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Firestone BRAVO 24/96 USB transport w/o drivers + reclocker? - Page 32

post #466 of 539
3/23/11 at 5:51am
Thread Starter 
Oh...well, Firestone Audio aren't too good at english so their emails are always complicated to decipher. I also asked them for details about their Fi-Reclock technology, but they were not able to provide any.

Do you have any proof to your "1ns jitter on the Hiface" claim? I saw some measurements that were much lower. Honestly, I don't see myself upgrading from the Bravo+Supplier combo anytime soon. There's a lot of new transports released all the time, but either 1) they use proprietary drivers, and those things never work as intended 2) they use the USB power, and this is noisy as hell 3) they claim "low jitter" but it's a lie(like the Halide bridge, measured at 780ps jitter).
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post #467 of 539
3/23/11 at 6:25am

0.97ns according to http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/446375/usb-24-192khz-m2tech-hiface/45

"Cleaner" USB power might have provided better results, though.

 

P.S. I have some doubts that Fi-Reclock is their (Firestone's) own technology. Anyways, the good news are, being their own or licensed or whatsoever, it really works! For me, at least o2smile.gif

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post #468 of 539
3/23/11 at 8:25am
Thread Starter 
Well, don't you think that the vital part in "Fi-Reclock" is WM8804? At least it's well documented, and it's the top reclocker on the market atm. It's not some small company coming out of nowhere claiming about "low jitter", and not providing a single measurement. Believing sellers on their good word simply doesn't cut it for me anymore.

I tend to agree w/ Bob Kat'z real world observations here: http://www.digido.com/jitter.html

"The sonic results of passing this signal through processors that truncate the signal at -110, -105, or -96 dB are: increased "grain" in the image, instruments losing their sharp edges and focus; reduced soundstage width; apparent loss of level causing the listener to want to turn up the monitor level, even though high level signals are reproduced at unity gain."

The Bravo allows me to hear a clearer/more defined sound at a lower volume, and that's all I could have ever dreamed of.

BTW, where does the Bravo diagram you posted come from? You've spent an hour w/ a multimeter on the thing? biggrin.gif

Any room for "tighter" clocks modding in your opinion? like 1ppm PLL's for TE7022L/WM8804? But apparently PLL1707 is rated at 0ppm eek.gif
Edited by leeperry - 3/23/11 at 7:15pm
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post #469 of 539
3/23/11 at 11:16am
Thread Starter 
The aforementioned link is very interesting, like when he says "Playback from a DAT recorder usually sounds better than the recording, because there is less jitter".

I've got a few 24/96 digitally ripped SACD's that went through HDMI and POF toslink...these 2 connections are known to be a jittery feast, and it ends up sounding most excellent when played back through the Bravo.
Edited by leeperry - 3/23/11 at 11:18am
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post #470 of 539
3/23/11 at 6:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by V-l-a-d-i-m-i-r View Post

0.97ns according to http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/446375/usb-24-192khz-m2tech-hiface/45

"Cleaner" USB power might have provided better results, though.

 

P.S. I have some doubts that Fi-Reclock is their (Firestone's) own technology. Anyways, the good news are, being their own or licensed or whatsoever, it really works! For me, at least o2smile.gif



Might be good to run the M2tech through the Bravo?

 

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post #471 of 539
3/23/11 at 6:56pm

So I got my Olimex dongle, and wanted to say - after about a week's worth of use - I can definitely hear an SQ improvement. The website I bought it from (http://microcontrollershop.com/) also suggested a switching power supply, and, unfortunately, the barrel connector end of its cable would not fit between the dongle and the back of my DAC when using one of those USB male A to male B adapters, so for now I'm using two "audiophile" grade USB cables. Probably not ideal re: jitter, but it sounds better with the switching power supply connected, set to 12V, than when it's not plugged in at all. Strangely, 12V sounds better than the 9V setting with my power supply to my ears - more "gain" - but not really sure. Anyway, this is definitely worth a purchase for the price point especially, IMO. After playing around with OS optimizations/USB settings/device manager/and now this, it seems laughable to me that some people still will not accept USB-based tweaks as valid. Proof is in the pudding.

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post #472 of 539
3/23/11 at 7:07pm
Thread Starter 
to some ppl, all opamps and all cables sound exactly the same....tell them about software players sounding different, "tweaks" changing the SQ and you're in for a 20 pages long sterile debate gonzoide.gif

yep, ADuM dongles are fun.
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post #473 of 539
3/25/11 at 1:30am

I have been happy with a Bel Canto DAC2 with a straight optical out of my Mac pro but I want to run the optical to my receiver instead so I got one of these puppies to go into my Bel Canto via coaxial. The only downside is it's limited to 16/48 but 99.9% of my music is 16/44.1 and the Bel Canto upsamples it anyways so it should be interesting. I don't need re-clocking, I tried the Bravo one time in this setup and there wasn't any improvement but it was no worse. I tried a uDac as a USB/coax converter with the DAC2 and thought it was a downgrade from straight optical so I am hoping this one sounds at least as good as the optical:

 

 

Capture8.JPG

 

Edited by grokit - 3/25/11 at 1:32am
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post #474 of 539
3/25/11 at 2:24am
Thread Starter 
I tried this HA-Info toy, it's an uber-cheapo PCM2704 implementation...and that's exactly what it sounds like ^^
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post #475 of 539
4/22/11 at 2:49pm
Thread Starter 

BTW, there's a review of the Bravo here(I'll add it to the OP): http://www.digitalaudioreview.net.au/index.php/audio-reviews/digital-source-reviews/item/79-firestone-audio-bravo-24-96-digital-processor

 

Too bad he didn't use the Supplier PSU(which sounds much better than the wallwart SMPS) and he overlooked RCA/RCA male adapters..you're not FORCED to use a snake oil coax cable.


