USB to SPIF converter for 500$

I going to let the cat out of the bag for you since you're about to make a purchase.

I own the Halide Bridge, and use it with a Chord QBD76 dac. Although Chord claims this dac has zero jitter due to its PLL clock and ram buffer, it turns out that it is very sensitive to jitter (and power cords).

I couldn't get satisfactory results with the Halide interface on the Chord, to the point where I contemplated selling the Chord.

As a last ditch effort, I switched over to an Empirical Audio Off Ramp 3 Superclock 4. It's better than the Halide, even when using a cheapie walwart and usb cable. 

Once I plugged the Off Ramp into a Sanyo Pedal Juice battery, the performance went into another stratosphere. Music rendered through this setup is delicately textured and organic, with dynamics and slam off the charts. I wasn't prepared for how much of a difference using the Off Ramp + Pedal Juice would make to the Chord.

The Off Ramp is obviously much more expensive, especially by the time you add cables and the Sanyo battery, but if you are serious about jitter, that's the price you pay. Otherwise, the Halide is a more economical, all-in-one solution.

The Evo will run off battery also, though I haven't tried it. If you're looking for something in the $500 range, I would pick up a Legato, Evo, or Jkenny converter where the USB cable isn't burdened with carrying the power supply. If you contact Pat at ART, he will sell you a Legato with a very a nice SPDIF and USB cable for not that much more than a Halide Bridge. Although with the Legato, your power upgrade options are limited to power cords and power supplies (Paul Hynes).

The one thing I learned from all of this is that jitter is the enemy, and easily audible. Once it's gone, music takes on a much more organic sound without listener fatigue.

Bina, I would pick up a Legato or Evo for $500. The Evo has the advantage of being powered by battery. I know the Legato has very low jitter. The Audiophilleo also has low jitter, but it draws it power from the USB connection.

This is a different opinion. I just think that doing USB to S/PDIF conversion leads to the likelihood of experiencing both USB jitter and S/PDIF jitter. I'd venture to say that unless you have a unit that will first handle USB in asynchronous mode and then generate a very high quality S/PDIF signal, you will lose a significant amount of quality. Since those 2 things are expensive currently you would need to spend a lot for that convertor. Even then you are at the mercy of the quality of your DAC's S/PDIF input and its quality of handling jitter. 

IMHO, nothing beats straight USB Async or F/W into the DAC and direct internal conversion to I2S or whatever the actual DAC chip uses. 

Basically I would keep the $500 and audition an async USB DAC or F/W DAC. Async USB DACs are getting cheaper and there is the Apogee F/W for Mac users and then go analog into the JH-3A.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sxr71 

...

IMHO, nothing beats straight USB Async or F/W into the DAC and direct internal conversion to I2S or whatever the actual DAC chip uses. 

 

Basically I would keep the $500 and audition an async USB DAC or F/W DAC. Async USB DACs are getting cheaper and there is the Apogee F/W for Mac users and then go analog into the JH-3A.

Exactly! I never understood the benefit of "high-end" USB to SPDIF converters. Its still a SPDIF interface.

Maybe because high quality async USB/SPDIF allow to unleash the real potential of "old and flawed" SPDIF... And maybe because the overall quality of a DAC is much broader than limiting the discussion to the quality of its USB input...

Quote:

Originally Posted by gevorg 

Exactly! I never understood the benefit of "high-end" USB to SPDIF converters. Its still a SPDIF interface.

If the JH-3A has async USB, I would go with that.

Most usb inputs are crap. They are last minute add ons that dont give the best results. Most of the time they are inferior to the spdif input. Most dacs dont isolate the 5v line from the computer which is dirty and they use it to run the usb conversion chip. Also a lot of dacs convert the usb to spdif first then to i2s which adds in even more jitter. Using a good usb/ spdif converter can isolate the 5v line before conversion and then reclock the data before it outputs it.

I have tried the halide bridge and it did a good job for what it is and was an improvement over my stock usb input. The best converter I have used was the offramp. Big improvement.

