal in S/PDIF.

I can see from the pic that it's available on the US model as it feeds this to the PCM1793 DAC

Here's my further quick analysis of the pics
For the USD model pin 5 of the FPGA feeds a signal to the HCU04 chip (buffer) which is output through the Pulse transformer to JK3. Pin 28 or 29 feeds another HCU04 & output to JK1. Pin 28 or 29 feeds Torx SPDIF optical output.

For the US model (with PCM1793 DAC) pins 3,4,5 of FPGA seem to feed I2S to PCM DAC

Does this make sense?

Edit: This would seem to signify that there was separate firmware for the US than there was for the USD?

I guess I don't have the knowledge to answer these questions...

I would love to get i2s from this sucker would make it the ultimate music converter for me, and use my creative expresscard for games/movies.

Yes, my USB transports are all stock not modded.


The Bel Canto vs the Musiland monitor subjective comments:
They are both my favorite options sound wise, the Musiland has a faster and more accurate sound to my ears, yet this is very minor. The Bel Canto seems to add warmth on 16/44.1 recordings, maybe this is because of the way the 24/96 was programmed onto the chip? Im not entirely sure, I will do some more direct comparisons with more albums, tomorrow as I am off from work.

I think the Bel Canto is more attractive looking with my setup, yet the musiland has more features, and seems to sound more in line with my system, whereas the Bel Canto now feels like it affects some detail awkwardly with the Buffalo32s, I know it would be great with the Dac3 but maybe the way it samples doesn't mesh as well with the Sabre 9018 as the Musiland.

These are all highly subjective and IMHO, so please take them for what it's worth. The Musiland also lock's better as well, the main thing is looks and driver issues depending on OS. Though minor sound differences are observed, I will repeat this all tomorrow with fresh ears to see if it stands again, and will have my fiance swap USB devices without telling me tomorrow night and see what I notice, to find out if this is more concrete.

BTW: I was really not expecting much from the Musiland but I was extremely suprised and am now very curious about their future releases.

Thanks for the comparisons DoYouRight. I ordered it to try out - need flexibility of an external USB->SPDIF converter because my next DAC may not have USB. It'd be nice if this is better than the built in USB of my DA100 also.

Hi Jtam,
You can probably confirm that there is only one firmware download file for both the US & USD as I seem to remember from their downloads section?

Hi DoYouRight,
Again thanks for the on-going review. One obvious upgrade for both of these USB/SPDIF converters is to the PS. USB PS is never going to be as goood as external clean PS. Another possible upgrade would be implementing a better clock. And the final one would be getting I2S out of both of them. So there's some more to be had from both of these units yet.

Just a point of clarification, DoYouRight, you're testing with both units is via the optical SPDIF of both or am I wrong here?

Finally, I was tired when I posted last night, but I'm pretty sure that the USD model doesn't have I2S available for tapping into - the RCA & BNC outputs are SPDIF, I'm pretty sure, as both go through a Pulse transformer.

One size fits all. The same driver for Monitor 01 US/USD, Monitor 02 US.

Both BNC with comparison between Bel Canto and Musiland to be fair, and optical for good measure. I really like BNC though

Sorry, DYR, I keep thinking the USD only has an optical out that's why I asked, doh!

I'm pretty sure you won't be able to tap into I2S in that model, I'm afraid. Shame! That's the model I would prefer for a number of reasons
- it's cheaper (but only $10 or so),
- it has SPDIF out so easy to connect up & compare external DACs (it would have been nice to compare SPDIF Vs I2S into the Buffalo),
- I don't really want the PCM1793 DAC in the US model

Edit: The only possibility would have been if there was a different firmware for each model but this appears not to be the case. I would then have suggested to use the US firmware in the USD & this could have enabled the I2S pins on the FPGA (with the option of reverting back to USD functionality at any stage by loading the USD firmware). Unfortunately, the one firmware file suggests that the board identifies itself to the firmware in some way & the correct software model gets loaded!

Well I too would love to tap into i2s, maybe they will release it later as a diff firmware, or something.