[Currawong]

Just report his posts and don't reply to them.  Even if we linked too all the mathematics (indisputable) that form the basis for digital transmission, including the electronics, and the extensive research conducted by people on it, he'd just ignore it and still troll.
 
I had an interesting experience the other night playing with the DI.  I had been using an RCA cable from Van Den Hul between my Ref 3 and Ref 1 for a while.  While testing the DI I used it as well.  Just to see if it had any effect, I switched to a shorter Canare BNC cable I had on hand, and some "glare" (for want of a better description) that had been annoying me in some music, such as with the piano in Dave Brubeck's Take Out, was reduced noticeably. 

 

[dura]

Reported. As 'minor', seemed fitting to me.

 
Did you use the van den Hul as a digital IC?
I did the same yesterday; I had a van den Hul the First Ultimate as a digital interconnect between my new Squeezebox Touch and the REF5 and didn't much like the sharp, upfront sound. Then I switched to a Digiflex Gold which gave a more pleasant, full sound. 
 
And, attention attention, finally, real objective proof digital interconnects do make a difference: when using the van den Hul, if I switch on my (remote controlled) lights the sound stops for a second, appearantly my REF5 is provoked in shutting down temporarily. When I use the digiflex there is no pause in the sound. Weird...

 

[GWorlDofSPACE]

I received my unit yesterday so until its running and first listening
moments had been very revealing in playing classical music.
This is the genre where the unit was wonderful. It adds a black background that
I missed in digital reproduction.
I also noticed some glare as posted by currawong on some tracks.
I have an idea it could be the digital cable but also the silver wire insulating transformer maybe, I am also not a friend of SOLEN caps. I would rather use obbligato, they sound more analogue like.
This are just a few thoughts for now.

 

[lag0a]

Yeah. I didn't believe cables made a difference either when I first got into building my first DAC/AMP headphone system but just for the sake of it I wanted to have quality cables to start off with in case it really matters and someone told me about a pair of Analysis Plus Silver-Oval Ins(RCA) and an Analysis Plus Digital interconnect(RCA). I didn't know how a DAC and AMP suppose to sound like with earphones and headphones at first but everything sounded congested. I just knew the DAC/AMP combo definately sounded better than the sound coming from my auzentech x-meridian sound card even with the opa637sm opamp in it even though it was like 10x the cost. I was determined to hear good music and hifidelity sounds by building this headphone system. First I tried some Oyaide power cables and they made a dramatic improvement. I was amazed by the depth it provided to the sound. Then I changed my wall outlet to a porter port and it balanced the frequency of the music. Later on I switch to some Aural Harmony Sonnet-R XLR and that opened the sound a lot because those Analysis Plus RCAs are not really meant for a headphone system or it could be because they are RCA. I have no idea. The last piece I changed was the Analysis Plus digital interconnect to one of those belden digital interconnect and the sound opened more again but maybe not as accurate as the Analysis Plus digital interconnect but I kind of figured out Analysis Plus isn't for headphone systems. Maybe more for speakers. Anyhow, this pursuit for accurate and natural analogue sounds from digital gear is like a whole new world for me now. The most confusing aspect is there are so many different name brand products but one is suppose to do better than the other for whatever price range or some products costing 10x just suck compared to some newer digital sound chips. Then I found out a few months ago that I can ditch my sound card for this kind of USB-SPDIF interface and it can provide better sound for my DAC/AMP is just wonderful. Just my random thoughts and experience here on this matter about cables. Who knows what else is there?

 

[regal]

Oh Geeze now Dalamar it starting to sound credible,  please keep the cables voodo in the cables forum

 

[lag0a]

Sorry for interrupting the Audio-gd DI thread. I just felt I needed to share my experience here after reading about some changes in sound from using different cables on the Audio-gd DI unit because it gave new life to my DAC/AMP and my appreciation for cables now.

 

[GWorlDofSPACE]

 
Quote:

Oh Geeze now Dalamar it starting to sound credible,  please keep the cables voodo in the cables forum

It maybe not so irrelevant to this topic. I assume you do not believe into cable voodoo but
I was a disbeliever time ago.
Cables do matter. If subjectively or not is a good question but do you consider music as not subjective personal experience, Regal?
 
Back to DI.
I also noticed the sound has body!!!! Thats for me one of most important things.

 

[seaninbrisbane]

Any comparisons with the HiFace or other USB interfaces yet? 

