Hi there, so JCAT have improved their XE USB board and eventually I had to try it
Official URL is https://jcat.eu/featured/usb-card-xe-evo/
Improvements go as follow:
-voltage regulators with twice less noise
-EMI filtered USB output
-ability to plug an external clock using a regular SMA cable
Here are a few close-ups of its PCB:
So we got 3 jumpers, one to disable bus power for each USB output and one to enable an external clock.
Also comes with internal Molex connector in order to plug an ATX PSU, board is not powered by the mobo so it's mandatory to either provide external PSU via its 5.5/2.1 5VDC input or internal Molex.
So indeed, JCAT promise twice less noisy voltage regulators that would appear to be https://www.ti.com/product/TPS7A94
This link sheds some light about it:
Power Supply Ripple Rejection is what TI are experts at, the higher it is the lower the output noise and their opamps that keep coming constantly with higher PSRR never fail to deliver, so it's good to know that they managed to improve over the previous king of the hill LT3045 by providing the best of both worlds. I guess their competition got a tough nut to crack this time around.
Regarding its filtered USB output, it would very much appear to be https://www.we-online.com/en/components/products/WE-EPLE_SIZE
Last page of this PDF sums up the situation nicely:
I've been using this filter in my own DIY mods since 2017, I actually got a few spares and you can tell that they're all twins:
It's good to finally see this part in audiophile equipment, about time I'd venture saying. Feeding less noisy USB data lines to the USB device will provide clearer and more efficient decoding.
OCXO clock is the same one as in former non-EVO version, I already provided much details about it in my previous review located at https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/usb-card-xe-jcat.25121/reviews#review-25788
Short story is that it's essentially the best clock you can source without breaking the bank, industry standard for critical equipment such as 5G antennas and infrastructure: https://www.5gtechnologyworld.com/t...g-mems-timing-solution-for-5g-infrastructure/
So eventually, I had to A/B them because auditory memory barely lasting 10 secs placebo/nocebo is always a possibility. Very fast A/B comparisons on high-res equipment with fresh ears get things done
Both boards fitted in my B550 mobo:
External PSU is provided to both boards simultaneously from the almighty OPTIMO 3 DUO :
I had been using the former non-EVO board for a while but I did let the new EVO version break-in for quite some time as caps have been proven to take at the very least a few hundred hours to meet their specs, so I nearly never bother listening to audio gear out of the box.
Mostly been using 24bit and greatly remastered highly detailed emotional music and my rig consists of a vastly modded XMOS/ES9038 DAC and a heavily amped Hifiman HE6SEV2 using shielded OCC wires, so basically no bottleneck on either link as HE6SE is known for its utter resolution. Feed it high-res or suffer.
Comparisons results went as follow:
As a sanity check I first tried B550 built-in USB compared to my usual everyday XE :
mobo sounds like cheap SMPS digitis, edgy and low resolution, bare minimum gets through, really mushy sounding and unbearable once you've heard better.
XE USB > unfiltered EVO : much clearer sounding, "XE unveiled" as Hifiman would call it
, muscle sounding, far more dynamics and digitis is out the window. Tiny details hardly audible on XE now get to live a life of their own in the center of the Sound Stage.
SADE & remastered Morricone sound emotional to the utmost and A/B'ing them doesn't change my impressions, too bad I get to hear rather clearly SADE's sloppy punch-in/punch outs on her vocal takes but her recordings have always been notoriously rather poorly produced. Reminds me of an old ad for MACKIE speakers apologizing in advance for all the defects in your mixes these will allows you to hear.
unfiltered EVO > XE (the other way around) = less resolution, more distant, digitis at bay, like hearing EVO from the next room.
It's like Sound Stage comes with far less possible positions, as if EVO went from 1 to 1024 from extreme L to R but XE would be like 1 to 256. The lower the jitter the wider the SS, old story but very much plain audible and the cleaner the power fed to a clock the lower the noise/jitter and the cleaner the clock output
It's like XE doesn't manage to properly unfold the full untouched stereo imaging and resolution in the recording, acting as one major bottleneck.
Very audible on this tune in 24bit FLAC:
filtered EVO > vanilla EVO : sound of this filter is the usual one IME = wider SS, more resolution and more dynamics. It's a one-way ticket, no return ever planned. Genuinely surprised it took so long for an audio company to slap it on a USB board, I figured everyone overlooked it or didn't take it seriously.
Anyway, I guess JCAT's clock upgrade improves sound quality even further, as usual <Choo Choo> you can't stop the audiophool train and what's been heard cannot be unheard, but the last increments are usually very much not cost-effective so pick your poison.
Life is short, the external clock comes with a removable cable and nearly cannot age so this can very much still be a good option depending on your equipment, personal audiogram, expectations and available expenditure.
This review proves my point:
All in all, this new improved EVO version of JCAT USB XE basically trumps it completely.
Only small annoyance is that former XE board allows disconnection of external PSU, but the new XE EVO doesn't and requires a Windows reboot.
