Usb 24 192khz M2tech Hiface - Page 107

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

 

Why?  I thought Jkeny's comments were only directed at the HiFace.

 

Hi Regal

 

Glad you weighed in on this because it's getting confusing which DACs might offer an improvement with the HiFace.  I am at a loss to come up with the names of any common non-DIY DACs that are just oversamplers.....  can you help with this?

 

I bought a mid-level North Star MKII and a Blue Circle Thingee for a laptop rig that needs a USB connection, so it looks like my goose is cooked regarding the stock  HiFace.   When I bought the DAC, however, there was no such thing as a HiFace and like you said,  I had no intention of buying a high end transport.

 

There are two things that are not really clear from your post: 

 

One is if a stock HiFace will offer any improvements over the Blue Circle device using the DAC I already have. 

 

And the other is that you seem to say (but maybe I've misinterpreted) that a stock HiFace is the equivalent of a $5K transport?

 

From their web site, the chips in the North Star MKII are:

 

• CS8416 - a very low jitter 192kHz digital receiver from Cirrus Logic
• AD1895 - an high dynamic 192/24 upsampler from Analog Devices
• 2 x PCM1796 - 123 dB, 192/24 DAC from Texas

 

I see that you don't care for the NOS offerings.  Wouldn't the HiFace and the mod work offer an improvement with them since they don't upsample??  If so, the HiFace could be something the Havana people might be interested in??

 

USG

Originally Posted by regal 

The AD1895 is a bottlekneck,  you will never have lower jitter than the clock feeding that upsampler,  this DAC is designed to improve performance with budget transports but leaves a bottleneck that prevents it from feeding a low jitter signal to the dac chips.

 

As far as NOS,  yes they would have improvement with the Hiface.  But you will never hear me recommend a Havana or any other NOS DAC.  Look at AudioGD ,  they are the best bang for the buck right now,  even Swenson recommends them, they aren't just a FOTM.
 

Originally Posted by ccbass 

I searched around for a long ass time, but I couldn't find anything on this...even though I know people talked about it, since I read it here.

 

How do you tell which Hiface you're buying?  Crappy clock vs good clock?  I'm really tempted to buy this as the toslink connection from my macbook pro is pissing me off with anything over 44.1 sample rate.

 

Macbook pro to hiface coaxial/rca to dacmagic to bx5a.

 

AH HA!  Found it!

 

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/503323/hiface-sensitive-information

 

 

Ok, well the real question is....

 

 

Is there going to be that much of a change from toslink to the hiface?

Originally Posted by ccbass 

 

How do you tell which Hiface you're buying?  Crappy clock vs good clock?

 

Is there going to be that much of a change from toslink to the hiface?

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

 

Thanks for the info Regal.

 

Can you recommend any DACs that are serviced in the US?  I don't want to buy another Chinese DAC.

 

I have a Zhaolu that stopped working and shipping it back and forth to China for a repair is ridiculous.

 

The reason I bought the North Star was that (should something happen), it's serviced in Connecticut.

 

It looks like the new Benchmark, Lavry 11, PS Audio DLIII or Perfect Wave and Bel Canto DAC 3 all upsample like my North Star, so I think I'm going to wait for  an affordable  transport that works with upsampling DACs.

 

Btw, does this same upsampling bottl apply to the WaveLink Async USB to SPDIF converter as well?

 

 

 

USG

 

 

HiFace apparently doesnt' work well with upsampling dac like your dacmagic. 

 

USG
 

Originally Posted by regal 


You are going to to have to spend at least $5k for a domestic DAC on the level of the AudioGD's,  look at the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC.  The "Chime" from Hagtech is a decent DAC that does synchronous upsampling,  which doesn't "throw away" the transport clock,  it is the prefered means to upsample but rarely found in mid-level DAC's.

Originally Posted by regal 

The Zhaolu especially the "ORI" modified was one of the most laughable hyped up junk ever to make the pages of FOTM here.   You are going to to have to spend at least $5k for a domestic DAC on the level of the AudioGD's,  look at the Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC.  The "Chime" from Hagtech is a decent DAC that does synchronous upsampling,  which doesn't "throw away" the transport clock,  it is the prefered means to upsample but rarely found in mid-level DAC's.

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

 

 

LOL    No doubt!   I have fallen for many FOTM products that have turned out to be hyped up junk, like the stock HiFace.

 

I checked out the Chime, but I really don't have the patience for a kit right now.......  but thanks for the lead, maybe some day I'll drag out the soldering iron again.