 

[ninjikiran]

Quote:

Oh Geeze now Dalamar it starting to sound credible,  please keep the cables voodo in the cables forum

Hahaha Regal you are the man

 

[rhythmic_impulse]

I received my DI version A unit without the power supply yesterday. I think there's possibibly a problem with my Windows XP USB set-up as the moment I put in the DI, the detection routine goes on well and it appears  under Hardware devices as DigiHub Audio USB. After that, I install the USB ASIO program. Unfortunately, playing back through the USB ASIO caused stutters and distortions. After removing the USB ASIO and reinserting the DI, Windows started asks for the driver files and I am unable to have the system install the DI as a plug and play unit anymore. Windows Hardware device list it as DigiHub Audio but with a yellow exclamation mark saying something is wrong with the hardware. On the other hand, plugging the unit into MAC OS X on the same machine, everything is detected and the DI is running up and well. So I think the issue is with my Windows USB set-up. At this moment, I can't try out how it sounds in Windows with USB output to the DACs.

Nevertheless, I wanted to know to know how well the DI handle Coax signal from another output. I tried the Coax output from the Prodigy HD2 soundcard into the DI and then via Coax to the FUN. The connections are with Canare LV-61s cables.

The result is a very clean and very dark background from which the music is appearing. There's actually a blacker background and the soundstage seem to have expanded and move slightly back. I get a better feeling of the sonic image being more in front of me instead of slightly in front. Also, the glare, as Currawong mentioned, is noticeably reduced in the FUN (with the AD1852).

Since I had the WM8471 upgrade module as well, I decided to switch that into the FUN and tried out both the connections ie Direct Coax from Prodigy HD2 and via DI. From what I hear of the two as yet fully burned in unit, they seem to have synergy. The FUN with WM8741 and DI is a totally different beast now, with timbres that's realistic and soundstage improving. I'll post impressions about the WM8741 module in the FUN thread later, but for now, early impressions are the DI do improve the Coax connections. I have yet to sort out output from the USB from my WIndows. Would have wanted to test it out especially with USB ASIO.

 

 

[haloxt]

You can try using another usb port.
 
USB-audio probably does not support the TE7022 usb chip since it seems rather low-key and maybe new, you should send an email to usb-audio and ask them. But if you feel like trying again, while installing usb-audio software, make sure you have the power switched OFF on the DI, then only turn it on when it tells you to. Not following this instruction will mess things up big time.

 

[Bojamijams]

Ditto. Would love to know.
 
Quote:

Any comparisons with the HiFace or other USB interfaces yet? 

 

[tim3320070]

I went into my Vista Control Panel and did the properties for the DI. I noticed it has settings for what sample rates it supports and the 96 was not checked. Also under the advanced tab, the default setting was 16/44.1.
 
Do I change all these to be 24/96 as the Tenor chip does that rate? Does it not matter if Exclusive mode boxes are checked?

 

[chronomitch]

Quote:

I went into my Vista Control Panel and did the properties for the DI. I noticed it has settings for what sample rates it supports and the 96 was not checked. Also under the advanced tab, the default setting was 16/44.1.
 
Do I change all these to be 24/96 as the Tenor chip does that rate? Does it not matter if Exclusive mode boxes are checked?

The samples rates you see there control what sample rates are available for WASAPI and Direct Sound.
 
First, make sure that all available sample rates are checked. This will allow your music player (Foobar2000?) to pass any of those sample rates to your sound card when using WASAPI. Also make sure that the check boxes allowing exclusive mode are checked. WASAPI is essentially what exclusive modes refers to, so it won't work correctly if that is unchecked.
 
The default setting is the sample rate which Direct Sound and any other non-WASAPI/ASIO sound process will use. In such cases, any sounds coming from any programs at any sample rates will be upsampled/downsampled to that rate. Since the highest available rate for the Tenor chip is 24-bit 96KHz, choose that for the default rate.
 
Off topic: Blast these forums for trying to put quotes below their responses.

 

[tim3320070]

Thanks- using MediaMonkey with wave_out- all is checked as you stated.
 
One thing I think I notice when switching the PSU on/off is that there seems to be slightly more "flesh" to the music- could be a volume increase when PSU is engaged, I don't know how all that works. There just seems a slight bit more body around instruments and singers.
I admit, this could be placebo but it's enough for me to keep the PSU.
Things really sound good to me in any case.