[digger945]

Being designed to eliminate the coax and plug directly to the spdif connector on my dac, is just one reason I chose to purchase the Halide Bridge to use for comparison to the Musiland 02 and HiFace.

 

[leeperry]

 

sorry maybe its you that need to learn a thing or 2, the RCA standard does not allow 75 ohms, canare is taking license there i'm afraid. whether its solderless or not is meaningless, the shape and proportions of the RCA standard mean it is impossible. eichmann also claim its 75 ohms, but its still not the case. but i'll leave you to buy peoples advertising.
 
oh thats right, listening tests trump everything when it comes to sniffing out jitter, I forgot you are a bat

 
Oh I see, it's a matter of the world against you...nothing beats a 6ft $800 BNC cable I presume? You did measure the jitter, right? And is RCA is up to no good and doomed to sound very crappy in your opinion?

 

[MikoLayer]

Quote:

yes, toslink is useless...high grade glass toslink is a tad better, but still cannot compete against a short coax cable IME. jitter's isn't audible per se, but the sound is tighter and more focused in coax.
 
depending on the USB chip in your Valab DAC, you could just add an ADUM4160 dongle in the USB path...this might be your best bang-for-bucks tweak EVER.
 
I read some guys on a local forum rolling CS8414/DIR9001(DIP versions), and their results were pretty unorthodox...but the Valab DAC is broken by design as NOS cannot work, so I'm not surprised that they screwed up on the DIR9001 implementation altogether

Sounds like I may need a hiface or musiland after all then. Dunno, maybe I should have started with another source altogether but I have already plunked down enough $$ into this dac, so kinda stuck with it so to speak 

 
Let me take a wild guess here, is the ADUM4160 to break the ground loop and reduce noise? A quick ebay search didn't turn up anything, though I happened to be looking at this a few days ago when my laptop at work had some serious ground hum:
 
http://www.circuitsathome.com/products-page/usb-interfaces
 
http://diyparadise.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=124
 
Does that count as cheap ass? At least it's cheaper than the either discussed here
 
As for Valab not being able to work in NOS, that's a news to me. Kinda sad to hear tbh, but as long as it can made to sound better, I am all ears.

 

[leeperry]

yes, many companies sell ADUM4160 dongles now:
http://www.olimex.com/dev/usb-iso.html
http://electronicsshop.dk/?id=1038
 
the former is cheaper, but I bought the latter...see it as a long term investment as this will improve the SQ of any USB audio device you'll throw at it IME(and others'). there's many more if you google up I'm sure.
 
It's said to work on the Musiland, it works for sure on the Tenor chips but it doesn't work on the Hiface. It provides galvanic isolation, filters useless USB events(state?) and regenerates the USB clock...you have to hear it to believe it

 
IME, it works better w/ this kind of cable(prolly coz it also cleans up the cable interferences/jitter): http://www.circuitsathome.com/mcu/usb/usb-cable-of-my-dreams

 

[MikoLayer]

any reason why you picked the second one? aesthetics?

 

[leeperry]

I didn't really search, I know Oleg from circuits@home tried it and I like the ABS casing as I plan on using it for the next coming years. Plus it comes w/ a 2 years warranty and it's made by a european company, faster to receive, easier to deal w/ RMA if need be.
 
I ran some quick google searches, some companies ask +$100 for this kind of dongle, I dunno how cheap it can get if you search really well. Soon enough, the Chinese will make them anyway

 

[MikoLayer]

 
I too like the sense of durability the ABS casing would provide, but the main difference I see there is separate power input.
 
This may sound like a stupid question, but what would be the benefit of adding a 5v power source to this dongle, if you end up plugging a power adapter that shares common ground with everything into it? Am I looking at it from a wrong angle?
 
For me, the manufacturer being in EU means more shipping charges and delay, alas

 

[leeperry]

maybe you can find a local seller, but it'd only be more expensive I think to get a self-powered version.
 
on the first link I provided, they say that it can be USB powered. OTOH, Oleg's version does require an external PSU. Well, the chip provides galvanic isolation and a SMPS is known to make the ground dirty FWIR. Theoritically, a TREAD PSU on Oleg's unit should work more efficiently. But then again, most serious transports run off their own DPS anyway(or are modded to do so, like jkeny's hiface)

 

[ROBSCIX]

 
Quote:

 

I too like the sense of durability the ABS casing would provide, but the main difference I see there is separate power input.
 
This may sound like a stupid question, but what would be the benefit of adding a 5v power source to this dongle, if you end up plugging a power adapter that shares common ground with everything into it? Am I looking at it from a wrong angle?
 
For me, the manufacturer being in EU means more shipping charges and delay, alas

USB isolators will not work with the Hiface...if you are still considering that one.  I have about 4 of them and been using them for a long time. They do work on other devices that I have, such as the Teralink X2 and USB input DAC's.

 

[Shahrose]

IME, shorter cables (including coax) sound better (if the difference in length is considerable). I preferred the 1 foot BJC coax over its 6ft. variant.

 

[MikoLayer]

Quote:

 
USB isolators will not work with the Hiface...if you are still considering that one.  I have about 4 of them and been using them for a long time. They do work on other devices that I have, such as the Teralink X2 and USB input DAC's.

thx for your friendly reminder! I was more of looking for better input options on my valab dac, as in getting one of those for usb input on the dac instead of coax (hiface or musiland). Cheaper this way, and if it works equally well I am sold

 

[shawn_low]

Any reason why you didn't consider the Musiland 01? Seems to be more in line with the M2 tech hiface than the Musuland 02 (mains powered).

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

Any reason why you didn't consider the Musiland 01? Seems to be more in line with the M2 tech hiface than the Musuland 02 (mains powered).

The 02US has better SQ and a lot more features (standalone DAC and amp). IMO, it represents a larger bang for your buck.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

thx for your friendly reminder! I was more of looking for better input options on my valab dac, as in getting one of those for usb input on the dac instead of coax (hiface or musiland). Cheaper this way, and if it works equally well I am sold

Provided the DAC USB input is not high speed it will work fine.  There is a USB isolater from Circuits@home, it allows you to connect up an external power supply which makes it great for this type of use.

 

[bauerpower]

I'm wondering if 1 of these USB isolators would work with my devilsound DAC.  I think it sometimes causes trouble for my PC's USB power.