Musiland "Digital Times" 24/192 PCI card (digital output only)

Hi
 
I just found out that Musiland offers this card:
http://translate.google.ru/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.musiland.com.cn%2Findex.php%2FProduct%2Fshow%2Fid%2F182&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
 


 

You can see it only in the Chinese part of Musiland's website www.musiland.com.cn. You cannot find it if you follow "English" link from the main page.
 
Here it is on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=330437561822&Category=75518&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D1
 
Price: US $66.55, shipping is free.
 
It does not have any analog outputs, ONLY digital ouputs (BNC, coax, optical).
 
It has VIA Envy24 chip, asynchronous buffer, ASIO, transformer coupled outputs separate for each SPDIF output, stabilized power supply, etc. It supports DTS/Dolby Digital output.
 
So, what do you say?

very nice! but does it have the new improved FPGA that offers instant "high precision" sample rates?
 
and does it use the generic VIA drivers? these are meant for the chinese market, so getting technical infos is pretty tedious..
 
PS: it doesn't seem to be in the list: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/443786/musiland-monitor-02-us/600#post_6624136

Well, it says (translation by google): "XILINX's FPGA chips with VIA Envy24 professional audio controller chip, to avoid the SRC process and systems Mixer, ensures maximum fidelity audio playback. FPGA is also used to provide accurate clock, and build a huge asynchronous buffer, used to generate the precise timing of audio, so audio quality is only accurate before providing the smallest jitter output."
 
Is it what you are looking for?
 
I can also see that it has only one quartz on its board. Is it too bad? But then, say, how many quartz does Audiophile 192 have?

yes, but how many gates? the old FPGA has 50K, the new one has 250K.
 
It's got a VIA chipset, so it's most likely using the VIA generic drivers....I think Musiland can do better than that! We need a Monitor 03 w/ the 250K gates FPGA

There is a Chinese review of Digital Times here:
http://translate.google.ru/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.soomal.com%2Fdoc%2F10100001007.htm&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8

ok, so we got the proprietary drivers, but no trace of "high precision"/"auto SR" modes or 250K FPGA..if anyone feels like playing the guinea pig

It has a FPGA which is called "Spartan XC3S50A".

Still 2 dcm, so no fast switching between 44.1 family and 48K family. You need at least 4 dcm to handle both families without reloading the dcm coefficients. Musiland does have a high-end PCI card with the 250K gate fpga and 4 dcms

GLT,
 
1) Why is it important to be able to switch fast between 44.1 family and 48K family?
 
2) Which hi-end card do you mean? Can you tell me its exact name?

Quote:

leeperry said:

ok, so we got the proprietary drivers, but no trace of "high precision"/"auto SR" modes or 250K FPGA..if anyone feels like playing the guinea pig

Click to expand...

Leeperry,
 
Does M-Audio Audiophile 192 have all the above? Do you think it's better to buy Audiophile 192 or Musiland Digital Times for digital output only (to external DAC Stello DA100)?

www.datasheetdir.com/go-XC3S50A.pdf says that XC3S50A has 50K system gates and only 2 DCMs.

I'm nowhere near an expert like glt(what's a DCM anyway? )...the only thing I can say is that over toslink my PCM1793/CS8414 Firestone Spitfire DAC glitches up if it doesn't get SPOT-ON sample rates...and I read some ppl saying in the Musiland topic that before those "high precision" drivers came up, the "44.1" indicator on their DAC simply wouldn't light up.
 
This problem has been explained thoroughly here on glt's blog: http://hifiduino.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-are-clocks-generated-in-musiland.html
 
so I've had those real world experiments:
 
-a card w/ a 48Mhz PLL that played 48kHz fine, but going 48>44.1 right away would give very glitchy sound for a few secs. Waiting a few secs before going 48 > 44.1 would only make a brief glitch before each song...and it'd do the same glitch for each 44.1 song anyway.
 
-a card w/ a 18Mhz PLL that plays 44.1 fine but 48/96 always give a slight "pop" before each song..the built-in clocking prolly takes a few milliseconds to reach 48/96000,00 ?
 
-a card w/ 2 clocks(one for 44.1, one for 48), that would always glitch up on all frequencies.
 
It's pretty obvious that I need a card w/ spot-on sample rates..the Musiland in "high precision" mode look like good candidates.
 
if you check the end of this paper, m2tech explains that many cards don't output spot-on sample rates and that you might have never heard your music at the right pitch...hence you've been listening to slightly out of tune instruments: http://www.m2tech.biz/public/pdf/White%20Paper%20on%20hiFace.pdf
 
now I think my DAC only has this problem over toslink, so coax might not "glitch" up...I've got two friends running a Spitfire in coax and they don't get any glitch, but one of them runs an hiface
 

ironmine said:

Leeperry, 
Does M-Audio Audiophile 192 have all the above?

Click to expand...

 
The only thing I can say is that the Audiophile 24/96 PCI has 2 PLL's, and the USB version only one. the PCI is older I think(it's written in big on their PCB), not sure about the 192. But the musiland in "high precision" mode and the hiface seem hard to beat for spot-on sample rates.

hehe, even in "high precision" mode the musiland are still not quite there: http://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/reading-sample-rate/
 
@glt: I wonder if you could also run this test on the hiface?

Leeperry,
 
Thanks for the info, very interesting! I am glad that Musiland fixed the problem with 44.1 Hz. However, I remember someone said that the RCA digital output in Musiland is only 50 Ohm (or 90?) instead of 75 Ohm. What to do about this problem? It's not so easy to fix it.

check my link above on glt's blog, even the musiland fall short
 
I wonder how the hiface would do....otherwise there's always the option of old RME/Lynx cards, these supposedly have killer clocking!