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Teradak Teralink-X2 released 19.1.10

post #1 of 641
1/26/10 at 3:46am
Thread Starter 
Hi,

Does anyone know anything about this new device ?
I'm trying to find out more about it but I've hit a brickwall.
I'm specifically interested in how it bypasses the windows mixer because it doesn't use a special driver.
However, it can support 96/24. I can't see the point if the windows mixer is allowed to turn that into 48/16.

I contacted the seller on Ebay and he said it can't use kernel streaming and wouldn't work well with asio4all.
It's advertised as a no compromise bit of kit and the hardware looks good but w/o a good driver, what's the point ?

Can anyone help me out on this ?

TeraDak Audio Electric Company







It uses the Tenor TE7022L , which is the same chip used in the Furutech LeMans 60W.

GALAXY FAR EAST CORP.

The pdf of the chip spec is quite limited.

I've ordered one but I'm having second thoughts already....
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post #2 of 641
1/26/10 at 10:45pm
From which ebay member did you purchase it from?
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post #3 of 641
1/26/10 at 11:21pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I ordered from Vintage Audio Lab.

The seller says he is Kevin. I've asked him for more information.

I got two short replies so far and the info he gave me must be wrong.

"Dear Sir: Yes, RJ45. This device is asynchronous, do not need Kernel streaming.
It have internal buffer, Kernel streaming or ASIO will not compatible. Sincerely, Kevin"

He hasn't replied to my last email for two days now. So I can't recommend using him.

eBay My World - vintage_audio_lab

Shame. I may end up returning it almost immediately.
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post #4 of 641
1/26/10 at 11:52pm
Without KS seem bad for me.
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post #5 of 641
1/27/10 at 12:46am
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I hope the seller has got it wrong. However, other devices use this chip.

Audiotrak Prodigy, "High-quality digital output
24bit/96kHz Bit-Perfect lossless PCM digital output is supported.
Both Optical/Coaxial ports are installed for connection with various digital devices.
AC3(Dolby Digital)/DTS Pass-Through realizes 5.1 channel surround system by connecting with a receiver and a decoder-embedded home theater speaker."

AUDIOTRAK Products Pages

and April Music Stello U2

http://www.aprilmusic.com/main/sub02_03_02.html

6moons audio reviews: April Music U2

So I guess I will have to test it myself to know.

EDIT : reading around, it seems that this device does not present itself as a "usb audio device" but rather a "spdif interface".
I don't know what difference, if any, this might have on how windows uses it.
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post #6 of 641
1/27/10 at 11:55pm
Thread Starter 
Hi,

I got an email from Teradak. Good news ! It might have ASIO support soon.

" Hi,
Our Teralink-x2 is a plug-and-play device in XP/vista system.
Generally, you can control its behavior in the device property dialog page.
For ASIO, we will release our custom version soon.

Michael,"
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post #7 of 641
1/28/10 at 1:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thoppa View Post
EDIT : reading around, it seems that this device does not present itself as a "usb audio device" but rather a "spdif interface".
I don't know what difference, if any, this might have on how windows uses it.
Yeah this product isn't a DAC, it's to upgrade your PC to a legitimate transport
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post #8 of 641
1/28/10 at 2:56am
I own the Teradak Chameleon, it uses the same interface for USB (same chip, same clock, same pulse transformer). I can't speak for Kernal streaming, as I don't have the plugin installed for Foobar, it does however support Wasapi no problem. This is only good if you use Vista or Win7 though. It works great with 44.1/16 all the way thru 24/96. I'll try the kernal streaming driver for Foobar and report back.
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post #9 of 641
1/28/10 at 2:56am
Thread Starter 
Yes please ! Thanks !
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post #10 of 641
1/28/10 at 3:25am
I ordered this a couple weeks back. I should be getting it by this Friday hopefully...will post impressions.
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post #11 of 641
1/28/10 at 3:46am
Thread Starter 
Great ! I bet you can't wait for the postie....

I see you have the Gamma2 as well - I'm about to try to build one of these and feed the I2S from the X2 into the Y2 so I'd love to know what you think of this combo.
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post #12 of 641
1/28/10 at 5:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thoppa View Post
Hi,

I ordered from Vintage Audio Lab.

The seller says he is Kevin. I've asked him for more information.

I got two short replies so far and the info he gave me must be wrong.