Official URL is https://jcat.eu/featured/usb-card-xe-evo/
Improvements go as follow:
-voltage regulators with twice less noise
-EMI filtered USB output
-ability to plug an external clock using a regular SMA cable
Here are a few close-ups of its PCB:
So we got 3 jumpers, one to disable bus power for each USB output and one to enable an external clock.
Also comes with internal Molex connector in order to plug an ATX PSU, board is not powered by the mobo so it's mandatory to either provide external PSU via its 5.5/2.1 5VDC input or internal Molex.
So indeed, JCAT promise twice less noisy voltage regulators that would appear to be https://www.ti.com/product/TPS7A94
This link sheds some light about it:
Power Supply Ripple Rejection is what TI are experts at, the higher it is the lower the output noise and their opamps that keep coming constantly with higher PSRR never fail to deliver, so it's good to know that they managed to improve over the previous king of the hill LT3045 by providing the best of both worlds. I guess their competition got a tough nut to crack this time around.
Regarding its filtered USB output, it would very much appear to be https://www.we-online.com/en/components/products/WE-EPLE_SIZE
Last page of this PDF sums up the situation nicely:
I've been using this filter in my own DIY mods since 2017, I actually got a few spares and you can tell that they're all twins:
It's good to finally see this part in audiophile equipment, about time I'd venture saying. Feeding less noisy USB data lines to the USB device will provide clearer and more efficient decoding.
OCXO clock is the same one as in former non-EVO version, I already provided much details about it in my previous review located at https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/usb-card-xe-jcat.25121/reviews#review-25788
Short story is that it's essentially the best clock you can source without breaking the bank, industry standard for critical equipment such as 5G antennas and infrastructure: https://www.5gtechnologyworld.com/t...g-mems-timing-solution-for-5g-infrastructure/
So eventually, I had to A/B them because auditory memory barely lasting 10 secs placebo/nocebo is always a possibility. Very fast A/B comparisons on high-res equipment with fresh ears get things done
External PSU is provided to both boards simultaneously from the almighty OPTIMO 3 DUO :
I had been using the former non-EVO board for a while but I did let the new EVO version break-in for quite some time as caps have been proven to take at the very least a few hundred hours to meet their specs, so I nearly never bother listening to audio gear out of the box.
Mostly been using 24bit and greatly remastered highly detailed emotional music and my rig consists of a vastly modded XMOS/ES9038 DAC and a heavily amped Hifiman HE6SEV2 using shielded OCC wires, so basically no bottleneck on either link as HE6SE is known for its utter resolution. Feed it high-res or suffer.
Comparisons results went as follow:
As a sanity check I first tried B550 built-in USB compared to my usual everyday XE :
mobo sounds like cheap SMPS digitis, edgy and low resolution, bare minimum gets through, really mushy sounding and unbearable once you've heard better.
XE USB > unfiltered EVO : much clearer sounding, "XE unveiled" as Hifiman would call it
, muscle sounding, far more dynamics and digitis is out the window. Tiny details hardly audible on XE now get to live a life of their own in the center of the Sound Stage.SADE & remastered Morricone sound emotional to the utmost and A/B'ing them doesn't change my impressions, too bad I get to hear rather clearly SADE's sloppy punch-in/punch outs on her vocal takes but her recordings have always been notoriously rather poorly produced. Reminds me of an old ad for MACKIE speakers apologizing in advance for all the defects in your mixes these will allows you to hear.
unfiltered EVO > XE (the other way around) = less resolution, more distant, digitis at bay, like hearing EVO from the next room.
It's like Sound Stage comes with far less possible positions, as if EVO went from 1 to 1024 from extreme L to R but XE would be like 1 to 256. The lower the jitter the wider the SS, old story but very much plain audible and the cleaner the power fed to a clock the lower the noise/jitter and the cleaner the clock output
It's like XE doesn't manage to properly unfold the full untouched stereo imaging and resolution in the recording, acting as one major bottleneck.
Very audible on this tune in 24bit FLAC:
filtered EVO > vanilla EVO : sound of this filter is the usual one IME = wider SS, more resolution and more dynamics. It's a one-way ticket, no return ever planned. Genuinely surprised it took so long for an audio company to slap it on a USB board, I figured everyone overlooked it or didn't take it seriously.
Anyway, I guess JCAT's clock upgrade improves sound quality even further, as usual <Choo Choo> you can't stop the audiophool train and what's been heard cannot be unheard, but the last increments are usually very much not cost-effective so pick your poison.
Life is short, the external clock comes with a removable cable and nearly cannot age so this can very much still be a good option depending on your equipment, personal audiogram, expectations and available expenditure.
This review proves my point:
Bottomless rabbit hole I tell you
All in all, this new improved EVO version of JCAT USB XE basically trumps it completely.
Only small annoyance is that former XE board allows disconnection of external PSU, but the new XE EVO doesn't and requires a Windows reboot.
leeperry
Sky is the limit really, I think a proper LPS such as INITIO 3 would do better than the optional clock. It's always good to keep optional upgrades for later anyways ^^
Ceremonsen
The output voltage required to power the XE EVO is 5V, correct?
