[Jawis]

Has anyone tried to connected their RU6 to a Raspberry Pi4 running Volumio?
I'm getting a looping message where the RU6 connects, but disconnects and then goes through the process again.
My other USB dacs connect without issue.

RU6 running fine with Pi/Volumio setup now. It was just a simple change of cable.

No need for powered USB cable.

The other cable worked fine with S1, but not the RU6.

 

[Andykong]

RU6 running fine with Pi/Volumio setup now. It was just a simple change of cable.

No need for powered USB cable.

The other cable worked fine with S1, but not the RU6.

Glad to know it works out eventually.

What cable are you using right now? The USB C-to-C cable bundled with RU6 didn't work for you?

 

[Andykong]

I almost avoided the splitter discussion completely. I believe extra dongle/splitter in the music chain will downgrade the audio performance slighlty because it introduce smore conection points and questionable cable implementation (inside the splitter). In addition, I still couldn't believe this is the hottest topic in past 20 pages of RU6. Since I didn't test nor paying enough attention to the "hidden" DAC in side the splitter, I find the related discussion fancinating. The hpothesis are so comprehensive that I seriously suspect the $20 splitter has a Microprocessor or even ADC built-in to handle the digital audio signal.

On the other hand, battery care and charging are some of my major concerns in past few years: I have to when I need to repeat this topic many times in different DAP threads. I still convinced that if your mobile phone support wireless charging, get a Qi certified wireless charging power bank to charge your mobile phone "occasionally" is a better option that hunting for this "so-far-non-existed" USB splitter.

I noticed some users are concern that wireless charging will heat up the mobile during charging and shorten the battery life. I'll take a look at this topic and want to share my observations:

Will wireless charging heat up the mobile during charging?

Yes, it will. According to a recent study by ACS (American Chemical Society) compared the 10W wireless charger against conventional USB charger and noticed that wireless charging wil increase the temperature by 3.5°C for roungly 1 hour per charging cycle.


Will wireless charging shorten the battery life?

Theoretically , yes, but we cannot quantity the implication at this stage. Afterall, we are talking about 1 hours of 3.5°C temperature change per charging cycle only.
On a related not not directly relevant subject, ACS noticed that the SoH (State of Health) of 18650 battery will drop slightly (capacity from 94.5% to 92.5%) after 6 month of storage in different temperature chamber. That is 2% capacity downgrade with 20°C different over 6 month of 7x24 control experiment. Maybe 1 hours of 3.5°C isn't really such a big deal.



Other than wireless charging, will there be other charging issue that can heat up the mobile during charging?

Yes, all fast charging will heat up the mobile more than regular 5V2A charging. Please be reminded that QC3.0 is 18W based, and PD Profile 3 is upto 36W. While I didn't measure the temperature change, I do notice 18W QC3.0 is as heated as 10W wireless, if not hotter. Since the QC3.0 didn't really shorten the charging time by 50% if we measuring a complete charging cycle like the ACS experiement mentioned above, the temperature implication of fast charging should draw similar, if not more concern than the heating issue of wireless charging.

Another charging related issue can be more alarming if we are worrying about the heat issue of wireless charging. Charging and using the mobile phone at the same time will heat up your mobile phone, again most likely more than 3.5°C IMHO. If we want to keep the battery from heating up, we should avoid charging and using at the same time. Stop from RU6 for 30-60 minutes when you need to top up your battery, that will keep your battery cool.

Last but not least, dongle DC will speed up the aging of your phone battery. For example, if you are using 5 charging cycle per week original, using dongle DAC regularly will probably increase that to 6-7 charging cycle per week. If the usage remain unchage for a long time, the 500 charging cycle limit will shorten from 100 weeks to 71.5-83.3 weeks. This observation is bad for Dongle DAC business, but since we are on this subject, we might as well look at the full picutre.

At the end of the day, I hope we can put aside the heating problem of wireless charging and seriously consider this option instead of the never ending splitter searching.

Just want to add one more advantage of wireless charging but this maybe a bit of personal consideration, so I left it out from the previous post in order to stay more focused on the wireless charging technologies.

I don't know if I am the odd one out, I had two USB-C connectors failure out of 3 previous mobile phones. In both case. the problem started to surfaced after 1 year of extensive usage and the charging speed slowed down noticeablely. Sometime I need to plug/unplug several time to engage quick charge. That was a very high failure rate and all three mobile phones have dedicated 3.5mm phone out, so the USB port are used for charging primarily. I was kind of worrying when I switch to Samsung S20 lately, this is my first mobile phone without 3.5mm phone out, so the USB-C port will cover both audio and charging. I need a solution to slow down the tear and wear of the USB-C connector, to me the obvious choices are (Bluetooth headphone + wired charging) vs (Dongle DAC + wirelss charging). I believe this is a straight forward choice, especially when I have the RU6 at my disposal.

Maybe if someone strart a discussion on the best wireless power bank, I'll gald to chime in.

 

[discord]

My ZX507 is unfortunately smashed by the the RU6...time for Sony to go back to the drawing board

I ended up returning my ZX507 to Amazon since I was still within the big holiday return period. The RU6 offers a more dynamic sound to me and a bit bigger staging. The Sony can be a bit congested to me.

