[Arniesb]

Having both looked into this quite a lot, and also trying various products myself recently, I figured I'd post a response to clear things up a bit.

There are two main factors that will affect the quality of the eventual i2s signal processed in the dac:
-Jitter
-Ground plane pollution/power quality.

The latter is a simple matter to resolve. Simply avoid a direct electrical connection to a noisy device such as a PC. If you want to try this yourself and keep things a fair test, just get a $30 raspberry pi3b+, install ropieeeXL and use that. You will likely hear a noticeable improvement not due to any digital change, but simply because the 0v reference ground plane is not being contaminated by the noise from the power hungry PC. Though if using a battery powered laptop this may be less of an issue.
This is the same reason why high quality linear power supplies can bring a benefit to audio equipment.

If you want to step this up, you can get a high quality streaming solution such as a pi2aes, SotM SMS200-ultra, Sonore Ultrarendu, or Lumin U1 for example.

Jitter however, is a bit more of a complex beast and depends on a few things.

- When using USB (with proper drivers), it is asynchronous. Meaning the dac USB module calls for additional data when it needs it, and converts to I2S using the dac's OWN clock. Therefore jitter will be dependant on both the quality of the device clock, and the USB implementation in the dac.

- When using any form of SPDIF (AES, Coax, Optical), the clock signal is encoded within the stream, and so jitter is dependant on the SOURCE (your PC). This is why a high quality digital-to-digital converter such as pi2aes, Singxer SU-6, Matrix X-SPDIF 2 etc will sound better than SPDIF from your PC. Everything is still digital "Bit perfect", but jitter is considerably lower than the output from your PC.
Jitter on isochronous connections like this can also be fought with a high quality PLL and FIFO buffering, such as that found in the holo May. You can see in measurements here that even with high amounts of artificially introduced jitter, the may's PLL when enabled, made the dac almost immune to it. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...may-probably-the-best-discrete-r2r-dac.10161/
Its worth noting that while optical connections give the benefit of galvanic isolation, they also usually have higher jitter than coax.

- When using I2S from a DDC, again the clock is part of the stream, however i2s uses multiple lines, with the master clock being separate entirely from the data and word clock. Meaning it is in theory better than SPDIF which encodes all of this into one stream and has to be "unpacked" at the other end. Though has the disadvantage of usually only being able to be done over very short runs.


TLDR:
If you want to use the best connection, use the best DDC/clock source you have.
That might well be your dac's internal DDC over USB.
But for $200 you can get a pi+pi2aes which is likely to be better.

However, galvanic isolation will almost always bring a benefit, and you can do that for $30

I think Galvanic Isolation is to break ground loops... I dont think it lowers noise... Even read somewhere that galvanic isolation lowers performance of Source clock, but i cant guarantee it.
I think Uptone owner said that Power supply and Clock brought much bigger improvements than Galvanic Isolation on his reclocker.
In my case Ifi nano reclocker brought much bigger difference than Laptop running on battery.
Sound was much more realistic, with a lot better resolution, but it sounded very harsh.
Tried ifi micro usb 3.0 at dealers place and it was even better with more resolution, depth and realism. Still though it sounded harsh.
I think both of these sounded harsh, because all electronics is close to each other in small cases and both were equipped with switched power supplies.
Now Innuos phoenix dont have any bad qualities according to many who listened it.

 

[ItsThePeanutiest]

I prefer the ~$8 (sometimes $2 if you're ok with Amazon Warehouse deals) USB-C to 3.5 Apple DAC option. If you don't have USB-C just pick up a USB-C Female to USB Male adapter

Edit: Apologies, I hastily responded before reading more in-depth. This is not the solution for a Holo May

 

[ScareDe2]

Interferences, Windows resampling distortion, PC noises and USB jitter make it useless to use an external DAC north $50. I have sold my Schiit Bifrost multibit GEN 5 and kept the little modi. I would say never invest in an expensive external DAC. I was never satisfied. I still have the Audioquest USB Coffee cable that clearly improves the sound which gives you an idea how bad USB is. If you have a good motherboard the onboard DAC should be preferable, if not, a good soundcard like the soundblaster zxr would be my choice.

 

[manueljenkin]

Isn't ground plane noises more than just ground loops though?. Any high speed switching activity would cause them afaik. So it might matter how the ground plane is designed after the ddc conversion process too - ie usb regeneration at the ddc converter, the cables transmitting, the design choices of input side of the dac, or even the whole dac pcb (especially in case of a high frequency delta Sigma modulator, or class d amp running at high frequency, or a high frequency SMPS).

I don't have serious money for a ddc at the moment, but just from my laptop to my dac, the uptone uspcb gave me far more sonic upgrade than a usb cable I bought at the same price. It's kinda like a 5 or 6 layer pcb, and as you know, multi layer PCBs can give you more scope to design a quality ground plane.

 

[Eric M]

If I'm not playing anything in Windows and I crank the volume on my amp to the max, and don't hear any audible noise, that means I don't have noise issues right? If I play some music I do hear some noise during the very quiet parts but I assume that's part of the recording. The very high quality modern sources I have like DSD Demos samplers don't have noise during the quiet parts.