"Dear Sir: Yes, RJ45. This device is asynchronous, do not need Kernel streaming.
It have internal buffer, Kernel streaming or ASIO will not compatible. Sincerely, Kevin"

He hasn't replied to my last email for two days now. So I can't recommend using him.

eBay My World - vintage_audio_lab

Shame. I may end up returning it almost immediately.


When I emailed Teradac a few weeks ago they said it was not asynchronous.

What we need is a few hundred head-fiers to email them and then maybe they will realease an asynchronous product with drivers and that will accept an external PS. That will be a giant killer.
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post #13 of 641
1/28/10 at 1:35pm
Installed the foobar KS plugin, under windows 7, with latest version of foobar. It works great, tested it at 44.1/16 and 24/96. It shows up as "Teradak USB Audio" for KS support, and for Wasapi it says "SPDIF Interface (USB audio device)".

It's better to Contact Michael, from Teradak concerning these things, Kevin @ valab is helpful but he does not know as much as Michael. And yes, as far as I know, it is NOT Async device. That said, it does have pulse transformers, and a good power circuit and probably competes well with other devices, async or not. The USB input from my Chameleon sounds great and is quite abit better then the input from my older Teradak 2.1 (Valab dac) which was based on the previous Teralink interface. However, it's not an accurate comparison, as the Chameleon does have it's own built in reclocking board, so it's taking the signal from the usb interface and reclocking it before feeding it to the dac, and the older valab 2.1 did not do this, this could account for a majority of the sound quality improvement im hearing.

Although ~ the Coax spdif input on the chameleon also passes though the reclocker, and to me, in my setup the USB input sounds better. So the interface is doing a better job then my spdif transport, which is not saying much though as it's just an X-fi spdif out.

Edit: If you don't know about WASAPI, it is Vista and Windows 7 Audio API, and it also delivers a Bit-Perfect, pure signal, similiar to KS, but is better supported.
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post #14 of 641
1/28/10 at 2:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeW View Post
Installed the foobar KS plugin, under windows 7, with latest version of foobar. It works great, tested it at 44.1/16 and 24/96. It shows up as "Teradak USB Audio" for KS support, and for Wasapi it says "SPDIF Interface (USB audio device)".

It's better to Contact Michael, from Teradak concerning these things, Kevin @ valab is helpful but he does not know as much as Michael. And yes, as far as I know, it is NOT Async device. That said, it does have pulse transformers, and a good power circuit and probably competes well with other devices, async or not. The USB input from my Chameleon sounds great and is quite abit better then the input from my older Teradak 2.1 (Valab dac) which was based on the previous Teralink interface. However, it's not an accurate comparison, as the Chameleon does have it's own built in reclocking board, so it's taking the signal from the usb interface and reclocking it before feeding it to the dac, and the older valab 2.1 did not do this, this could account for a majority of the sound quality improvement im hearing.

Although ~ the Coax spdif input on the chameleon also passes though the reclocker, and to me, in my setup the USB input sounds better. So the interface is doing a better job then my spdif transport, which is not saying much though as it's just an X-fi spdif out.
Agreed, even if it is obviously not an Async converter, it looks very well built and should perform very well. The old Teralink-X beats (in my system) the Musiland Monitor 01 USD, so I have no doubt that this X2 will be even better. I might order one later to compare it to the hiface.
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post #15 of 641
1/29/10 at 12:37pm
Thread Starter 
Interesting reading guys. Thanks ! KS support is great news !

I only have one other USB device - an Edirol UA1-EX which has asio and 96/24 but also loads of jitter which means it sounds pretty dull and mushy.

For me, the most important thing about this device, after the driver of course, will be the amount of jitter on the I2S output. I'll build a low noise supply for it - forget usb power. If you've seen smps power on a scope, well, it's a horror show.

I have an sacd/dvda transport re-clocked with a Tent Labs XO and de-jittered with an AD1896. This has become my low-jitter-digital-source benchmark so I'm hoping to match or even better this from a PC.

I also have a couple of PCI soundcards with low jitter xo's but I think the receiver chips are spoiling the party. They're good but not quite good enough.

I've even bought a Ti SRC4392 EVM to try to get rid of jitter on my PC before it goes to the DAC, but so far I haven't had time to learn to program it - I have no idea about code.

So I'm really hoping this Teralink does the job for me !

Thanks again.
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