[punk_guy182]

So what sounds best in the DI? The tent labs or the TCXO?

 

[somestranger26]

Neither

Edit: Here's what Kingwa had to say when I emailed him about the hex inverters.

This chip only made the sound flavor different, can't made the specs upgrade.
The DI was consider slight rich sound just for less digital sound, we spend a lot time to try and listen different 74XX04 just choice current one.
For us, any 74XX04 price is quite near, the cost different only USD0.02.
Kingwa

 

[borrego]

Quote:

Neither

Edit: Here's what Kingwa had to say when I emailed him about the hex inverters.

Quote:

This chip only made the sound flavor different, can't made the specs upgrade.
The DI was consider slight rich sound just for less digital sound, we spend a lot time to try and listen different 74XX04 just choice current one.
For us, any 74XX04 price is quite near, the cost different only USD0.02.
Kingwa

 

That's exactly the point I tried to make: The hex inverter chip is probably the cheapest way to alter sound nature, you can buy 10 different types, try all days and find the one you like the best, for less than a Mcdonald's Happy Meal

 
There is indeed a spec upgrade for the DI though. The TI 74AHC04 which I like (it happens to be the cheapest chip),  would be more thermo stable (the DI can get quite warm inside) and have a more "square" output which some SPDIF receiver chips would see as having less jitter. Just check the Tpd values of different chip.
 
 
 
 
 

 

[lordearl]

Is anyone able to clarify how the Altera chip in the DI works - it we select, say, 96khz upsampling on a 16/44.1 file - does this transform it into 16/96 or 24/96?  i.e. is the bit rate changing?

 

[rhythmic_impulse]

Quote:

So what sounds best in the DI? The tent labs or the TCXO?

 
After extensive listening, I prefer the Tentlabs clock when upsampling in my system. It sounded a bit more organic and better separation and soundstage. There's a slight move back in the presentation and voices tend to be a bit more separated from the instruments. Not to say that the TCXO is not as good, just a bit more upfront with the presentation. I would say the TCXO doesn't change the voicing, just neutral whereas the Tentlabs is a bit more richer. YMMV though.
 
I'm getting the hex inverter from somestranger26 so it will be interesting to try out the combinations.

 

[uelover]

somestranger26 did you received my pm???

 

[punit]

I recently purchased DI (with TCXO upgrade) & NFB-7. I use Mac Mini with OSX 10.6.7 , 2.53 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processor , 4 GB RAM. I am experiencing random audio drop outs.I use Pure Music but have also tried it using only itunes. Play only wave files, I do not upsample. Has anyone experienced drop outs using DI on Mac 10.6 ? Any suggestions please to get rid of the drop outs ?

Another question :

on the Audio GD website on the DI page there is a picture of how to turn upsampling on by pushing certain jumpers. I tried pushing the jumpers in as shown but they do not  go in ? any suggestions ?
 
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/DSP3.JPG

Thanks
Punit

 

[kr0gg]

Quote:

they do not  go in ?

try to turn the jumpers upside-down and pushing them by their opposite side

 

[somestranger26]

Is anyone able to clarify how the Altera chip in the DI works - it we select, say, 96khz upsampling on a 16/44.1 file - does this transform it into 16/96 or 24/96?  i.e. is the bit rate changing?

I am not sure exactly how it works, but it wouldn't matter either way if it goes to 16 or 24-bit. All the chip would do to "upconvert" to 24-bit is pad 00000000 at the beginning of every word in the stream. This does nothing to change the sound. I actually have foobar set to output 24-bit all the time (Kingwa told me that's how he sets his).

I recently purchased DI (with TCXO upgrade) & NFB-7. I use Mac Mini with OSX 10.6.7 , 2.53 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processor , 4 GB RAM. I am experiencing random audio drop outs.I use Pure Music but have also tried it using only itunes. Play only wave files, I do not upsample. Has anyone experienced drop outs using DI on Mac 10.6 ? Any suggestions please to get rid of the drop outs ?

Another question :

on the Audio GD website on the DI page there is a picture of how to turn upsampling on by pushing certain jumpers. I tried pushing the jumpers in as shown but they do not  go in ? any suggestions ?
 
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/DSP3.JPG

Thanks
Punit

Try setting your "Buffer size/length" in your music player to between 100 and 500ms.

 

[drez]

Quote:

I recently purchased DI (with TCXO upgrade) & NFB-7. I use Mac Mini with OSX 10.6.7 , 2.53 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo processor , 4 GB RAM. I am experiencing random audio drop outs.I use Pure Music but have also tried it using only itunes. Play only wave files, I do not upsample. Has anyone experienced drop outs using DI on Mac 10.6 ? Any suggestions please to get rid of the drop outs ?

Another question :

on the Audio GD website on the DI page there is a picture of how to turn upsampling on by pushing certain jumpers. I tried pushing the jumpers in as shown but they do not  go in ? any suggestions ?
 
http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/DSP3.JPG

Thanks
Punit

add the oversampling jumper - fixed the problem for me.  Still getting decent (shielded) cables and a power supply can't hurt (except the wallet) - but I've heard that the power supply doesn't necessarily help unless your usb power is noisy.
 

 

[punit]

Quote:

add the oversampling jumper - fixed the problem for me.  Apparently this changes to asynchronous mode. 
 

How do you add the oversampling jumper ?
 
Thanks
 

 

[somestranger26]

How do you add the oversampling jumper ?
 
Thanks
 

Unscrew the top and put one of the jumpers on the "NO-C" pins inside.

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Quote:

add the oversampling jumper - fixed the problem for me.  Apparently this changes to asynchronous mode.  Still getting decent (shielded) cables and a power supply can't hurt (except the wallet) - but I've heard that the power supply doesn't necessarily help unless your usb power is noisy.
 

USB power from any source (with the battery powered laptop being the cleanest) is nowhere near as noise free as a purpose built well thought out linear power supply can be. The switch mode supplies used in computers and in the laptop AC chargers inject a boat load of noise into the AC mains lines and into the other cabling used with computers.
 
Of course the difference between the USB supplied power vs the linear supply can be anywhere from barely noticeable to huge...it all depends on what your gear setup is like. MAC is no better than PC in this regard although MAC book Pro seems to be a perennial fav among audio guys (for semi portable source work). A-gd gear seems to be sensitive to noise which may account for the drop outs....as others have suggested try and drop your buffer down to 100 ms and see if it's OK with that (rather than upsampling...unless of course you like upsampled sound more than original file rate).
 
Peete.
 

 

[drez]

Quote:

add the oversampling jumper - fixed the problem for me.  Still getting decent (shielded) cables and a power supply can't hurt (except the wallet) - but I've heard that the power supply doesn't necessarily help unless your usb power is noisy.
 

Correction here!  DI USB does NOT operate in asynchronous.  
 
But anyway the problem could also be latency spikes which I seem to have on my system from a faulty driver somewhere.  Caused me dropouts with my essence ST also when using it as a source, but not as a transport...

 

[svyr]

Correction here!  DI USB does NOT operate in asynchronous.  
 
But anyway the problem could also be latency spikes which I seem to have on my system from a faulty driver somewhere.  Caused me dropouts with my essence ST also when using it as a source, but not as a transport...

http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon if you have win 7 or vista