[StefanJK]

  True, Jason has a couple more chapters to post.

I meant, just saying 'it's weird' doesn't mean you can stop.  There has to be some better solution once you figure out what's actually going on.

 

[madwolfa]

  Thus why Jason wrote "it shouldn't make a difference but it does." 

 
The genius hybrid of engineering and marketing. 

 

[Jones Bob]

About an hour ago, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it nothing but a box of Schiit was left at the door stop. I brought it into my home and opened it up. Happily there was my Wyrd inside.

I immediately hooked it up (without reading the instructions). I could tell a sonic difference with the Wyrd in the chain, but will need some time to let it burn in and evaluate futher before commenting more. But so far it is interesting and not off putting -a big plus.

I will amuse myself while it burns in by making shadow hand puppets on the wall from the Wyrd's LEDs.

 

[AManAnd88Keys]

About an hour ago, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it nothing but a box of Schiit was left at the door stop. I brought it into my home and opened it up. Happily there was my Wyrd inside.

I immediately hooked it up (without reading the instructions). I could tell a sonic difference with the Wyrd in the chain, but will need some time to let it burn in and evaluate futher before commenting more. But so far it is interesting and not off putting -a big plus.

I will amuse myself while it burns in by making shadow hand puppets on the wall from the Wyrd's LEDs.

Just great. I like you

 

[johnjen]

  OMG, I need to go back to Sound Science where I belong.

And I must say I do whole heartedly agree with your sig line!  :thumb
 
JJ

 

[7ryder]

  meanwhile on my desk:
 

I didn't know you could pile Schiit that high

 

[7ryder]

It is not surprising that this stuff has teething problems, but it will work properly and reliably quite soon, everything always does these days. At the moment any of us trying to use USB 2.0 (or 3.0 which I use as far as I can) with a DAC at 192KHz are really beta testers. And if you try and do it with Ethernet then you find that you are almost a developer. Happy Days.

Hmm, I've never had problems with Ethernet using my Linn Klimax digital streamer (or a Linn Akurate before that) at this sample rate and I don't remember problems (other than no gapless playback, but that is a design flaw) using a PS Audio PWD 1.  
 
As for USB 2.0, I've never experienced any problems with this sample rate using Benchmark, Teac or Ayre DACs either.  
 
Are other people having problems?

 

[BackToAnalogue]

Well I certainly didn't expect to be typing this a few hours ago but I have a plausible explanation for how adding a buffer into the asynchronous communications chain COULD possibly improve the sound quality.

I am not saying that it is the correct explanation, just that it is plausible.

I will describe what can happen and why in more detail in a day or two when I feel up to doing it properly (and if someone seems interested) and I should post that somewhere else. Not Sound Science ;>. I will put it up in Computer Audio when I am happy with it.

In summary this could only happen if the USB link is under stress and losing some data because the USB DAC is sometimes not keeping up with the data flow from the PC, even though on paper the link is plenty fast enough and has been tested and shown that it has the 150%+ headroom you should look for.

It would be caused by two factors
a) The way Asynch works and behaves when under stress; and
b) Windows being completely crap at anything remotely close to 'real time' computing and resource sharing. My next instalment will have more about that one.

If this is happening then there are several ways to cure it. And one of them is to put a dedicated hub or buffer in the chain. Which is exactly what the Wyrd is.

The nice thing about this theory, unlike some of my others, is that it is very easy to test.

1)Find a DAC/PC combination that everyone agrees sounds better with the Wyrd in line.
2)Leave it playing for a couple of hours without the Wyrd in place and check everyone agrees they can detect some degradation in sound quality.
3) Then have one of your engineers look at the error log and see how many USB receive errors have been logged. If the answer is 'none' then I am wrong. If there are enough errors for your engineers to consider that it could have affected the digital filters performance then I am probably right.
4) Then repeat the test with the Wyrd in line and then look at the error logs again and you will probably see no errors at all.

I have made a couple of assumptions here which are.

1) USB DACs are designed to cope with losing a few packets of data here and there and don't just fall over as soon as this happens.
2)USB DACs keep some kind of basic error log which the manufacturers are able to access, or if the DAC doesn't do that as standard they have an 'engineers version' of the firmware which has additional error logging code for testing this kind of thing.

BTW Wyrd is really Computer equipment not Audio equipment so it doesn't need to burn in.

None of the above applies to cables, only to buffers. If you have cable problems then you really need to investigate the benefits of ' cable cooking' .

 

[BackToAnalogue]

Most people are not having problems with USB 2.0 and it is definitely fast enough. But if you have a PC with USB 3.0 ports you might as well use them to be double sure. Beta testing doesn't mean that everyone is going to have problems, just that a few people will.
 
You are using an integrated product set which supports its own streaming layer over Ethernet. I have been trying to work out how to do it with open source software and Windows DLNA and not having to have a PC between my DAC and the Ethernet socket. That is tricky, hence my joke.

 

[JohnnyCanuck]

I will describe what can happen and why in more detail in a day or two when I feel up to doing it properly (and if someone seems interested)

 
Please.  Anything you can add.

 

[girion]

Quote:

  It was only after we launched that someone brought up a killer app for the optical Modi: positional audio for gaming. It seems that a lot of computer sound cards can do positional audio, and have optical outputs. However, they can’t output via USB. So, after we heard that, I added that to the list of applications for the Optimodi.
 

That's one of the reasons why I swear to optical.
 
The setup I have now is the best I have ever tried for gaming, even though I need to use an external Mic. Basically all my sound cards have gone in the bin together with a bunch of headsets.
 
 

 

[BirdManOfCT]

  I meant, just saying 'it's weird' doesn't mean you can stop.  There has to be some better solution once you figure out what's actually going on.

Which is why it's important to keep investigating what golden-ears may or may not be hearing. Sure, there's going to be some placebo effect, but as history has shown, there's a lot of truth to what is suspected but not proven ... yet.

 

[BirdManOfCT]

About an hour ago, I heard a knock on my door. When I opened it nothing but a box of Schiit was left at the door stop. I brought it into my home and opened it up. Happily there was my Wyrd inside.

I immediately hooked it up (without reading the instructions). I could tell a sonic difference with the Wyrd in the chain, but will need some time to let it burn in and evaluate futher before commenting more. But so far it is interesting and not off putting -a big plus.

I will amuse myself while it burns in by making shadow hand puppets on the wall from the Wyrd's LEDs.

Yes, please let us know what you think. I'm thinking of trying it just to see. Can't beat the price!

 

[BirdManOfCT]

  I didn't know you could pile Schiit that high

True. Pretty soon, he'll be knee deep in Schiit.

 

[nbrowser]

May I as a new Asgard 2 owner personally thank Mr.Stoddard for designing such a nice amplifier? It's just throwing me for one heck of a loop sonically in a very GOOD way. Yep, there's certainly gonna be more Schiit gear in my future.