Musical Fidelity V-LINK USB SPDIF - Page 3

well, duh FB1 = Ferrite Bead

HRT claim galvanic isolation over USB in their own dongles anyway.

It would have been interesting to know what the voltage regulator is...just for the record.

I'll eagerly await Justin's feedback on pass-through, and will make my friend pull the trigger depending on the outcome. The TAS chip datasheet seems to mention that AC3's supported.

Wood is listening over ESL63's ... I'm impressed.   Anyway, look's like someone somewhere got their line's crossed on the "two oscillator" thing.

I cannot make out the marking on the top of the xtal, and being an electronics numpty doesn't help. I notice the blurb on MF's website says ...

"Extreme attention has been paid to all the detailed programming to ensure rock solid consistency. The low jitter power supply feeds an ultra high precision clock which is positioned almost on top of (in PCB terms at least) the V-Link’s vital components. This achieves extremely short tracks and ultra accurate clocking...."

How do you know if the xtal is an "ultra high precision clock" ?  Or is it just the of same standard as those on my cheap envy24ht s/card for example? I'm not qualified to judge whether that para is pure bs or not.

In trying to bridge the gap between "marketing speak" and real world use, it's your feedback which is NB. Keep it rolling ...

Lee-

I don't know what I'm doing, but I downloaded this dts file and vlc and it plays fine. I don't have a home theater receiver. Does that help?

Did you use FFDShow?

Did you select the digital formats under Output > Pass-through?

Did you use Reclock with WASAPI output for bit-perfect output?

thanks for the internal shot wood :)

also i am guessing one of the ICs can produce it's own clock...hence the need for only one xtal

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/dit4096.html

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/tas1020b.html

"On-chip adaptive clock generator (ACG) supports asynchronous, synchronous and adaptive synchronization modes for isochronous endpoints"

IC3 is possibly some kinda eeprom or something?

edit...looking closer i can see a bunch of ceramic resonators (stumpy legged things), they are the source for the second freq?

IC3 is some kind of eeprom - a 24LC????.. The single 6MHz xtal on the pcb (H6.000L0) is connected to the TAS1020B USB stream controller. So computeraudiophile were wrong and the MF marketing blurb is basically correct. But as to it being an "ultra high precision clock" is another question.

What do you think the components are worth? If the Chineses made it, which they probably do, and if they had designed and sold it, and it didn't have MF on the box, what would it cost?

Still, it's all in the listening.  

I wouldn't get too hung up on the component costs, my musiland usd async device from china cost about the same as the v-link. Its the software we are paying for with these devices, so a 20 dollar clone without the contents of that eprom would simply not work.  On the musiland forum software updates were the main issue when it came to the sound signature of the device, many preferred earlier drivers to later ones. All we need is a device that reduces jitter, not a device that manipulates the data stream to suite the ears of the software designer, its worst than using jittery usb IMHO.

What strikes me, about the v-link, is that the discrete components are through the hole type, I am used to seeing SMD components almost without exception in the digital domain esp that involves high freq signaling.

Strange as well, although the v-link sounds very nice, very analogue (balanced) to my ears, where are the two 'super accurate clocks' to account for this? Who is hyping who?

What ever is going on, either marketing bull, or some breakthrough design, its sounds pretty good to me as a substitute hq cdp esp for that price. It will,do the job for a couple of years until the next greatest device pops onto the market. In the meantime the v-link has injected new life into an old dacmagic 2 that was otherwise collecting dust.

This is a digital device, more computer that audio, and so like everything else in computer land I guess we will have to get used to upgrading these type of components every 2 or 3 years

Your are probably right not to be too obessive about component costs etc., but I 'd like to think that taken as a whole the V-Link was fair VFM.  

The big plus is that the V-link effectively needs no OS drivers,  Musiland or the new KingReX 192 convertor all seem to have had/have their software glitches as did the M2tech's hiface, who incidently at one time promsied Linux drivers but then appeared to have adaboned the idea. 

"Through the hole" mounting can add to pcb production cost, but I'm not sure what else can be read into that, apart from it may have been partly dictated by the size of the components used, like the resistors. 

In some senses the V-Link is already obsolete, no "USB audio 2" compatabilty, and limted to 24bit/96KHz.  But you don't necessarliy need the latest and greatest just a well engineered solution based on tried and tested ICs wiht a bit of innovative progamming thrown in.  If comparsion with other converters, say a Halide bridge, within the 24/96Khz limit are favourable then MF can claim to have a done good job. And it is readily availbale in the UK.

Is V-link sensitive to the choice of USB cable? One can speculate that being an async converter it can care less for the cable quality as long as packets reach the destination but on the other side it gets the power from USB bus.

I have switched between a middle of the road Kimber that I have and the throw-away cable I got the other day when I ordered a case to house an external usb drive and I can't tell the difference. My headamp has 3 inputs and a selector switch on the front so I was thinking of getting a toslink cable to a/b the outputs, but I can't picture it being better.

Thanks Justin. Did you order yours from Audio Advisor? My local MF distributor doesn't carry them but can order one though I won't be able to return it in case I don't like it.

Yes. Audio Advisor. See post #6.

Been listening all weekend and I must say this was the best $169 I've spent in a long time.

Just thought I should chime in and give some of my impressions of the V-Link.  I received mine two days ago (ordered through Amazon with the Prime membership's second-day shipping).  I agree with all the impressions that others gave.  The sound is very open (large soundstage), relaxed, and very good deep bass and plenty of it.  There is a lot of details in the treble, and it is very smooth.  I did not notice fatigue after at all.  I noticed improvements across the frequency range, compared to what I had before (see my system description below).  I compared the optical and coaxial outputs and did not notice any difference.  But since coaxial it theoretically better I will just stay with that.  I was going to get a Wireworld Ultraviolet USB cable, but based on Justin Uthadule's comment that there is no difference, maybe I should just put the money towards a coaxial cable upgrade.  I really like this converter.  It improved my computer listening experience. 

My system: Windows 7 64-bit --> iTunes (MP3s of various quality and ALAC) --> V-Link --> Meier-Audio StageDAC (filter to get top switch position; 8X oversampling, bottom switch position) --> Luxman P-200 headphone amp --> Beyerdynamic DT990 600ohm.  Before the V-Link, I used the Juli@ soundcard with optical output.

Cables: Belkin Gold Series USB, Stereovox XV2 coaxial, Van den Hul Optocoupler MKII, Transparent The Link analog between DAC and headphone amp.  I plan to replace the XV2 coaxial cable with the Black Cat Veloce (designed by the same guy who designed the XV2 and XV-Ultra; its sound quality supposed to be somewhere between the XV2 and the XV-Ultra but cheaper than what the XV2 originally cost).