[WayTooCrazy]

Thanks a lot for info. Don't want the cable to be stiff.
Any suggestion for good USB cable for MOJO

Unfortunately no. I only have the ones listed. I'm probably sending back the AQ Forest cable (due to stiffness). I'll use the cable I made, or I'll go make another cable out of stranded silver plated copper when my Mojo arrives again.

 

[GreenBow]

Optical is still possible on desktop. My motherboard has an optical header. Just a matter of getting a part to take it to the slots at the back.
 
@blazer78 If I recall you said you used Apple chargers. I think they are noisy with Mojo. Did you read, "FAQ in 3rd Post", or not?

 

[blazer78]

  Optical is still possible on desktop. My motherboard has an optical header. Just a matter of getting a part to take it to the slots at the back.
 
@blazer78 If I recall you said you used Apple chargers. I think they are noisy with Mojo. Did you read, "FAQ in 3rd Post", or not?

 
Yes, I've read the section regarding charging noise. The Apple 1 amp charger is supposed to be low in noise/virtually "silent", not in my case however. The noise completely stops when the Mojo is powered on, still, the charging noise while it is off, is quite bothersome.

 

[Pandaclocker]

   
I use optical from my desktop, and the sound from the Mojo is very clean and precise.
If i use usb from my desktop, I can occasionally hear short bursts of low level electrical noise (a bit like the sound of a record stylus being dragged 1mm across a record) during very quiet passages - however just as Rob Watts predicts in his posts, this electrical noise makes the music sound slightly brighter.
 
Mostly I stick with optical, but occasionally I like to try usb for some albums.
You will only find out if you prefer optical by trying it, and all you need is a $5 cable - so it will not be an expensive experiment. 

 

I don't hear any form of electrical noise during quiet piano passages and such. It's very, very dark.

My setup is:

Asmedia USB 3.0 port from a Z97X chipset with i7 cpu and high quality EVGA PSU --> Supra USB Cable --> IFi Nano iusb3.0 -> QED Reference 0.30m usb cable --> Fidelio X2.

Only thing I hear is random pops and clicks when listening to music via Directsound (not aiso or wasapi) while streaming music at 44.1 khz. I think if windows upsamples to 96khz 24bit, then the pops disappear Other than that, it's very musical with no hint of brightness I can percieve at least.

I'd still like an answer from someone qualified within electrical engineering if it can cause audio problems to have an ungrounded PC as the music player. For what I can read it's a plus because of no ground loop/common ground-issues, but I'm a newb, so what do I know.
 
Fidelify is great to get bit-perfect music through spotify btw. you have to open spotify first and fidelify first together. Then close spotify down, and now u can search in fidelify after all the music ya want to hear, and it sends it through AISO chord drivers directly to your mojo without windows interfering

 

[rkt31]

I use asio output in foobar and use oyaide neo a class 1m USB cable with ferrite cores and jitterbug in USB ports of laptop. I would say it is by far the best USB set up I could get for the money . that USB cable though stiff but is of very high quality pcocc copper.

 

[rkt31]

oyaide s class uses even thicker but same pcocc copper so for smaller lengths like 1m it can be stiffer so I preferred a class. for longer lengths s class may be better. now oyaide has pure silver USB too but many prefer pcocc copper over silver.

 

[Rob Watts]

  @Rob Watts
 
"There are two problems that USB has against toslink - and one benefit. The benefit is that timing comes from Mojo - but with toslink the incoming data has to be re-timed via the digital phase lock loop (DPLL) and this is not quite as good - but you will only hear the difference via a careful AB test, so it's in practice insignificant.

The downside with USB is the common ground connection."
 
But Rob, what if none of my electrical devices are grounded? In my room the only AC-powerplug there is in my room is a 2-pin-no-ground, so my computer and everything is not-grounded. So that means there is no common ground (right?), and this should mean that there is no downside for me with using USB, right?
Or can there be "internal grounds" (whatever that is?) within electrical systems even if there is absolutely no connection to any "real" Earth/ground? 
 
I would really appreciate an answer, as I'm wondering if a optical toslink cable from my onboard RealtekALC1150 to my Mojo will be more "musical" than the usb cable I have from my computer to my Mojo currenty.... Thanks!
 
EDIT: But yes litterally, my computer is 100% ungrounded... Wonder if it's a problem. Have no apparant problems and I have used it like this for 2 years now.

It doesn't matter if the units are un-grounded, only if there is a path via the mains - so Mojo connected to a power amp via a PC, then the mains power itself will act as the ground loop. You should be OK if the PC is grounded or mains powered, but if Mojo is not charging and you are listening via headphones - then there is no electrical loop through Mojo.
 
There are two problems that optical eliminates - one is tiny currents from the PC that are signal related and these are at there worst when the signal crosses through zero and the digital data changes from all ones (slightly negative) to all zeroes (positive or zero) - these tiny signal related but distorted currents degrade depth perception. The second problem is RF noise injected into Mojo from the noisy PC onto Mojo's ground planes.
 
Now you may say why can't this problem be fixed? For desktop DAC's I put galvanic isolation on the USB, and this electrically isolates the grounds, and this solves 99% of the problem. I can't put isolation on Mojo, as the solution draws too much current from the source - and people would complain if a mobile device had a flat battery after 4 hours of usage. So to minimize the problem I fit RF filters on the ground and VBUS of the USB; and I use 4 ground plane layers on Mojo's PCB - 2 that are dedicated ground planes, this is to reduce the ground impedance, so that when current enters Mojo the error voltages on the ground is kept as small as possible.
 
