Review: CharterOak Acoustics SP-1 (GMP 450 Pro) - Page 24

That's what my ears tell me... of course the difference is not night and day, maybe I exagerated the gap a bit to much...

But my GMP show clearly that I lost some soundstage depht, refinement and dynamic range with the ODAC.

But as I said above the ODAC, being powered by the USB Bus, is very dependent on the quality of the source and I believe that it's performance can be improved with some external cleaner PSU or power filtering...

I wonder also what an "USB over Ethernet" interface would do since Ethernet network connections are not subject to some of the issues with USB/SPDIF connections, notably Jitter.

I can hear a difference when I simply switch the USB cables connecting the ODAC to the PC... believe it or not.

So, yeah it's probably not fair to judge the ODAC performance as being inferior to the Yulong as I did above, it's certainly very source dependent.

I guess, in this sense, it could be said that it is actually acting as a trully transparent DAC.

I don't know about the asrc feature in the D100, did you ever run USBTrace/View for it?

I can't see it in the "Confirming whether your DAC is asynchronus..." thread.... is it the 17th post?

I can't open those spoilers for some reason it leads me to the top of the page.

Not sure if it would show significant information anyway...

I also suspect the Yulong D100 was subject to source quality but when I had it I was not really aware of it so I didn't care, I just believed that it's anti-Jitter features were effective and made it a consistent performer no matter the source...

Quote:

Originally Posted by svyr 

re: over Ethernet - USB already has a buffered transfer mode with error checking and retransmission called bulk mode. it requires custom drivers and some high end dacs use it (but more notably a lot of pro audio gear does)

re power USB a problem for odac. read the author's measurements/notes, there's a specific section there showing the impact is inaudible and the power regulator does its job very well

That's right with Ethernet there's a buffer, error checking, etc, which garranty a more reliable data quality control.

Unfortunatelly it's still only used in High end stuff, I don't understand why...

There's one of these USB over Ethernet devices that goes for 110EUR in Amazon and has impressive hardware features and I'm very interested in trying it out...

Despite what the author of the ODAC explained (or rather, tried to explain since I still don't understand it well, I read some of it...) the true is there's a lot of user feedback backing up the fact that the ODACs performance, just like any other USB powered DAC, is subject to the quality of the juice provided in audible way.

There's a lot of testimonies here at Head-Fi and elsewhere to read up. ;)

I just made an order on Amazon for a battery pack, will report back whether it makes a difference or not on the ODAC thread.

This is getting way of topic here.

EDIT: Sorry, I think I misunderstood your reply regarding ethernet - USB.

I replied, in a hurry, just before I went to bed, lol. Seems to me now that you're saying there are USB Dacs that employ Bulk mode, that is correct :), I actually tried to look for a cheap pro audio card with a good dac and employing USB bulk mode but couldn't find much information and didn't have the patience to dig much more in the subject, honestly...

Still I think that an Ethernet solution is inherently more reliable, depending on the specific Transport Layer used and due to the more developed Physical Layer.

Hey, I just found this CharterOak SP-1 deal on ebay.uk.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CharterOak-SP-1-Pro-Monitoring-Headphones-GermanMAESTRO-GMP-450-/400384012664?pt=UK_AudioVisualElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_Headphones&hash=item5d38bf3178

This one also have the velour earpads instead of the synthetic leather oval ones.

From the pics it can barelly be seen that it's serial number is 0159...

Display model, so no life-time warranty.

If I weren't so determined to get a Sennheiser, I maybe would grab one just to hear what's this Charteroak all about...

Quote:

Originally Posted by kkl10 

Hey, I just found this CharterOak SP-1 deal on ebay.uk.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CharterOak-SP-1-Pro-Monitoring-Headphones-GermanMAESTRO-GMP-450-/400384012664?pt=UK_AudioVisualElectronics_HomeAudioHiFi_Headphones&hash=item5d38bf3178

 

This one also have the velour earpads instead of the synthetic leather oval ones.

From the pics it can barelly be seen that it's serial number is 0159...

Display model, so no life-time warranty.

 

If I weren't so determined to get a Sennheiser, I maybe would grab one just to hear what's this Charteroak all about...

The sound you get from those for THAT price.

I just don't understand why these aren't more well known.  Looks like the company offers a 12 month warranty on their demo and open boxed items

Apparently the SP-1 scales very well.

I'll have more to say once I spend more time with the setup. I have a lot of listening to do
 

The Bryston looks enormous!

Hope you enjoy it!

I know it doesn't relate to the SP-1 but I thought it wouldn't heart to mention that I finally got a Sennheiser HD600 and I like it.

Here are my impressions of it with some comparos to my GMPs.