[bigshot]

Not just a light... A MCINTOSH light!

You can pay for it with three handy $500 payments!

 

[redrol]

I'm not sure about AK, but I have the three other ones you mention. Same experience.

I have a R2R too! I can hear hiss with that.

I dislike hiss actually. I can hear it.

 

[bigshot]

It was the best format back in the pre-digital era.

 

[redrol]

It was the best format back in the pre-digital era.

Yeah, my first good audio thing was a 10th anniversary Sony walkman in like 1994. I remember Dolby noise reduction well.

Im so adverse to hiss now I run XLR because I don't get ground loops. True story.

 

[magicscreen]

I dislike hiss actually. I can hear it.

Someone can hear the movement of the his computer mouse using a Topping E30 DAC. The DAC gets the power from a PC USB port. How is that possible if only 0 & 1 bits?

 

[VNandor]

Someone can hear the movement of the his computer mouse using a Topping E30 DAC. The DAC gets the power from a PC USB port. How is that possible if only 0 & 1 bits?

That's nothing. I can hear the movement of my computer mouse without even using a DAC! I think it's probably due to the friction between my mouse and my mouse pad.

 

[redrol]

Heheh.

Someone can hear the movement of the his computer mouse using a Topping E30 DAC. The DAC gets the power from a PC USB port. How is that possible if only 0 & 1 bits?

PCs are the ultimate bad noise source. It's quite a feat when a device doesn't show the nasty electronic noise.

This is exactly why I use a balanced EMU 1212m audio card. XLR outs and ZERO noise even if I shove my ear right up to my studio monitors that are on full blast. That good...

Computer noise has been my bane for a long long time. Lets assume you are using Studio monitors that have bad noise filtering and a single ended connection. The ground is the issue. I actually fixed my older monitors by breaking off the ground pins on the 3 prong power cords. It was stunning how well it fixed it. You can also break the ground pin off the computer PSU power cable.. but warning, surges can break things like that, so be warned.

 

[redrol]

I just got a E1DA 9038D for my IEMs. It's a Sabre based dac with a nice amount of power. $99. I think it actually sounds better than anything else ive ever tried or owned. Output Impedance is way below 1. maybe about .05ohm. Got an all BA set? Feed it this thing and win.

 

[Deolum]

The proper combination of components matter, but I think you would be very hard pressed to find a DAC, DAP, disc player or amp that doesn't produce sound better than human ears can hear. The transducers are the wild card. You'll need to make sure you are using the right amp for your transducers, particularly with IEMs. But beyond that the main difference between electronics is features, not audible sound quality.



I have Oppo PM-1s and a really good screening/listening room with a multichannel speaker system. I've compared DACs and players from the Oppo HA-1 and BDP-103 to a ProTools workstation, to all manner of Mac stuff, all the way down to $100 Sony and Pioneer blu-ray players and a $40 Walmart DVD player.

Headphones and speakers all sound different. You have to spend money to get quality there. But price in electronic components dictates features, not fidelity. A $5 DAC chip is audibly transparent and most electronics are made from the same stock off the shelf parts, all of which were designed to be audible transparent.

Which speakers are you using?

 

[go_vtec]

Someone can hear the movement of the his computer mouse using a Topping E30 DAC. The DAC gets the power from a PC USB port. How is that possible if only 0 & 1 bits?

On most of DACs, 0 & 1 is transmitted through the USB cable as a signal along with the power and ground signals to establish a reference ground (logic 0) and 5V (logic 1) voltages. When the signal voltage is reasonable close to 0V (ground) or 5V, it is interpreted as logic 0 and 1. I think E30 DAC also gets its own 5V power supply as well. To figure out if the signal is close to reference 0V or 5V, some DACs will ground (connect together) both USB ground to its own power ground from the power supply. However, the computer has tons of devices connected to its own USB power and ground and sometimes the noise is transmitted through these USB devices/peripherals since they share common ground and power and sometimes make these ground or power to fluctuate little bit. DACs generate output voltage based on these 0s and 1s and they rely on the accuracy of their output voltages on how stable is their own power supply voltage. Hence, these small fluctuation will vary the DAC's output erroneous and these can be heard as a noise through the DAC whenever attached device to your PC generate the noise on the USB power grid.

On good DACs, there is an additional circuitry to eliminate the noise transmitted through the signal (0/1) and/or through reference ground/power lines. On a slightly less than ideal or more affordable designs, these circuitry do not exist or not sufficient to suppress these noises as generated by the PC mouse.