If your USB source is battery powered, then this whole problem is solved - there is no way that currents can circulate from the USB inputs to the analogue outputs as there is no return current path - assuming the USB source is not separately grounded.
 
I hope this clarifies, Rob 

 

[Rob Watts]

 

   
I use optical from my desktop, and the sound from the Mojo is very clean and precise.
If i use usb from my desktop, I can occasionally hear short bursts of low level electrical noise (a bit like the sound of a record stylus being dragged 1mm across a record) during very quiet passages - however just as Rob Watts predicts in his posts, this electrical noise makes the music sound slightly brighter.
 
Mostly I stick with optical, but occasionally I like to try usb for some albums.
You will only find out if you prefer optical by trying it, and all you need is a $5 cable - so it will not be an expensive experiment. 

 

I don't hear any form of electrical noise during quiet piano passages and such. It's very, very dark.

My setup is:

Asmedia USB 3.0 port from a Z97X chipset with i7 cpu and high quality EVGA PSU --> Supra USB Cable --> IFi Nano iusb3.0 -> QED Reference 0.30m usb cable --> Fidelio X2.

Only thing I hear is random pops and clicks when listening to music via Directsound (not aiso or wasapi) while streaming music at 44.1 khz. I think if windows upsamples to 96khz 24bit, then the pops disappear Other than that, it's very musical with no hint of brightness I can percieve at least.

I'd still like an answer from someone qualified within electrical engineering if it can cause audio problems to have an ungrounded PC as the music player. For what I can read it's a plus because of no ground loop/common ground-issues, but I'm a newb, so what do I know.
 
Fidelify is great to get bit-perfect music through spotify btw. you have to open spotify first and fidelify first together. Then close spotify down, and now u can search in fidelify after all the music ya want to hear, and it sends it through AISO chord drivers directly to your mojo without windows interfering

The problem of clicks and pops via directsound is Windows. Mojo can't correct for source faults.

 

[GLowaslike]

recently got a Mojo and i was wondering which setting to set my dac? im running Windows 10 with tidal and going to run it with a liquid carbon soon (coming this wednesday) and i just want to make sure that i have my mojo at its right settings before firing it up. thank you

 

[jarnopp]

recently got a Mojo and i was wondering which setting to set my dac? im running Windows 10 with tidal and going to run it with a liquid carbon soon (coming this wednesday) and i just want to make sure that i have my mojo at its right settings before firing it up. thank you

I'd start with line out (3v) into the LC. I believe the max unclipped gain would be had at 2 clicks above line out (closer to 3.9v output from the Mojo), bit depending on what volume you want to play the LC at and your headphone, you may want substantially lower Mojo volume (line out minus 4-20 clicks). These are with the LC balanced and at 3x gain, which I prefer to 1x gain. Play around and listen, as YMMV.

 

[x RELIC x]

recently got a Mojo and i was wondering which setting to set my dac? im running Windows 10 with tidal and going to run it with a liquid carbon soon (coming this wednesday) and i just want to make sure that i have my mojo at its right settings before firing it up. thank you

What headphones do you plan to plug in to the Liquid Carbon? If using the line level volume preset of 3Vrms on the Mojo you may find you don't have much room to play with on the Liquid Carbon volume pot. 3Vrms is quite a lot so if you want a more common line-out level click the Mojo's volume down 4 clicks to get 1.9Vrms. Keep in mind that this volume setting will now be remembered so take caution before you plug sensitive headphones directly to the Mojo at these levels.

 

[lbbef]

oyaide s class uses even thicker but same pcocc copper so for smaller lengths like 1m it can be stiffer so I preferred a class. for longer lengths s class may be better. now oyaide has pure silver USB too but many prefer pcocc copper over silver.

I have the Oyaide Neo Class S USB Rev 2. Ever since PCOCC got discontinued, Oyaide has been updating their products to use their new own 102SSC conductor.

I also have the PA-02 V2 RCA (102SSC) as well as Oyaide's mini to mini interconnects in both 102SSC (newer) and PCOCC (older).

Haven't really done a comparison between the two though.

 

[GLowaslike]

What headphones do you plan to plug in to the Liquid Carbon? If using the line level volume preset of 3Vrms on the Mojo you may find you don't have much room to play with on the Liquid Carbon volume pot. 3Vrms is quite a lot so if you want a more common line-out level click the Mojo's volume down 4 clicks to get 1.9Vrms. Keep in mind that this volume setting will now be remembered so take caution before you plug sensitive headphones directly to the Mojo at these levels.

LCD-X

 

[Hooster]

  recently got a Mojo and i was wondering which setting to set my dac? im running Windows 10 with tidal and going to run it with a liquid carbon soon (coming this wednesday) and i just want to make sure that i have my mojo at its right settings before firing it up. thank you

 
Why not just plug your headphones straight into the Mojo?

 

[x RELIC x]

LCD-X

Yeah, start with the Mojo 4 clicks down from the line level volume preset. With the LCD-X you'll barely be able to use the volume range of the Liquid Carbon if the Mojo is feeding 3Vrms to the input (unless you like damaging your hearing). I know, I used to own the Liquid Carbon and have the LCD-XC (both the X and XC are very easy to drive).