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punk_guy182 said:

 
Yes I too dream of the day where I will not have to use any converters anymore. I hope that we can settle on a standard for PC users that can surpass S/PDIF.
Did Kingwa actually tell you if his new USB implementation in his DACs are of better sound quality than his S/PDIF BNC coaxial?
 

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Kingwa didn’t say that. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all as I was communicating with his customer service man, Edwin. My guess is that the “improved USB chip” means nothing more than it is better than the old USB chip - which probably isn’t saying much. I expect that I will prefer the S/PDIF BNC coax interface but I live to be surprised..
 
Speaking of BNC, I asked Edwin if I could have a BNC socket fitted to the DAC-19DSP instead of the stock RCA. He said “sure” but that it would be a “chinese cheapie”. I told him not to worry.. I will replace it myself with a 75ohm Vampire BNC as I did on my Musiland.
 
BTW. I got a mail from Marco of M2tech, in response to a query I had about the evo’s BNC. He assured me that the evo will in fact be fitted with a true 75ohm BNC. A pity Audio-GD does not do the same.

 

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cravenz said:

If I'm not wrong, you can't send the units to jkenny anymore. You have to get the whole unit from him or buy it yourself now as customs as realised that there were a lot being sent over and will now confiscate any sent over to him for modification.

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Why will they confiscate?

 
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tim3320070 said:

I didn't know it had a separate power supply box, so don't know if that is included. He mentioned $100 but that may be the reduced combo price. I don't know the look of it yet either- trusting Kingwa all the way on this one.
I will be selling my Ref-3 if anyone is interested.

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I don't see it on their site....  is it really for sale?
 
USG
 

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upstateguy said:

Why will they confiscate?
 

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No clue, but he alluded to it on page 8 and page 9 of M2Tech HiFace Mods and Discussions thread.

 
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audio bling said:

 

 
No, Qinghua (not Kingwa) didn’t say that. In fact, he didn’t say anything at all as I was communicating with his customer service man, Edwin. My guess is that the “improved USB chip” means nothing more than it is better than the old USB chip - which probably isn’t saying much. I expect that I will prefer the S/PDIF BNC coax interface but I live to be surprised..
 
Speaking of BNC, I asked Edwin if I could have a BNC socket fitted to the DAC-19DSP instead of the stock RCA. He said “sure” but that it would be a “chinese cheapie”. I told him not to worry.. I will replace it myself with a 75ohm Vampire BNC as I did on my Musiland.
 
BTW. I got a mail from Marco of M2tech, in response to a query I had about the evo’s BNC. He assured me that the evo will in fact be fitted with a true 75ohm BNC. A pity Audio-GD does not do the same.

 

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One thing I know for sure about his new USB chip is that it will work with 24bits/96kHz audio files. The previous one couldn't do that.
Do you have a link for this true 75ohm Vampire socket? Is it PSB mounted and how hard was it to put it on the Musialnd. I'm thinking of doing the same for the hiFace.
 
Auio-GD decided to make the BNC plug as identical as possible to the hiface on their USBface for comparaison purposes.

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upstateguy said:

Why will they confiscate?
 
USG
 

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Ireland is apprently an economic fascist regime!

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upstateguy said:

I don't see it on their site....  is it really for sale?
 
USG
 

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I guess it will be, but not on the site yet. I should not have put that price here- it was an estimate and I don't have a final quote. I can't imagine it being much more than $150ish as a stand alone purchase but I don't really know. The Ref-3 was $550 but it does so much more than the USBFace (DSP filter chip, upsampling, switching).
 

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punk_guy182 said:

Ireland is apprently an economic fascist regime!

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You are absolutely correct there Matthieu - we are being run by a crowd of crooks who are protecting their friends & political donators from  bankruptcy by directing the taxpayers' money to them. I don't even know all the figures any more but we have gifted the banks something like 30 billion Euro in bailouts - most of the money we will never see again. Also we are in the process of buying all the bad debts from the banks & we are being lied to about the performance of these loans. Anyway, it's not a slump we are experiencing in Ireland it's the bankruptcy of a country & it's citizens are quietly accepting it all, no revolution, no riots, no lynchings - just lambs going to slaughter.
 
Anyway, the customs/.revenue are part of this regime & have to extricate money from every nook & cranny. This includes anything that comes into the country. I had a customs guy at my door the other week because somebody had sent me a Hiface for modification from the US & declared it's value at $200. The charge for me was €48. Even if I didn't accept the package & told them to send it back, the same charge would apply. He was next going down the road with a wedding dress & a charge of €600. 
 
Our Economic & Social Research Institute (ESRI) have just published figures that show Ireland has the biggest budget deficit in the developed world at just under 20% - you are watching a nation implode  All that will be left is a black hole - an economic one into which all money disappears. Watch out we are all going to emigrate again in droves as we have done in past history.