 

I know you like Audio GD, but I don't want to spend anything more than a few hundred dollars on something that has to be serviced on the other side of the planet.    Now suppose I got a Reference DAC 7, which is in the same price range as the North Star, and it arrived with an annoying scratch on the case (I don't accept cosmetic imperfections on $1k+ equipment), or something wasn't soldered up just right or there was some other unforeseen problem.....  

 

It was annoying enough to have to send the HiFace back to Colorado and wait for an exchange.   I don't want to have to deal with sending something back to china (again).

 

Some of the guys don't mind packing and insuring and shipping and tracking and then hoping that it arrives in china in one piece, and then survives the return trip intact,  but unfortunately I'm not one of them.   Oh well.

 

And talk about Hyped Up.  Audio GD is one of the most hyped things on the forum....

 

USG
 

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

 

 

LOL    No doubt!   I have fallen for many FOTM products that have turned out to be hyped up junk, like the stock HiFace.

 

I checked out the Chime, but I really don't have the patience for a kit right now.......  but thanks for the lead, maybe some day I'll drag out the soldering iron again.

 

I know you like Audio GD, but I don't want to spend anything more than a few hundred dollars on something that has to be serviced on the other side of the planet.    Now suppose I got a Reference DAC 7, which is in the same price range as the North Star, and it arrived with an annoying scratch on the case (I don't accept cosmetic imperfections on $1k+ equipment), or something wasn't soldered up just right or there was some other unforeseen problem.....  

 

It was annoying enough to have to send the HiFace back to Colorado and wait for an exchange.   I don't want to have to deal with sending something back to china (again).

 

Some of the guys don't mind packing and insuring and shipping and tracking and then hoping that it arrives in china in one piece, and then survives the return trip intact,  but unfortunately I'm not one of them.   Oh well.

 

And talk about Hyped Up.  Audio GD is one of the most hyped things on the forum....

 

USG
 

Originally Posted by Zorlac 

Kingwa w/Audio-gd has folks in the US repair his products. The Phoenix I had was repaired in Florida by another fellow Head-fier.  :)

 

Kingwa has the best customer service I have experience in the audio world, so I would definitely recommend his gear to you as well.

Originally Posted by Pacha 

Well, packing and shipping to China IN CASE ONLY of some failure of the device is certainly cheaper than paying FOR SURE a lot more when buying some stuff from reputed US brands, not mentionning the potential shipping fees to other US state if any failure appears.

 

If you can afford gear sounding as good as DAC19DSP, Ref1 or 7, etc for 3 times the price then it's a nice thing for you but not everyone can do so, or at least they prefer spending the difference on upgrading their cans or other gear.

 

There are so many people here who own(ed) a lot of high-end stuff and who compared this to Audio-gd gear and said the latter to be bang for the buck, that I tend to believe them. And I personally have listened myself to 3DLab BD Player at $3500 with supa high-end interconnects and power setup, Naim DAC with extra high end interconnects and power cable (a $1700 power cable) and Metronome transport at $7300, and I didn't feel it to be really better than my Audio-gd DAC19DSP/C2 setup with modded HiFace, at least better than the FUN for sure.

 

No fanboy stuff to me then, just pure observation and will to not get stealed by some manufacturers. Not looking at the manufacturing fees and service that is not the same with China and US or Japan etc, no possible comparison here, talking about electronic costs, I personally will never pay $7000 for a piece of hardware. I mean, come on, does a CPU really need less techies to design and produce such a concentrate of technologie compared to "old school" audio electronic to justify that a CPU can cost $50 to $300 and an transport $7000? Taken separately, the hardware costs won't exceed 10% of the price, and I'm not ok to pay 90% of this kind of amount for R&D, design and marketing. Whatever improvement is there over Ref 1 or 7 there could be, it's just not worth it, except if you really can afford it easily and don't care spending so much. There are so many things manufactured at $20 sold $650 like sport gear, and such, even food sold at $25/kg while it's sold at $5 at the producer place 50km away.

 

Audio stuff can be sold cheap, overpriced gear is only a matter of companies making a lot of money, nothing more.

Originally Posted by FauDrei 

OK, we got it.

 

In fact we understood you back at "I don't want to buy another Chinese DAC". No need to repeat/reproduce that.

 

<snip>

Originally Posted by Andrew_WOT 

You can get used Chord DAC64 for under $2K if you are lucky, there are US distributors/dealers that can help with the repair. They don't pop up for sale very often so you should be patient, watch ebay uk, it's more frequent there. And this DAC is marvelous. :)