Sorry about your wallet but the most safe and accurate solution can be buying another DAC with better noise suppression or provide 0s and 1s using an optical connection from PC (if exist) so that there are no noise transmitted to the DAC.

 

[ThEvil0nE]

I consulted the matrix and gave me this...

 

[castleofargh]

Fpga dac chips are far fsr better, in measument and clear audiable traits, no doubt. The market wouldn't work otherwise.

You might care to check what FPGA is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-programmable_gate_array
Your sentence is kind of like saying that a breadboard is better and measures better than a PCB(printed circuit board).

On most of DACs, 0 & 1 is transmitted through the USB cable as a signal along with the power and ground signals to establish a reference ground (logic 0) and 5V (logic 1) voltages. When the signal voltage is reasonable close to 0V (ground) or 5V, it is interpreted as logic 0 and 1. I think E30 DAC also gets its own 5V power supply as well. To figure out if the signal is close to reference 0V or 5V, some DACs will ground (connect together) both USB ground to its own power ground from the power supply. However, the computer has tons of devices connected to its own USB power and ground and sometimes the noise is transmitted through these USB devices/peripherals since they share common ground and power and sometimes make these ground or power to fluctuate little bit. DACs generate output voltage based on these 0s and 1s and they rely on the accuracy of their output voltages on how stable is their own power supply voltage. Hence, these small fluctuation will vary the DAC's output erroneous and these can be heard as a noise through the DAC whenever attached device to your PC generate the noise on the USB power grid.

On good DACs, there is an additional circuitry to eliminate the noise transmitted through the signal (0/1) and/or through reference ground/power lines. On a slightly less than ideal or more affordable designs, these circuitry do not exist or not sufficient to suppress these noises as generated by the PC mouse.

Sorry about your wallet but the most safe and accurate solution can be buying another DAC with better noise suppression or provide 0s and 1s using an optical connection from PC (if exist) so that there are no noise transmitted to the DAC.

AFAIK, actual bit errors are very rare comparatively to the massive amount of data being read every hour. I'd expect maybe a handful over hours of measurements so I really can't imagine how that would be the cause of us hearing noises. Also they would need to be consecutive errors, or the fluctuation would only be able to create really high frequency as the error. It just doesn't seem to align with testimonies of noises heard.

We can imagine that the fluctuations from extra noise could affect the moment the voltage threshold is reached and cause irregular delays between the samples. That does happen. But we can measure jitter, and the results are usually so stupidly low, that even audiophiles have stopped pretending it was the cause of everything wrong in the universe.
Also people with noise issues often move to optical stuff with success, when optical generally has more jitter. So jitter; IMO, is just not a reliable generic suspect.

I would bet on noise from power supply(5V DC of the USB or other), and maybe from wifi and friends. Some issues have been known to become inaudible just with the use of a USB hub or a different USB card in the computer. Some people did report that the noises were gone when wifi was OFF on the computer.
So I think that for the most part, bits do turn out to be bits. And unless something is really going very wrong, noises when they're audible are probably reaching the analog section somehow.

 

[go_vtec]

Sorry, perhaps I overly simplified or stated too vaguely to cause confusion. I wasn’t saying the bit error could be the cause of the noise, but rather speculating the corrupted reference voltage to the actual DAC chip within the E30 may be producing the audible noise through its output and/or final analog output stage (if it is utilizing additional Opamp with the corrupted power or possibly during amplifying the dirty output of the DAC chip).

I was trying to explain that there are two functional parts of DAC utilizing USB input, a circuitry generating 1s and 0s from the USB, and the actual DAC unit utilizing mostly commercial DAC chip(s) to generate the analog output based on the input 1s and 0s. In an ideal world, such functional unit can be completely isolated, but often they share a common power to both establish 1s and 0s from USB and to create analog voltage to its RCA outputs. I was merely speculating that due to both functional units shared common power and ground, sometimes, a corrupted power can negatively influence the final analog portion in the form of noise.

As castleofarg said bit error is not common and the noise is most likely caused by the analog section of E30.

 

[ADUHF]

So use a DAC with it's own supply then?

 

[bigshot]

Which speakers are you using?

My mains are custom made JBL 15 inch six way studio monitors with a Sunfire Truesub. Klipsch reference center and KSBs in the rear.