Edited by leeperry - 4/22/11 at 2:54pm
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post #476 of 539
4/24/11 at 3:35pm


 

Quote:
Originally Posted by grokit View Post

I have been happy with a Bel Canto DAC2 with a straight optical out of my Mac pro but I want to run the optical to my receiver instead so I got one of these puppies to go into my Bel Canto via coaxial. The only downside is it's limited to 16/48 but 99.9% of my music is 16/44.1 and the Bel Canto upsamples it anyways so it should be interesting. I don't need re-clocking, I tried the Bravo one time in this setup and there wasn't any improvement but it was no worse. I tried a uDac as a USB/coax converter with the DAC2 and thought it was a downgrade from straight optical so I am hoping this one sounds at least as good as the optical:

 

 

Capture8.JPG

 


How does this unit sound?

 

 

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post #477 of 539
4/24/11 at 6:01pm

Thanks for reminding me lol, I took the Bel Canto out of the loop completely when I consolidated my two offices into one and never tried that converter out. Doing so now with my HP laptop and x-head amp > AD2k, and the stock usb cable that came with the inverter. I must say that it's easily as good as the optical input on the Bel canto, and when I play higher bitrate music it sounds very good even though I guess the converter is downsampling to 48kHz, then the DAC2 is converting it back up. This is actually a system I could live with even though I don't need it anymore, but I am very pleased with it. I'll probably sell the converter with the DAC2, but at least I know that they are a good match. I ended up running a V-link out of my old Mac Mini into my usb receiver's coaxial input and am quite pleased with that as well.


Edited by grokit - 4/24/11 at 6:07pm
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post #478 of 539
4/25/11 at 5:51pm



 

Quote:
Originally Posted by grokit View Post

Thanks for reminding me lol, I took the Bel Canto out of the loop completely when I consolidated my two offices into one and never tried that converter out. Doing so now with my HP laptop and x-head amp > AD2k, and the stock usb cable that came with the inverter. I must say that it's easily as good as the optical input on the Bel canto, and when I play higher bitrate music it sounds very good even though I guess the converter is downsampling to 48kHz, then the DAC2 is converting it back up. This is actually a system I could live with even though I don't need it anymore, but I am very pleased with it. I'll probably sell the converter with the DAC2, but at least I know that they are a good match. I ended up running a V-link out of my old Mac Mini into my usb receiver's coaxial input and am quite pleased with that as well.



I have a small unit that looks almost identical to that one, just a different color. Maybe an OEM thing?  I have not had time to test it out yet...you reminded me also:)

I was looking at the V-link but I already have a ton of USB->S/Pdif devices...

How do you find the V-Link in comparison to other units like the Bravo, Hiface...etc?

 

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post #479 of 539
4/25/11 at 6:21pm

The only other one I have tried is the Bravo, and they are both nice. The Bravo is more versatile as it will take in coax and optical as well as usb, and output in both coax and optical as well. But you have to pick one kind of input and go with it, as there is no switching between them and the auto-switch will prioritize the usb input. The Bravo is slightly more expensive with the Supplier PSU (which I recommend), but the V-link is usb powered. I like them both but haven't directly compared them to each other. From what I have read the HiFace isn't as good unless you mod it with a battery pack, which takes away its form factor advantage. The converter I pictured above is black, but the one I chose to receive is blue and it came with a matching blue usb cable. Is yours the blue one also? Those are the only two colors I have seen.

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post #480 of 539
4/26/11 at 3:07am
Thread Starter 

It seems rather clear that the V-Link coax output isn't isolated whatsoever: http://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif-converter-0

 

and these measurements are quite interesting(the "Stello U2" is a vanilla TE7022L implementation w/o WM8804): http://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif-converter-associated-equipment

 

The manufacturer claims "zero jitter" with some meaningless fancy graphs, but Stereophile measured 395ps...same as the vanilla "Stello U2".

 

When I see what's in the V-Link, I don't have much faith...very poor PSU filtering(Stereophile claim that the peak around 120Hz is due to the poor PSU), no isolation...how much does this PCB cost them in China? $10/15? TAS1020B costs around $3.

 

And making critical comparisons of low jitter transports using long toslink cables doesn't make any sense either...the usual Stereophile commercial fluff. No wonder the BNC Halide sounded better, duh. Half-*rsed product, half-*rsed review...way to go[:mr white]


Edited by leeperry - 4/26/11 at 3:09am
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