[plonter]

Hi all.  a little story just so you can understand my situation... I am using my marantz cd player as a transport for a  very long time and i am very satisfied with it.   because i was curious and tempted by all the pros of computer audio i decided to try using the usb out to my dac. 
at first i used xp with asio4all and foobar,and i immediately noticed that the treble was sharper ...very noticeably sharper like maybe one or two db's higher. 
i had troubles with asio4all plugin (pop noises but that's another story) so i quit using it and came back to the marantz cd5001.
anyway...since i had problems with the xp/asio4all setup i decided to advance to win7 and wasapi.   so i got rid of the issues i has with asio (no pop noises) but the sound is still the same...very hot treble. i actually need to EQ the treble down by one notch to balance it.     somehow i got a feeling that my marants cd player sound is more "correct"...but what can be wrong with my usb implementation to change the sound?    am i right about the cd player being more "correct" sounding?  and what can you advice me to do?
I would  like to believe that "digital is digital"...i really do! but for the moment it seems that it is not simple as that.
 
EDIT: by the way..i thought about getting another used computer and use the same configuration (win7/foobar/wasapi) and see how it compares.

 

[SP Wild]

What dac are you using?  What amp?  make sure all DSP and EQ etc are switched off.  We can go from there once we have more info.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

What dac are you using?  What amp?  make sure all DSP and EQ etc are switched off.  We can go from there once we have more info.

first of all thanks for the response.   i am using headroom ultra micro dac and amp.   the slight treble peak is noticed when all the dsp are off but right now i am actually using the EQ in order to reduce the treble a little bit. 

 

[SP Wild]

I heard the Marantz CD5003 headphone output with my HD650's.  Should be similar or improvement over CD5001.  The Headroom should be the truer and cleaner output.  I found the treble extension on the CD5003 adequate but rough - the headroom should be noticeably smoother extended and more refined with a more solid bass foundation.  I believe you are exposing the weakness of the D2000s - often criticised for having a "hot" treble.  Now you know why.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

I heard the Marantz CD5003 headphone output with my HD650's.  Should be similar or improvement over CD5001.  The Headroom should be the truer and cleaner output.  I found the treble extension on the CD5003 adequate but rough - the headroom should be noticeably smoother extended and more refined with a more solid bass foundation.  I believe you are exposing the weakness of the D2000s - often criticised for having a "hot" treble.  Now you know why.

i guess you totally missed my point here...i ALWAYS use the headroom ultra micro dac as a source,the marantz and computer are just transports for the dac.
i clearly hear a difference between the two transports,like i said,the computer thourgh usb sound more hot in the treble,while the marantz is smoother and not as spiky..my general feeling is that the marantz is more correct (bit-perfect) but i wanted to know what can possibly be the cause for this sound difference between the two transports.

 

[plonter]

I  am no big expert in digital audio,but i can think of 3 main reasons for the sound difference:
 
1. something is wrong with my computer's usb output and it is not bitperfect.
2.maybe the computer IS bit perfect and the marantz cd player isn't..although i highly doubt it.
3.perhaps the usb to spdif converter in my dac (PCM2902) is what causing the difference from coax or optical.
 
what do you guys think?  like i said,the marantz sound's more "correct" to me.  also,when i used a cheap dvd player some time ago the treble was the same as the marantz so this is another pointer for the marantz "correctness".  the treble through the computer usb is just too much.

 

[SP Wild]

100 percent you are hearing the crappy jittery generic USB input chip of the DAC.  I stay clear from generic USB.  I find my onboard fibreoptic output, in conjunction with software upsampling to 48khz in 24bit or higher gives superior results than generic USB.  The treble is the most notable thing to go off - it sounds grained and rough with crappy USB (not Async USB - thats the good USB) with jitter under control the treble does sound smoother to me.  I can't see what else it could be.