 

[manueljenkin]

May or may not be. The issues may not manifest as constant noise floor but rather signal modulation (or noise that varies along with the signal) - which is to say, it'll manifest in texture, depth, instrument separation/cleanliness of background etc. And you get to know it clearly only when this signal correlated noise is reduced. Think of viewing something through a glass window. A slightly tainted one and a clear one. If you've never used a very clear one before you would have probably belived the tainted one is as perfect as glass gets.

Remember we are constantly in a noise floor of 40db ish around us just because of air pressure and our brain filters it. It's the signal correlated noise that is more audible (primarily because of the way our hearing works).

Noise during quiet parts.. it could be device noise during recording, or heck even dither. Do try some 24bit high res samples (96/192khz) in PCM *with good mastering* to see if such noises are still present. Make sure those are not straight vinyl rips from a personal rig which could have noticeable noise. In terms of filtering a typical aggressive low pass filter can minimize this noise, if it's high frequency noise but at the expense of transients (there is no free lunch). Depends on how the dsd recording was done and how the dsd reconstruction implementation on your dac is. Chances are any of these have had an aggressive low pass filter, or the recordings were of great quality.

 

[Eric M]

Hmm, well I've only ever used my headphones with gaming PCs, so I might have been living behind that tainted window you mention. I've used good quality soundcards or DACs like Xonars, Audio-gd or Topping with them though.
I can hook up my Topping D7X Pro to my Oppo UDP-203's optical or coax outs as the source. Do you think the Oppo would qualify as a suitably low noise source compared to a Windows PC to see if I can notice this fidelity reducing noise?

 

[manueljenkin]

I cannot guarantee since I haven't tried those, but definitely give it a try. You might see improvements, or atleast changes.

I have only personally experimented with usb cables and music player software changing sound. I'm yet to try dedicated systems, but I've done efforts to reduce noise coming out of my pc. Even within pc, just changing your music player software, the buffer settings, background tasks and OS changes the sound noticeably. I've written my experiences in detail here post number 62, the best part is this is free. https://www.head-fi.org/threads/my-experience-with-different-music-players.923248/page-5

I'd recommend you to configure musicbee to asio + buffer full song to ram to give a try. If you have an Android phone, I highly recommend usb audio player pro (assuming you have a decent otg cable to connect to dac, you can find decent ones from shanling). If you're comfortable with commandline, wtfplay, a linux Live CD distro for audio, is at the top of my recommendation list.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Hmm, well I've only ever used my headphones with gaming PCs, so I might have been living behind that tainted window you mention. I've used good quality soundcards or DACs like Xonars, Audio-gd or Topping with them though.
I can hook up my Topping D7X Pro to my Oppo UDP-203's optical or coax outs as the source. Do you think the Oppo would qualify as a suitably low noise source compared to a Windows PC to see if I can notice this fidelity reducing noise?

Optical is a good way to sidestep electrical noise.

 

[Giru]

I'd like to chime in here but please forgive me if you find something disagreeable. I'm no expert by any means and am only sharing my experiences when it comes to digital. Just a bit of background: I was previously into analogue only (casettes and CDs; typical 90s kid). Over time I found it be difficult to sustain my collection and the final nail on the coffin was when I moved to our new place and the move destroyed 2/3rds of my collection. I have since moved to a digital only setup and have converted whatever analogue I had to digital. I'll admit it doesnt sound as "magical" but it does the job.

So initially i was struggling quite a bit. The wavs and flacs that I had created were being pushed into a DAC from foobar on windows. The quality of audio was pitiful to say the least.

The next step was ASIO and it upped the game but I wasn't satisfied. At this time I upgraded my DAC to a maverick audio tubemagic d2 (my first serious DAC). The change was a revelation and I think that's what motivated me to keep it digital and not giving up on it so fast.

I used the d2 for a few years and in the mean time I experimented with the software side of things. I tried Audirvana, Jriver and a plethora of other windows based options. I think the best was Bughead emperor. But it was just too clunky functionally. Not to mention it required a fairly decent machine. This was the time I got into experimenting with linux distros focused on audio. Tried a lot of them and that's when I stumbled on Daphile. I won't go into the nitty gritty details but it's been my goto audio playback and library management tool but I'll come to it later.

I think this is where I lost track too and gave into the Raspberry pi based solutions. First got a pi and then the allo based solutions. I upgraded to better and better dacs and also auditioned a few dedicated streamers from bryston, sotm, etc. I think the cambridge cxn v2 was the last one I tried and even had it in my system for a few weeks. They are all good solutions but they were either too expensive or didn't sound significantly better than the allo based units.

During this I was also in the process of setting up my reference DAC, I chose to go for a NOS DAC (PCM1794 based). The dac which I wanted to build only had a spdif input onboard and required a seperate usb to i2s interface to convert the signal so that it could be fed to the dac main board. I got a luckit usb-i2s board and powered it using a seperate linear power source. My dac build was completed last year. I used this dac for testing with a lot of equipment.

