[evillamer]

back in the Y2K era, VIA drivers/chipset/network(all of them) were pretty buggy and slow. However nowadays VIA network chipset is on par with its Intel counterparts for most desktop usage.

Although the master 7 VIA audio chipset can be trance back to M-audio/midi man envy24 chipset which wasn't designed by VIA.

Cmedia was good all along, as they had many sound cards based on the chipset and were pretty stable(most asus used cmedia)

USB audio in its early infancy wasnt really good and was prone to jitter/noise and dropouts. Only a few got it right, wavelength audio/centrance.

It wasn't until the advent of usb 2.0 and asynchronous mode that improved things quite signifcantly.

For my case, the hydra x via i2s sounds even better than using Ibasso dx90 as coax transport.

The thing is spdif is prone to jitter from the source/cable as the clock and audio data share the same data transmission. While i2s has dedicated clock signaling(both source and dac)which eliminates most of the jitter.

 

[DACLadder]

Today I sent a spare agd i2s hdmi module and rj45 module to Nicolea i Audiobyte for him to check if there is some issues he might pick up. Remember that 'Evillamer'gets the hydra x to work with it. He seems very helpful so we will see if he finds anything.
My dealer will also lend me a hydra z for demo when it arrives in about 14 days. You will keep you updated.

Awesome!  
 
I also ordered a JCAT USB board today given my new PC mobo USB ports don't sound as good as the old Win 7 machine.  JCAT owners...  Does anyone have JPLAY setups for Foobar2000 and also does this device easily work with normal Windows audio sessions like Youtube, etc?  Seems to be unfamiliar steps with JPLAY involved to feed audio to the JCAT USB ports.   And if the Off Ramp 5 does not use USB +5V can I just remove the power jumpers from the JCAT USB  ports and not supply power down the USB cable?  Thanks....

 

[Benny-x]

 
Awesome!  
 
I also ordered a JCAT USB board today given my new PC mobo USB ports don't sound as good as the old Win 7 machine.  JCAT owners...  Does anyone have JPLAY setups for Foobar2000 and also does this device easily work with normal Windows audio sessions like Youtube, etc?  Seems to be unfamiliar steps with JPLAY involved to feed audio to the JCAT USB ports.   And if the Off Ramp 5 does not use USB +5V can I just remove the power jumpers from the JCAT USB  ports and not supply power down the USB cable?  Thanks....

This is not being a diick; you do know that Jplay and the JCAT card come from the same people, right? Those 2 things link up like a they were made to play together
 
Though the membership is nowhere near as high as it is here, head over to the Jplay forums and ask there. Pretty much everyone there uses Jplay, and due to JRiver's crusade against Jplay a lot of the people over there use it with Foobar. My Music PCs and Jplay have been out for service for too long to give you my details, but I used to use it with Foobar exclusively. Worked fine, no hassle at all.

 

[seaice]

 
Awesome!  
 
I also ordered a JCAT USB board today given my new PC mobo USB ports don't sound as good as the old Win 7 machine.  JCAT owners...  Does anyone have JPLAY setups for Foobar2000 and also does this device easily work with normal Windows audio sessions like Youtube, etc?  Seems to be unfamiliar steps with JPLAY involved to feed audio to the JCAT USB ports.   And if the Off Ramp 5 does not use USB +5V can I just remove the power jumpers from the JCAT USB  ports and not supply power down the USB cable?  Thanks....

Yes, this device easily works with all Windows audio sessions... I use JRiver now. From the audio settings perspective, everything works in the same way as before. It is just a USB port, nothing else, no special audio-related settings in your system are needed except for settings for your Offramp.
 
