[bimmer100]

  Hi Bimmer100
 
Thank you for all your posts & thoughts on this subject and these units.
 
Just curious if you have received your yellow DXIO Pro3A & what you thought? Although others have said the Pro3A was the "best," I am concerned about reports as to its build quality.
 
I am leaning toward the Breeze.
 
Thanks again.

 
I surely can't say that the COLOR of the pro3a will have ANYTHING to do with whether it is better or not.  they are all the same, but have been known to have some quality control issues. As it seems with many ddc's. sadly....
 
but the pro3a is clearly the best ddc for the money. My DIU8 is just as good but also 3 times the price, and it's only as good after I upgraded to crystek 957's....soon I will try NDK's (this weekend). anyhow, i'm not interested in the new melodious, as it doesn't have hdmi i2s. neither does the pro3a. SO..... i sold my "yellow" pro3a to another headfi member who absolutely loves it paired with his Theta Gen V .  The pro3a is fantastic with coax, and preferably a very good coax cable. 
 
I will have a breeze this month sometime and will be doing the 957 mod. SO, at this time I can't say the breeze is better or worse.... I would go with a very very strong gut feeling to say the pro3a will STILL be better than the breeze after the 957 mod. seriously. just my opinion, but I have not tested this "hunch" yet. I will report back later at the end of the month or early march when I have had time to compare the Breeze w/957s to the pro3a. 
 
the new melodious looks better than the breeze as it sits...just my opinion, I would like to try it, but i've wrapped up too much money into the ddc thing lately.
 
I'm looking at building a custom one from JL audio's DIY setup, and use some seriously high end linear PSU's for the isolated section  and reclocker. 
 
anyhow, whatever your choice, i'm sure you will be happy enough. The pro3a is very detailed and sounds incredible. I say it's a better designer overall than the breeze. You can power it with a linear psu...no brainer there.
 
the breeze has poor power implementation in comparison... no option for linear power, and shows signs of improvement from power cables. likely due to a poor ac mains design. I'm just guessing a good cord helps reduce noise into the breeze. 

 

[Albrecht]

Wow...
 
Thanks! Really appreciate your detailed response. I would hazard a guess that the Talema upgrade to the Breeze is a "must have" and improves it. I originally didn't want to mess around trying to source a good linear PSU for the Pro3A. But, - your recommendation carries a lot of weight with me: & the ability to use a really nice external PSU makes good sense.
 
Thanks again for your detailed comments....

 

[bimmer100]

  Wow...
 
Thanks! Really appreciate your detailed response. I would hazard a guess that the Talema upgrade to the Breeze is a "must have" and improves it. I originally didn't want to mess around trying to source a good linear PSU for the Pro3A. But, - your recommendation carries a lot of weight with me: & the ability to use a really nice external PSU makes good sense.
 
Thanks again for your detailed comments....

you can run the pro3a off usb power...
 
for instance.. my paul hynes SR3 powers my usb port so.....its awesome
 
 
it was quite good with the teradak dc30w for "cheap" but not as good...although....way better than the breeze. and linear power levels of noise are very low.
 
the breeze whether bingzi or talema is a small diff compared to going to full linear ultra low noise. there is a "cheap" psu i'll post later on that is rated 20uV noise
 
anyhow...
 
i would still get the pro3a over breeze with no question.
 
its cheap too, that helps.
 
 
the teradak dc30w isn't great with noise...likely around 1mV of noise.
 
the new ifi usb 3.0 is what the guy I sold my pro3a is using...very damn good! 
 
but that little ifi wall wart thingy claiming to have 1uV of noise might be worth trying, but it's NOT linear, its switching and uses some kind of elimination noise circuit.  Seems odd to me but maybe is ok for digital stuff, not likely for analog. who knows. I didn't like the one I played with. also hums. BUT CHEAP. definitely worth a shot to start out if you want to keep prices low!
 