 

[Hybrys]

Quote:

100 percent you are hearing the crappy jittery generic USB input chip of the DAC.  I stay clear from generic USB.  I find my onboard fibreoptic output, in conjunction with software upsampling to 48khz in 24bit or higher gives superior results than generic USB.  The treble is the most notable thing to go off - it sounds grained and rough with crappy USB (not Async USB - thats the good USB) with jitter under control the treble does sound smoother to me.  I can't see what else it could be.

That's a far-reaching claim off the bat.  Some argue that jitter isn't that audible.
 
Also, it's not fiber optic, it's optical.
 
Why are you resampling from 44.1 to 48?  That would offer you a negative result.
 
Some USB implementations are just good.  Some are just bad.  Sometimes it doesn't matter on the data movement protocol.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

100 percent you are hearing the crappy jittery generic USB input chip of the DAC.  I stay clear from generic USB.  I find my onboard fibreoptic output, in conjunction with software upsampling to 48khz in 24bit or higher gives superior results than generic USB.  The treble is the most notable thing to go off - it sounds grained and rough with crappy USB (not Async USB - thats the good USB) with jitter under control the treble does sound smoother to me.  I can't see what else it could be.

I wish i had a way of getting optical or coaxial output from my computer.  do i have to get another internal sound card for that? what can you advice me to do?
too bad...usb is very comfortable and simple to use.    though i am getting a hard time to believe that headroom will put a bad usb chip in the ultra micro dac, because it does corporate  cirrus flagship dac chip and analog devices flagship asynchronus chip as well,so it is very strange to me.
 
when you said "generic" i did remember that when i looked in the device manager i saw the term "generic" mentioned somwhere in the usb codec of the dac.
is generic considered a bad thing?  i even don't know what it is.
 
what is the best way to get optical or coax output from the computer ? 
 

 

[SP Wild]

The realtek onboard locks at 48khz and I can't seem to change the output.  It must resample everything that's not 48khz, so if I resample first with a high quality software resampler the card won't touch the signal. 
 
Async USB is the best,  the Benchmark and bell canto 24/96 USB is good.  If budget allows regular 16/48 USB should be avoided at all costs (it's on my expensive Bryston Dac - So I use optical).
 
There should be a coax or optical connection on the back of your PC - most motherboards have them.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

The realtek onboard locks at 48khz and I can't seem to change the output.  It must resample everything that's not 48khz, so if I resample first with a high quality software resampler the card won't touch the signal. 
 
Async USB is the best,  the Benchmark and bell canto 24/96 USB is good.  If budget allows regular 16/48 USB should be avoided at all costs (it's on my expensive Bryston Dac - So I use optical).
 
There should be a coax or optical connection on the back of your PC - most motherboards have them.

ok..i think i did saw a coax output somewhere in the back of my computer.  but i am afraid that it is of a low quality,and maybe my onboard realtek will interfere with the sound.  that's the main reason i went for usb in the first place...i knew that it is bypassing everything in the way. 

 

[SP Wild]

Yeah thats why I wanted a USB in my super duper dac - I got a USB and found it sounded bad, then I did my research on USB and realised I have generic USB.  Look into the Hi-Face device plonter, it uses Async USB to convert to digital that you can pipe into the coax of the dac.  But if you follow my steps the on board digital will sound better than generic USB.

 

[plonter]

Quote:

Yeah thats why I wanted a USB in my super duper dac - I got a USB and found it sounded bad, then I did my research on USB and realised I have generic USB.  Look into the Hi-Face device plonter, it uses Async USB to convert to digital that you can pipe into the coax of the dac.  But if you follow my steps the on board digital will sound better than generic USB.

thanks.  but i still have this question unanswered,  will the motherboard coax output will be bitperfect with wasapi?  can i bypass the onbaord soundcard with it,or is it an integral part of the soundcard (so i am already NOT bypassing anything).  on the latter case,what is the best way to achieve the best possible optical/coax output from a desktop computer?    i want a direct connection between foobar and the dac!

 

[plonter]

just thought of something...if the problem is in my dac's usb chip,maybe i can use an adapter from usb to optical or coax to use with my dac.but i also read in other thread that it can reduce the sound quality.   will it be a good idea?

 

[SP Wild]

Hi Face M2Tech.