MikeW
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 4, 2005
- Posts
- 1,789
- Likes
- 243
jitter is alive and strong, unless your using very expensive dac's like lavry or dac 1. Most consumer level devices measure in the 100's of PS jitter. And as far as usb is concerned, there is potential there, but most of the chips that handle usb receiving are crap and manage to mess it up pretty good. So while usb has great potential to be good, cheap chips ruin it. The quality can be only as good as the weakest link, be it the op-amp, poor quality cables, poor receiver chip, poor clocking crystal, or cheap capacitors. There is no denying, quality components have effect on sound, cheap caps, poor power supplies, etc. It's not to hard to figure out, hook a HD650 straight into an ipod, then try a cmoy, then a gilmore lite amp, then a high end headphone amp, you can't honestly say there is not a clear and obvious improvement every step of the way.
While I don't agree with everything in this article, some of it does have merit. And some things in audiophile land are indeed ridiculous, some are real. Cables, can and do make a difference, im not so sure with USB cables, but analog cables definatly do. I think the carpet thing is pretty ridiculous, but I also believe isolation can make a difference, in different situations, like tube dampers. For example, it would be a bad idea to put a tube amp/dac on top of a cd player that vibrates.
SPDIF interface has been around for a long time, and has had plenty of time to be perfected. USB Reciever chips and interfaces are pretty new, and most of them are crap, the things from Empirical audio being the exception, but the CM108 and 27xx chips used in most dacs are garbage. Even a low quality spdif transport can sound better. For example, in my setup, my computers crappy onboard spdif is better then my dac's usb input.
It seems some of you are comparing USB and/or Digital to things like Digital hard drives, it's very different, most usb devices are not time critical, as long as the data arrives the same way it go's out, everything is great, the timing does not matter, the data is not "Streamed". Audio is different, it must be streamed and timed properly, this is where the USB interface normally gets it wrong, and it's the reciever chips, and clocks that are responsible.
and with all due respect, this is a hi-fi enthusiast forum, if your happy with ibuds and 128kb mp3's what the hell are you doing here? lol
While I don't agree with everything in this article, some of it does have merit. And some things in audiophile land are indeed ridiculous, some are real. Cables, can and do make a difference, im not so sure with USB cables, but analog cables definatly do. I think the carpet thing is pretty ridiculous, but I also believe isolation can make a difference, in different situations, like tube dampers. For example, it would be a bad idea to put a tube amp/dac on top of a cd player that vibrates.
SPDIF interface has been around for a long time, and has had plenty of time to be perfected. USB Reciever chips and interfaces are pretty new, and most of them are crap, the things from Empirical audio being the exception, but the CM108 and 27xx chips used in most dacs are garbage. Even a low quality spdif transport can sound better. For example, in my setup, my computers crappy onboard spdif is better then my dac's usb input.
It seems some of you are comparing USB and/or Digital to things like Digital hard drives, it's very different, most usb devices are not time critical, as long as the data arrives the same way it go's out, everything is great, the timing does not matter, the data is not "Streamed". Audio is different, it must be streamed and timed properly, this is where the USB interface normally gets it wrong, and it's the reciever chips, and clocks that are responsible.
and with all due respect, this is a hi-fi enthusiast forum, if your happy with ibuds and 128kb mp3's what the hell are you doing here? lol