Musical Fidelity V-LINK USB SPDIF - Page 5

No drivers is a huge plus for me. Something that has its own power supply is also a plus.

FWIW, I compared the V-link w/ the USB input of my audio-gd DAC19MK3 from my PC and can't say it did a whole lot - and that's with fancy optical out cable to boot. However I only listened to 16/44 files. I also did not find it to sound better than the Teralink X2 (modified), slightly different but not necessarily better. Maybe the DAC19 does a great job on the input side after all regrdless of input.

Just my first impressions and .02, YMMV, etc...

Quote:

Originally Posted by wushuliu 

FWIW, I compared the V-link w/ the USB input of my audio-gd DAC19MK3 from my PC and can't say it did a whole lot - and that's with fancy optical out cable to boot. However I only listened to 16/44 files. I also did not find it to sound better than the Teralink X2 (modified), slightly different but not necessarily better.

I'm quite surprised by your initial impressions. I have an Audio GD NFB-3 and its USB uses Tenor chip as the one used in your Teralink X2. I found NFB-3's USB performance is very mediocre. I have a crappy Creative Live! external USB sound card to act as USB-SPDIF converter and feeds into NFB-3's coaxial input; the sound is noticeably better than the USB input. V-Link adopts the asynchronous mode which is supposed to be superior than the adaptive mode that's implemented in the Tenor chip.

I heard from somebody who owns both V-Link and Halide Bridge and he said V-Link needs at least 50 hours burn-in time while Halide is great right out of the box. He also said Halide sounds better to him than V-Link even if you connect those expensive cables to V-Link (It may work out cheaper for Halide if you count the costs of those cables).

I've ordered a V-Link and will be able to compare it with Genesis Digital Lens.

Has someone compared the V-Link with the Blue Circle Audio Thingee??

Quote:

Originally Posted by wushuliu 

FWIW, I compared the V-link w/ the USB input of my audio-gd DAC19MK3 from my PC and can't say it did a whole lot - and that's with fancy optical out cable to boot. However I only listened to 16/44 files. I also did not find it to sound better than the Teralink X2 (modified), slightly different but not necessarily better. Maybe the DAC19 does a great job on the input side after all regrdless of input.

 

Just my first impressions and .02, YMMV, etc...

Thanks for your impressions. I'm not expecting much of a difference between my udac and the v-link. One will go though (I think...).

Going by others, it needs atleast 50 hours.

Yes it does improve with burning in. To be fair I thought it sounded pretty good straight out of the box and was pleasantly surprised that it continues to improve.

But... with coax plugged in I can hear very low level whirring noise from my disc drives, The coax has to be completely disconnected even when listening through opt. With opt only, the background is silent.With the coax, its barely  noticeable when playing music, but it is there.

It may just be the laptop that is at fault, but in the long term I will have to consider using an adum device or adding a pulse TX if I want to use the coax ony. Despite this, I am very happy with the v-link.

I wonder if any other owners have noticed this with coax?

.......Just confirmed the noise is a ground loop problem, the background is silent with coax when I run the Laptop on battery.........

Wood-

I tried using battery power on my laptop to see if it was quieter than a/c and in the process found out that my laptop has no power noise when I run off a/c with the battery taken out. Perhaps the battery charging circuitry is making noise? You might want to try it.

Patu, don't you also have a hiface and Audio GD DI? im really anxious to hear your comparison I don't have anything right now, and am torn between all these new options.. 

Bravo 

Audio GD DI

HiFace

V-Link

and now, MHDT Usb device too. 

Im leaning heavily towards the Audio GD DI. Lots of good reviews, and the insides appear to be very well built, with really good power filtering etc. 

Thanks Justin, no change though without the battery.

Originally Posted by MikeW 

am torn between all these new options.. 

 

Bravo 

Audio GD DI

HiFace

V-Link

and now, MHDT Usb device too. 

All that to feed a Teradak NOS DAC? I'd go for the cheapest.

Hi Mike, the thing to consider with the Audio-Gd device is that it is not async , though whether that makes a jot of difference with real listening I don't know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry 

 

All that to feed a Teradak NOS DAC? I'd go for the cheapest.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. It's actually been shown that NOS dacs and R2R dacs in general, because of their Non-oversampling nature, tend to shine more with a low-jitter source. But lets keep this thread on topic. Although, the Audio Gd DI is the cheapest of the lot. 

Funny you should say that Lee, as I don't have my Chameleon NOS dac with me I have been using a Cambridge Dac Magic 2

Out of curiosity I got a cheap  tda1543 one chip NOS dac from ebay about a week ago.  With a couple of Blackgate caps in critical positions it jumps up and down on and destroys the Cambridge Dac.  But only if I use the V-link. Otherwise I get soggy base, lower detail etc. Seems NOS dacs really come into their own with an async device to clear up the jitter and provide more data.

Cant wait to hear it with my Chameleon.