I understand that you can remove the power jumpers but I have never done so. So I will not confirm that removing jumpers is safe
For the JCat USB card, I use an external battery source. Before that, I fed the JCAT USB card with an internal 4-pin MOLEX PC power connector. I saw a recommendation to this MOLEX setup without a battery source probably somewhere in JCAT forums http://jplay.eu/forum/jcat/ .... and read this post:  http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f10-music-servers/usefullness-external-quality-power-linear-power-supply-unit-or-battery-universal-serial-bus-industry-standard-cables-connectors-and-communications-protocols-between-computers-and-electronic-devices-pci-card-soul-music-ppa-use-asynchronous-completely-5v-decoupled-digital-analogue-converter-21680/#post352710

 

[DACLadder]

Thanks very much.  Setup of JCAT is confusing to read at first.  Appreciate the info!

 

[Benny-x]

   
Ha-ha! 

 I'm actually quit fond of the Pink Faun card. The really BIG problem with it, is that Pink Faun will not develop (or pay to have developed) a driver for the card. As it is, it's compliant with the Intel HD Audio standard, so Windows detects it as a HD audio card and you can use WASAPI for output. What I really want is to use the card with KS or at least ASIO, but so far Pink Faun has not been willing to invest in a proper driver for the card. I have been able to manually install parts of an ATI Rage driver that uses the same PCIe-to-Audio chip as the Pink Faun card to enable the use of KS, but I feel that the ATI driver is bloated and not optimized for quality audio...
 
-Fredrik

I had emailed them about it a while ago and they said it was all geared up and worked fine with Windows. I was happy to hear that, but had a sneaking suspicion that it couldn't have been optimal. Now that you've told me what type of output it's using I'm sad to know that my suspicions were true... Hmm, now you've got me worried about that card :-/  I'd love to compare it to something else before I go buy one. 
 
Though you've tried experimenting with the manual instal of the Ati drivers, I wonder what it would take to actually make drivers for this? I'm not familiar as familiar as I would need to be, but if the chip is used in more than 1 card for the same purpose, it couldn't be too hard.

 

[FredrikT92]

Got my Audio GD m7 today.
First listen made me smile from ear to ear, and almost get some tears in my eyes.
I'm terrible at describing sound, so I wont even bother. But its amazing so far. 
I dident have big expectations cause Im not really a beliver in "expensive" DACs and so on...
 
I downloaded the USB driver for units shipped from 14th. August, im not sure if its the correct driver for USB.
In JRiver it says I can use Audio GD USB with Wasapi, is this the one I should use?
Not Asio? (I dont have Asio as option)
 
EDIT:
NVM, I found VIA KS Direct (ASIO), I guess its that 1 I should use with JRiver

 

[lieberung]

Got my Audio GD m7 today.
First listen made me smile from ear to ear, and almost get some tears in my eyes.
I'm terrible at describing sound, so I wont even bother. But its amazing so far. 
I dident have big expectations cause Im not really a beliver in "expensive" DACs and so on...

I downloaded the USB driver for units shipped from 14th. August, im not sure if its the correct driver for USB.
In JRiver it says I can use Audio GD USB with Wasapi, is this the one I should use?
Not Asio? (I dont have Asio as option)

EDIT:
NVM, I found VIA KS Direct (ASIO), I guess its that 1 I should use with JRiver

Congratulations!
I think you have the latest driver. I cant always get asio to work so Im using wasapi in jriver. Cant notice any difference between them other than volume/gain.

 

[fredrikj]

  I had emailed them about it a while ago and they said it was all geared up and worked fine with Windows. I was happy to hear that, but had a sneaking suspicion that it couldn't have been optimal. Now that you've told me what type of output it's using I'm sad to know that my suspicions were true... Hmm, now you've got me worried about that card :-/  I'd love to compare it to something else before I go buy one. 
 
Though you've tried experimenting with the manual instal of the Ati drivers, I wonder what it would take to actually make drivers for this? I'm not familiar as familiar as I would need to be, but if the chip is used in more than 1 card for the same purpose, it couldn't be too hard.

 
I have been trying to get Pink Faun to develop a driver for some time, it would help if you could also mail them ask for KS and ASIO support, so they know it's not just me... I have been talking to Jord Groen at Pink Faun.
 