I was using an allo usbridge at that time and the sound was pretty acceptable. One day the lps powering the usbridge went bust and I had to use an old laptop. I don't know what hit me and i just wiped it clean and installed a live version of daphile on it; remebering it to sound best amongst the pc based solutions. Set up upnp/dlna and played music. I kid you not, the laptop ran circles around the allo. Details and dynamics went into another level altogether.

I compared that laptop to a number of commercial players i mentioned with help from a lot of friends. The laptop was almost always superior (but only with my DAC). I was finally getting the audio quality I wanted.

I then played around with hardware: got myself a dedicated fanless audio pc, linear power supply for the pc, mutec usb reclocker (MC3+ usb; although i just recently sold it too coz i found it to be not affecting the sound much), did some fiddle-foo with daphile and here I am. My source sounds better than most four figure solutions. I'm a happy camper.

TLDR;
1. Software is as important as hardware. Ditch windows if you can. No matter what any software claims, or no matter what bypassing you do; it still sounds inferior to most linux distros let alone daphile.
2. Daphile is good but limited in functionality. There's no free lunch.
3. Avoid pricey streamers, allo stuff sounds pretty good and costs less.
4. The main game is played by your usb to i2s interface. As long as it has a seperate power supply and is isolated from the usb power, you don't need any fancy reclockers or other voodoo-doodoo that companies seem to be selling these days. Check this before you buy your dac. A similar solution will be a dac that takes i2s from an outboard usb to i2s interface. But i found that it only prolongs the signal path.
5. Good grounding and a linear power supply for your PC is almost always ideal. But differences won't be very huge.

Thanks for reading and good luck!

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Since almost every DAC manufacturer makes drivers for Windows and not Linux it seems counterproductive to ditch Windows. Don't get me wrong I hate Windows. I'm no Linux lover either. Although I have both and also other OS to me Windows remains the best entertainment platform.

 

[Giru]

Since almost every DAC manufacturer makes drivers for Windows and not Linux it seems counterproductive to ditch Windows. Don't get me wrong I hate Windows. I'm no Linux lover either. Although I have both and also other OS to me Windows remains the best entertainment platform.

Oh that might be a misconception my friend. Linux carries most drivers for USB audio class in the kernel, most of these work well with 95% of the devices out there.
Windows on the other hand does not. That's why manufacturer's have to write seperate drivers for their units for use with windows machines.
Again as I said, I'm no expert and I'd be glad if someone more knowledgeable can shed some light here.
All I know for sure is that I'm getting a good result with my setup. I did compare my setup to a lot of other proprietary solutions and haven't felt the urge to change.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Oh that might be a misconception my friend. Linux carries most drivers for USB audio class in the kernel, most of these work well with 95% of the devices out there.
Windows on the other hand does not. That's why manufacturer's have to write seperate drivers for their units for use with windows machines.
Again as I said, I'm no expert and I'd be glad if someone more knowledgeable can shed some light here.
All I know for sure is that I'm getting a good result with my setup. I did compare my setup to a lot of other proprietary solutions and haven't felt the urge to change.

No, it is not a misconception. Even though you can play music from Linux over a DAC, you will miss a lot of the features of the DAC that depend on Windows driver integration with the DAC. And I didn't find a music player for Linux that plays DSD (especially SACD ISO) reliably. Also Tidal has no desktop app for Linux. I am sure using Wine could seem to work but that's another layer of crap in addition to ALSA, Pulse, Jack etc. Linux audio is a nightmare. For me there is no point.

 

[Giru]

No, it is not a misconception. Even though you can play music from Linux over a DAC, you will miss a lot of the features of the DAC that depend on Windows driver integration with the DAC. And I didn't find a music player for Linux that plays DSD (especially SACD ISO) reliably. Also Tidal has no desktop app for Linux. I am sure using Wine could seem to work but that's another layer of crap in addition to ALSA, Pulse, Jack etc. Linux audio is a nightmare. For me there is no point.

Hmmm. Extra features like? Would appreciate if you can elaborate with an example here. Although honestly i haven't used my DAC for anything else except for converting digital to analogue.
Native DSD is an issue and I completely agree. However i don't own any DSD or SACD ISO so no use for me either.
No tidal app is a non issue as you can setup daphile linux as a upnp/dlna renderer and send whatever you play on tidal to it using a plethora of apps available for windows or android/ios.
Coming to the last point; and I think that's where you missed the bus. Firstly Linux audio handlers like alsa, pulse etc, do not oversample unless you're using a software that tells them to. Its unlike windows where you need crappy drivers like asio to bypass the mixer. Secondly Daphile is already built to bypass any processing and only uses ALSA to provide a bit-perfect stream to your DAC. No mixing or data stream handling is taking place on the OS end in Daphile.
As long as your os is giving a clean untouched PCM stream to your DAC and allowing it to do the rest, you're pretty much getting the max out of your source.
I agree that windows has the best flexibitly when it comes to use but its not nearly as efficient and easy to set up for bit perfect playback when compared to linux.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

I couldn't disagree more. Sending people to Linux for audio is just wrong in so many ways.