Interesting topic,

  here goes the comments of a Wyred DAC2 review at positive-feedback

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue51/wyred_dac2.htm

Just to put things into context, the Cynosure cable starts at $2849 for 3FT. For that kind of money, I'd probably buy the Ridge Street Enopias! or Acoustic Revive cables that split into 2 ends on the computer side, to separate the power and the digital signal. They go for a lot less than the Locus Cynosure.

Consider the fact that W4S DAC-2 is built with asynchronous USB interface using proprietary USB driver for Windows and Mac OS, furthermore ES9018 DAC is designed with excellent jitter elimination feature, proof on effectiveness of USB-to-SPDIF converter seems to be strong.

I suppose jitter can happen on both end of digital transmission between digital source and DAC, most of the time jitter over source end (particularly true for cheap players/computers) is more severe than those introduced by transmission cable and DAC on the other end. That is where USB-to-SPDIF converter can help to reduce jitter caused by digital source, think of it as firewall defend against present of jitter at DAC input. Thus you have to look at whole picture of entire audio chain but not only one component.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cortes 

Interesting topic,

 

  here goes the comments of a Wyred DAC2 review at positive-feedback

 

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue51/wyred_dac2.htm

 

I have tried using this DAC, in my main system, both with direct USB connection to my 13" MacBook Pro using a Locus Design Cynosure USB cable—which costs about twice as much as the DAC-2—and I have also used it "indirectly" by plugging the Cynosure into my Sonicweld Diverter and then running the S/PDIF out of that (the Diverter being an immensely well-designed USB --> S/PDIF converter) into the "COAX 1" in of the DAC-2 via a Locus Design Core S/PDIF cable. I would have to say, all things considered, I prefer the latter arrangement; the music has more "height" and "structure". On the other hand, I actually asked Lee Weiland at Locus Design to build me 6 foot Axis USB cable (his second to least expensive, costing about $729 for that length) because I plan to purchase the demo unit after they swap out the silver for a black case and use it to replace my Apogee Duet, as it is more reliable and much better sounding; in both cases, I have been using Locus Design Vision interconnects with the Apogee Duet and the W4S DAC-2, and in the latter case, it just keeps getting better as you add better cabling even though it only costs $1499. So think of the USB cable, DAC and analog interconnects as a matched "kit" and don't worry about the Sonicweld Diverter until you move the DAC-2 into your main system, with your Spectral monoblocks and Wilson WATT/Puppies or, in my case, the 7-watt per channel Audio Note Meishu Phono Silver and some highly efficient Audio Note AN-E SEC Silver loudspeakers which go down to 20Hz and play very loud, even using just two Western Electric 300B's (two total, 1 / channel).

 

 

so, they liked more USB->SPDIF more than USB input in the Wyred DAC2, which is state of the art in USB technology. Food for thought!.

 

I would also look at Audiophilleo2, which has better specs than most of of USB-> SPDIF converters . 

http://www.audiophilleo.com/comparison.aspx

 

and also the modded Jkenny converter might be an option

 

http://www.digitalaudioreview.net.au/index.php/audio-reviews/digital-source-reviews/item/184-j-kenny-modded-m2tech-hiface-mk2

 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by littletree76 

Consider the fact that W4S DAC-2 is built with asynchronous USB interface using proprietary USB driver for Windows and Mac OS, furthermore ES9018 DAC is designed with excellent jitter elimination feature, proof on effectiveness of USB-to-SPDIF converter seems to be strong.

 

I suppose jitter can happen on both end of digital transmission between digital source and DAC, most of the time jitter over source end (particularly true for cheap players/computers) is more severe than those introduced by transmission cable and DAC on the other end. That is where USB-to-SPDIF converter can help to reduce jitter caused by digital source, think of it as firewall defend against present of jitter at DAC input. Thus you have to look at whole picture of entire audio chain but not only one component.

Seemingly the advantage of external USB->SPDIF converters with respect to built-in DAC ones is the isolation they have from the rest of the electronics. At least it's what I understood from a comment by Steve from Emperical Audio.