If we could get a Thesycon driver for the Pink Faun card, I think we would have something really good!
 
-Fredrik

 

[evillamer]

  Got my Audio GD m7 today.
First listen made me smile from ear to ear, and almost get some tears in my eyes.
I'm terrible at describing sound, so I wont even bother. But its amazing so far. 
I dident have big expectations cause Im not really a beliver in "expensive" DACs and so on...
 
I downloaded the USB driver for units shipped from 14th. August, im not sure if its the correct driver for USB.
In JRiver it says I can use Audio GD USB with Wasapi, is this the one I should use?
Not Asio? (I dont have Asio as option)
 
EDIT:
NVM, I found VIA KS Direct (ASIO), I guess its that 1 I should use with JRiver

Welcome to amazing sound of R2R DAC. Once you listened to a good implementation, there's no turning back to other "approximation" DAC.
 
Now you should consider upgrading to a I2S transport.

 

[Benny-x]

   
I have been trying to get Pink Faun to develop a driver for some time, it would help if you could also mail them ask for KS and ASIO support, so they know it's not just me... I have been talking to Jord Groen at Pink Faun.
 
If we could get a Thesycon driver for the Pink Faun card, I think we would have something really good!
 
-Fredrik

I've also been emailing with Jord, so I'll make sure to touch base again and say the same as you. I'll PM you for some more details so we don't get too side-tracked here.
 
So, to bring things back, Go Master 7! Go Audio-gd HDMI-I2s add-on board! Go Pink Faun I2s PCIe Bridge!

 

[Benny-x]

  Got my Audio GD m7 today.
First listen made me smile from ear to ear, and almost get some tears in my eyes.
I'm terrible at describing sound, so I wont even bother. But its amazing so far. 
I dident have big expectations cause Im not really a beliver in "expensive" DACs and so on...
 
I downloaded the USB driver for units shipped from 14th. August, im not sure if its the correct driver for USB.
In JRiver it says I can use Audio GD USB with Wasapi, is this the one I should use?
Not Asio? (I dont have Asio as option)
 
EDIT:
NVM, I found VIA KS Direct (ASIO), I guess its that 1 I should use with JRiver

I'm not sure, but haven't all of the M7 USB32 Firmwares had listings in the JRiver output list? Just because you see it there doesn't mean it's the most recent firmware. Have you downloaded any previous versions of the firmware before?
 
Haha, if you've only ever downloaded the August 2014 one, then you're fine, but if you've downloaded others then you'll have to do a little more to find out.

 

[evillamer]

This could be alternative to the pink faun card, however it runs on the older PCI interface:
 
https://app.audiogon.com/listings/da-converters-rare-i2s-hdmi-interface-card-with-juli-pci-card-for-wyred-and-ps-audio-dacs-to-a-2014-11-15-digital-98004-6591-bellevue-wa
 
 
Aune X5 also has I2S:
http://en.auneaudio.com/html/en_products/NewDesign/X-Series/35_21.html

 

[ciphercomplete]

  I'm not sure, but haven't all of the M7 USB32 Firmwares had listings in the JRiver output list?

Yep, when I use the USB32 I get listings for ASIO, Wasapi, Direct etc.  This was true in all the versions I have owned from Jriver 18 to 20.

 

[ciphercomplete]

  Got my Audio GD m7 today.
First listen made me smile from ear to ear, and almost get some tears in my eyes.
I'm terrible at describing sound, so I wont even bother. But its amazing so far. 
I dident have big expectations cause Im not really a beliver in "expensive" DACs and so on...
 
I downloaded the USB driver for units shipped from 14th. August, im not sure if its the correct driver for USB.
In JRiver it says I can use Audio GD USB with Wasapi, is this the one I should use?
Not Asio? (I dont have Asio as option)
 
EDIT:
NVM, I found VIA KS Direct (ASIO), I guess its that 1 I should use with JRiver

Really use the one that sounds the best with that particular firmware and driver.  Every time Kingwa would update the drivers and firmware I would switch the type output I would use.