-T

 

[robertsong]

  I've been going back and forth with Breeze directly regarding the faulty DU-U8 I received through Aliexpress. At this point I'm just asking for my money back minus their shipping costs and walking away. Still don't know if that will happen but don't want to pay return shipping to China. Mine adds a lovely snap, crackle, pop to audio. There were at least three other people with similar issues with DU-U8's on the previous thread.

 
 
I would definitely buy a Breeze DU-U8 from hifikit.
He tests them w/ the upgraded 120v Talema transformer.
 
 
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Top-Asynchronous-XMOS-U8-I2S-audio-usb-device-support-DSD-Digital-audio-system-/262010528369?hash=item3d010b6271:g:0xsAAOSwyQtV0u-G
 
 
 
Also, there appears to be a new Breeze unit that uses external power. May be worth checking out. I never realized this before.
 
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-XMOS-U8-Asynchronous-USB-to-Coaxial-Optical-SPDIF-192K-upgrade-TCXO-0-1PPM-/261932067307?hash=item3cfc5e29eb:g:hLoAAOSwk0pVf9O-

 

[robertsong]

  Well I just got the Crystek 957's and I successfully replaced the stock Breeze DU-U8 clocks. I hear a subtle difference but too early to tell if better or worse. I'm gonna give them some burn-in time. Will report back soon.
 

 
Update on the Crystek clocks after roughly 70-80 hours on each clock. My judgment could be off since it's been 8 days, but I really think that the Crystek's are an improvement over the stock TXCO's. Certainly not a BIG difference, but significant. What I'm hearing is a slightly smoother sound and better spacialness. Maybe a little bit more high freq detail too. For $80 it may not be worth the upgrade for some. Tough call, but I'd recommend it more for the hard-corp listeners.
 
Overall, I'm thrilled with the sound of DU-U8 (with $120 worth of upgrades & Cerious Graphene Extreme PC) feeding my LIO.  I have a Luckit WaveIO board coming in the mail next week so I'll compare them soon.

 

[robertsong]

   
  but the pro3a is clearly the best ddc for the money. My DIU8 is just as good but also 3 times the price, and it's only as good after I upgraded to crystek 957's....soon I will try NDK's (this weekend). anyhow, i'm not interested in the new melodious, as it doesn't have hdmi i2s. neither does the pro3a. SO..... i sold my "yellow" pro3a to another headfi member who absolutely loves it paired with his Theta Gen V .  The pro3a is fantastic with coax, and preferably a very good coax cable. 
 

 
Out of curiosity, why did you sell the Pro-3A if you felt it was the best? Why does a DDC have to HDMI I2S if coax sounds better? Seems like it would have been better to sell the DIU8, no?
 
Edit: After reading your post again it appears you like DIU8 just as much as the Pro-3A. My apologies. But back on the first page you have the Pro-3A rated well ahead of the DIU8????

 

[bimmer100]

Out of curiosity, why did you sell the Pro-3A if you felt it was the best? Why does a DDC have to HDMI I2S if coax sounds better? Seems like it would have been better to sell the DIU8, no?

Says right in my quote why I sold it. It doesn't have HDMI i2s.
I still feel HDMI i2s is the best interface to my master11 Dac. And after upgrading my diu8 with 957's it was damn near impossible to distinguish any differences between the pro3a, and the diu8 was smoother operating that the pro3a . Coax sounds different to me, and is way to picky with latency. I2s definitely seems lower latency as I can turn all buffering off in jriver and keep latency ultra low. So if I'm using the jriver dsp it increases latency even more, such as sonarworks. If i am gaming, latency is so bad that the speech is out of sync with the graphics. Drives me bonkers. So HDMI i2s or nothing.

 

[robertsong]

Says right in my quote why I sold it. It doesn't have HDMI i2s. So HDMI i2s or nothing.

 
 
Hmmm sounds like you found your DDC then. Have you tried the Pink Faun I2S pcie card?

 

[bimmer100]

Hmmm sounds like you found your DDC then. Have you tried the Pink Faun I2S pcie card?