 

[emilsoft]

I ended up returning my ZX507 to Amazon since I was still within the big holiday return period. The RU6 offers a more dynamic sound to me and a bit bigger staging. The Sony can be a bit congested to me.

ZX507 is unfortunately overpriced for the sound it offers - it has it's heart in the right place however with a nice coherent groovy sound, it just needs to give a little more for the asking price.. it's a lovely bit of kit though

 

[Jawis]

Glad to know it works out eventually.

What cable are you using right now? The USB C-to-C cable bundled with RU6 didn't work for you?

I'm using a USB-A to Usb-C that I have for my other Audio gear.
I should try the provided cable, but I left USB-A adapter at the office. I can report back on it later.

 

[kumar402]

I had my doubts with burn in but I feel this dongle does improve and settle in after 100hrs or so. More cohesive and the upper mid push has mellowed down a bit and 300hz to 1.5Khz has come up just ever so slightly. Has anyone experienced the same or am I imagining?

 

[sahmen]

I had my doubts with burn in but I feel this dongle does improve and settle in after 100hrs or so. More cohesive and the upper mid push has mellowed down a bit and 300hz to 1.5Khz has come up just ever so slightly. Has anyone experienced the same or am I imagining?

I can't say I have, but if you mean you're liking it more and more after 100hrs, then I am totally on board

 

[emilsoft]

I think my burn in time is getting close to 200 hours now - I'm still noticing subtle improvements; it's a little clearer and better defined, seems more reference now. I'm also keeping it powered up constantly

 

[blotmouse]

I had my doubts with burn in but I feel this dongle does improve and settle in after 100hrs or so. More cohesive and the upper mid push has mellowed down a bit and 300hz to 1.5Khz has come up just ever so slightly. Has anyone experienced the same or am I imagining?

Ya man, whole thread since inception commenting on this.

 

[Andykong]

Ya man, whole thread since inception commenting on this.

Since inception. This is a good description.

 

[Stuff Jones]

@Andykong - What are the parameters that determine how much battery the RU6 draws and how much power it puts out based on source?

I find it sounds best from my laptop. Then next best is from my Shanling Q1. However from the Shanling Q1 it drains the battery super fast. Like maybe 3-4x as fast as playing music from the Q1. I don't remember this issue when I had the L&P W2. From my Google Pixel 4A, the battery drain is much slower but the sound is softer.

 

[peterinvan]

I think my burn in time is getting close to 200 hours now - I'm still noticing subtle improvements; it's a little clearer and better defined, seems more reference now. I'm also keeping it powered up constantly

Keeping it powered up:
If the objective is to keep the DAC warm, would it do any harm to have it plugged into a 5v wall wart when not in use? I will be using the RU6 from my iPad Pro (3rd gen).

 

[kumar402]

Keeping it powered up:
If the objective is to keep the DAC warm, would it do any harm to have it plugged into a 5v wall wart when not in use? I will be using the RU6 from my iPad Pro (3rd gen).

I think it gets warm pretty quickly. May be couple of songs are all that needed.

 

[Andykong]

@Andykong - What are the parameters that determine how much battery the RU6 draws and how much power it puts out based on source?

I find it sounds best from my laptop. Then next best is from my Shanling Q1. However from the Shanling Q1 it drains the battery super fast. Like maybe 3-4x as fast as playing music from the Q1. I don't remember this issue when I had the L&P W2. From my Google Pixel 4A, the battery drain is much slower but the sound is softer.

I don't think RU6 will deliver MORE watts (power) when you switch from a current-limited iPhone to a laptop or even a desktop computer. I won't doubt that RU6 can sound better from your laptop than your mobile phone, but is has nothing to do with how much power it put out, so there is some serious misunderstanding in your question and I can't answer that directly.

So what can be the reasons behind the improved audio performance?

First of all, the integrity and quality of USB Audio output from a Windows or MacOS-based laptop, if set up probably, is better than Android or iOS-based mobile phone. Mobile phones are a highly integrated product that put user experience way above audio quality (that's why SRC is a natural solution to them).

Secondly, a clean and ample power supply will improve sound quality, and I mean improvement in qualitative terms, not quantitive terms like more output power. It is like when you have a small DAC/Amp that comes with a low-cost switching power supply, and then you get a decent linear power supply to replace the bundled switching power supply, you can almost certain (99% in my opinion) that the DAC/Amp will sound better because of that. For the record, some of the mobile phones limited the power drain from their USB-C connection to 100mA to 120mA only, but a fully compatible USB3.0 Type-C connection from your computer should provide up to 1000mA (or 1A) power supply. Try to connect a 2.5" portable HDD to your mobile phone and laptop and you can tell the difference immediately.

IMHO, the USB digital audio quality is a more important factor than the USB-C power supply. When I compare a Cayin DAP (N3Pro and N6ii) to my desktop PC as a USB Audio source to RU6, I prefer DAP almost exclusively. The USB-C of Cayin DAP will limit power output to 300mA only, so more power is not necessarily the winner in this case.