 
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punk_guy182 said:

 

One thing I know for sure about his new USB chip is that it will work with 24bits/96kHz audio files. The previous one couldn't do that.
Do you have a link for this true 75ohm Vampire socket? Is it PSB mounted and how hard was it to put it on the Musialnd. I'm thinking of doing the same for the hiFace.
 
Auio-GD decided to make the BNC plug as identical as possible to the hiface on their USBface for comparaison purposes.

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[size=medium]Here is a link to the Vampire socket. Yes, it is PCB mount. [/size]
[size=medium]http://www.partsconnexion.com/vampire_56013.html[/size]
 
[size=medium]No problem fitting it to the Musiland 01USD as there is room enough to do so. I did not mount it to the PCB directly but only supported it by its collar and nut. However, keep in mind my comment from Marco of M2tech. According to him, all M2tech products have true 75ohm BNC fitted. [/size]
 
[size=medium]I quote:[/size]
 
[size=medium]“[/size]
[size=10pt]you're not the first one to discuss with us about BNC impedance. I can assure you that we use true 75 Ohms BNC connectors by Tyco. [..] There is yet another legend about white isolator BNC not being 75 Ohms... Color doesn't matter...[/size]
 
[size=10pt]Cheers,[/size]
 
[size=10pt]Marco[/size]
[size=medium]”[/size]
 
[size=medium]So this seems to be saying your Hiface already has true 75ohm fitted (assuming you have the BNC model). HTH.[/size]

 

Seems like Kingwa as updated the webpage and the product is now simply called Digital Interface = http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/Digital1EN.htm. The first 10 user will be sent the unit for a 2 week testing period.

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rhythmic_impulse said:

Seems like Kingwa as updated the webpage and the product is now simply called Digital Interface = http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/Digital1EN.htm. The first 10 user will be sent the unit for a 2 week testing period.

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not on the English site though. nvm. it's up and running and Kingwa still hasn't emailed me back about it. O well.

I ordered mine with the external PSU box and replaced the RCA coaxial input for a TOSlink one.
I'll ask Kingwa if he can swap the 50ohm BNC plug for a true 75ohm one like on the RE1.
My desktop computer motherboard has the Realtek ALC889A audio controler which can output a bit perfect S/PDIF signal apparently. I have both TOSlink and coaxial RCA on my motherboard but I decided that I would be better off using TOSlink instead of RCA for computer applications like Foobar2000 in order to avoid electric and magnetic interferferences.
 
I'll see what sounds better between USB and TOSlink on the Digital Interface.
I hope that I won't have to invest in pricey USB cables to get the best out of this unit.
I'm not familiar at all with the I2s standard but I read somewhere on the Audio-GD website that it would be I2s compatible. Does anyone know what are the benefits of I2s over S/PDIF and if the RE1 can recognize it? I wonder why Kingwa ditched ACSS for I2s...
 
I'll compare the Digital Interface with the modified hiFace (jkeny mod) which has it's own PSU made of LiFePO4 batteries with and without T-Pad attenuators.

punk_guy182 said:

I'll compare the Digital Interface with the modified hiFace (jkeny mod) which has it's own PSU made of LiFePO4 batteries with and without T-Pad attenuators.

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Yes please...

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punk_guy182 said:

.............
I'll compare the Digital Interface with the modified hiFace (jkeny mod) which has it's own PSU made of LiFePO4 batteries with and without T-Pad attenuators.

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That will be interesting, Mathieu - I look forward to hearing your impressions.
 

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punk_guy182 said:

I ordered mine with the external PSU box and replaced the RCA coaxial input for a TOSlink one.
I'll ask Kingwa if he can swap the 50ohm BNC plug for a true 75ohm one like on the RE1.
My desktop computer motherboard has the Realtek ALC889A audio controler which can output a bit perfect S/PDIF signal apparently. I have both TOSlink and coaxial RCA on my motherboard but I decided that I would be better off using TOSlink instead of RCA for computer applications like Foobar2000 in order to avoid electric and magnetic interferferences.
 

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Thats the right choice. I find that most RCA S/PDIF outputs sound terrible at best. This is magnified when connected to a highly resolving DAC, you will hear a very filthy, noisy background that can be untolerable at times.
 
Very interested to hear your comparisn.

How about asking if they can replace the RCA OUTPUT to an optical input jack? If this can be done without too much trouble or sound degradation it may be preferable because you can just make a BNC>RCA cable if you need to connect it to a dac with RCA in and not BNC in, the only drawback would be just one output. I asked them earlier and they told me to ask when they finished testing, but I plan to get a ref 3 so won't be bothering them about it.