I haven't tried it because I'm under the impression i2s is designed for internal use and the longer the run the worse the timing gets. So my HDMI cable is .5meter and as long as you'd want to go. If I had a pink faun card, it would need at least 1meter or more of cable to reach to my computer. And pink faun i2s cards are pretty old right? I suppose I can revisit them to be sure. Last time I checked I recall it being less than impressive for some reason or an other. I basically wrote it off.

The diu8 has more input and outputs than any DDC, as well as excellent power implementation. Rcore transformer and class A non feedback psu, 5 separate ones for each section. It's pretty well designed. Sad that it has mediocre crystals imho.
But like you said above, the 957's were not a dramatic difference to you but noticeable.
To me it's a big improvement in clarity and sound stage. The stock crystals are quite good in the diu8 and I would say similar to the stock breeze crystals (which are significantly overly rated )
I will know more about he breeze when I get a second unit. My first one worked sort of, but made hissing noises and I returned it. Crappy quality control. And on top of it, coax just bugs me. Haha
I even bought that super fancy audio sensibility SE silver coax cable. But I sold it already... Forgot I will need a good one to test the breeze and ended up ordering a cerious graphene extreme digital RCA cable with cardas connects and also a mad scientist audio graphene heretic digital cable with KLE copper harmony plugs. Will put the two cables to the test!
I picked up another cerious GE power conditioning cable for my p300 as well. Now have two! One is 5ft and the other 6ft

 

[robertsong]

I even bought that super fancy audio sensibility SE silver coax cable. But I sold it already... Forgot I will need a good one to test the breeze and ended up ordering a cerious graphene extreme digital RCA cable with cardas connects and also a mad scientist audio graphene heretic digital cable with KLE copper harmony plugs. Will put the two cables to the test!
I picked up another cerious GE power conditioning cable for my p300 as well. Now have two! One is 5ft and the other 6ft

 
I received my Cerious Graphene Extreme digital cable (w/ Furutech Rhodium BNC plugs) last week and have been breaking it it. My initial impression with zero break-in was ... WOW.
 
More on this later.

 

[roberto2]

Where do you buy Cerious Graphene cables? (Power chords or interconnect)
 
Thanks,
Roberto

 

[bimmer100]

  Where do you buy Cerious Graphene cables? (Power chords or interconnect)
 
Thanks,
Roberto

cerious technologies sells them. email Robert Grost. contact info is on their website.
http://www.cerioustechnologies.com/

 

[Albrecht]

""designed for internal use and the longer the run the worse the timing gets.""
 
 
FWIW, that is an assessment long held by my Universal Player/DAC manufacturer.
 
Thank you again for all of your comments on the Pro3A and various devices. Based on yours and other's input, - there are reliable converters, (my HiFace2 has been bulletproof). I have little doubt that the Pro3a will beat the HiFace, and I'm psyched to give it a go.
 
Cheers,

 

[bimmer100]

""designed for internal use and the longer the run the worse the timing gets.""


FWIW, that is an assessment long held by my Universal Player/DAC manufacturer.

Thank you again for all of your comments on the Pro3A and various devices. Based on yours and other's input, - there are reliable converters, (my HiFace2 has been bulletproof). I have little doubt that the Pro3a will beat the HiFace, and I'm psyched to give it a go.

Cheers,

Which Hiface? The original one was not that great... Reliable is one thing... But performance... Another.

The newest m2tech Evo 2 even uses cheap oscillators. Fortunately for us, technology has changed leaps and bounds above the old m2tech Hiface, Hiface 2, Evo etc. the evo2 I've yet to try, but I've got photos of the pcb layout and I wasn't really sold on it.
The pro3a should be your Hiface and be quite noticeable.
You saying you doubt it would beat it is surprising to me.
What about the Hiface do you think is good? The Hiface uses cheapo oscillators and poor build quality. Look at this closeup of the Hiface....

 

[Albrecht]

For sure: I do not doubt that the HiFaceII was way down on your list for a good reason.  I am still using the HiFace2. And I am looking forward the getting the Pro3A, - to test against.
 
Edit: adding, - I meant that I have no doubt that the Pro3a will beat the HiFace.
 
Cheers,