DDC - Digital USB interfaces - Xmos or Amanero Combo384 based - Raspberry Pi - HifiBerry DAC+ Pro - reviews, comparison, modifications and USB-Audio in general

[prot]

And the first ess9038 dac is out
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/ayre-acoustics-show-off-qx-5-twenty-digital-hub/
It's called a 'streaming dac' which is apparently the new device category for a Dac with an RPi inside.
It has all the inputs on earth and a balanced HP amp too. Unfortunately priced in the $10K area .. for no freakin reason if you ask me. abartels, your monster rpi should be worth at least $15000

also some interesting clocks linked there. Wouldnt mind one of these in my ess dac http://www.morion.com.ru/catalog_pdf/39_MV317.pdf.
And if you expect that kind of wow-Ocxo clock in your $10k Dac, you'd be dissapointed cause ayre just used the usual $20 tcxo.

P.S.
a good resume of the new digital wonders from munich 2016. Streaming Dacs galore
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/digital-sources-a-bakers-dozen-from-munich-high-end-2016/

 

[abartels]

  It can be a contender, can't it?
 

 

 
Yes it can! Would be nice to compare them all

 

[abartels]

 

   
Good news guys!!!!!
 
I'm in contact with Burson Audio and will review their products in my MonsterDAC!!!
 
 
At first I will start reviewing the very new Hybrid (partly discrete) opamp V5i which should compete with the best of the best opamps available and should bring my MonsterDAC to another level!
I also will review this Hybrid opamp with my two low cost dac's, just to see how they can perform with a top opamp in them. Will test both Dual and Single versions.
 
http://www.bursonaudio.com/products/supreme-sound-opamp-v5i/
 
At a later stage I even will review the super V5 discrete opamp which again should bring my MonsterDAC to another level 

 
http://www.bursonaudio.com/products/supreme-sound-opamp-v5/
 
Btw, yesterday I had a "Jam session" with a friend of mine (probably the neighbours jammed too..... 

)
He heard my MonsterDAC before, with the DIYINHK isolated USB XMOS interface which sounded superb to his (and my) ears.
This was the first time he heard the dac with RPI/DAC+Pro/I2S directly into dac. He stayed 2 hours longer then planned, couldn't stop listening to all his favorite tracks.
Tidal HIFI helped a lot so he could play his own music instead of my local music collection. Some tracks which weren't available at Tidal we played from Spotify.
Very glad there's support within LMS for all those streaming services 

 
He was VERY impressed, after listening to a lot of High-End sets the past 30 years, he told me yesterday he NEVER heard ANYTHING like this, even not the 50-100K$-Up riggs
 
Just like me he was amazed how original Redbook material can sound. I have a lot of High-Res music, 192K and SACD which sounds very good, but to be honest,
in most cases we preferred Redbook above High-Res. Redbook seems to be more musical, and there weren't any details we were missing in comparisson to High-Res / SACD.
It's just so marvelous sounding, it's almost unbelievable this even could get any better at all, but we all know, it CAN 

 
I'm VERY eager to test and review the Burson Audio opamp options, this will be the next big improvement

 
 
Can't wait to test them!
 
 
Just a question, should I start a new thread about Burson Audio opamps (since it is not DDC related), or should I keep it in this thread?
 
 
Cheers   

 
 
Alex

 
 
 
That's very good news ... your Monster DAC did already sound TOTL with the USB input, hard to imagine how it could get better! 
I'd say you shall start a separate MonsterDAC thread ... it's a wonderful device and surely deserves one ... or maybe just rename this one.
And I guess that Burson wants your opamp impressions here : http://www.head-fi.org/t/784790/burson-supreme-sound-audio-v5-opa-d-v5-opa-s-review
 
 
I tested three room correction kits.  It is very hard to extract any generic conclusions from my tests because those things depend *a lot* on the room and gear (both measurement and playback).  The results for my setup would be:
1. Audissey MultEQ XT32 (through a Marantz receiver): wow bass and very good soundstage. The only issue: if I wanna use an external DAC, its output will go through ADC->DSP->DAC inside the receiver.  Can't say that I hear that processing much but still, it's a lot!
2. Acourate.  Very good but the bass didn't get as clear & powerful as with Audissey.  However, I only used the trial version and a pretty average mic/preamp setup.  The software looks very profi with a million of settings and options ... should be possible to best all others with more effort and better measuring gear.
3. RoomEQ.  Very simple/easy and also pretty good in terms of SQ. And it's free if you just use the foobar plugin.
And now I do not know which one to choose

 
Very nice findings, looking for rpi room correction.....
 
Probably will start a MonsterDAC thread, indedd it deserves a dedicated thread 

And thanks for the compliments 

 It's no comparison anymore with the USB version you heard at your place, this has an extra dimension 

 
Agree that Burson probably want me to post review in the dedicated Burson thread!

 

[abartels]

  It can be a contender, can't it?
 

 

 
There are more contenders, the ones I send you from TaoBao, two different Jfet versions, probably will review them too 

 

[abartels]

And the first ess9038 dac is out
http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2016/05/ayre-acoustics-show-off-qx-5-twenty-digital-hub/
It's called a 'streaming dac' which is apparently the new device category for a Dac with an RPi inside.
It has all the inputs on earth and a balanced HP amp too. Unfortunately priced in the $10K area .. for no freakin reason if you ask me. @abartels, your monster rpi should be worth at least $15000

also some interesting clocks linked there. Wouldnt mind one of these in my ess dac http://www.morion.com.ru/catalog_pdf/39_MV317.pdf.
And if you expect that kind of wow-Ocxo clock in your $10k Dac, you'd be dissapointed cause ayre just used the usual $20 tcxo.

P.S.
a good resume of the new digital wonders from munich 2016. Streaming Dacs galore
http://www.hifiplus.com/articles/digital-sources-a-bakers-dozen-from-munich-high-end-2016/

 
Thanks for the very informative links! Very interesting stuff!
 
I'm very eager to try the discrete opamps and maybe some other clocks and isolation / reclocking stuff from Ian to get another dimension 

 
And, AK4497 is on it's wat this year, at least I suppose it is,,,,
 
Need a bigger enclosure...........

 

[abartels]

NEED TO COPY / PASTE LINK BELOW IN A NEW BROWSER SCREEN, OTHERWISE LINK WILL BE REDIRECTED (HEADFI PROBLEM???)
 
 
https://world.taobao.com/item/14936637285.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.dLahKj#detail
 

 

 

 

 

 

[abartels]

Today I installed LMS on my new Qnap TS-853A-8G NAS.
 
It's working great, fast, even while copying al my music files to it. Listening right now and it sounds at least as good as LMS on my heavy laptop i7-16Gb-2x250GB SSD - Server 2012R2+AO
Seems there's no difference in SQ between them, so now I can "ditch" my laptop and just connect my network player directly to NAS.
 
This NAS even has 2x HDMI output directly from NAS with 4K support, so can use it with Plex-Kodi-Xbmc directly from NAS (RC included in package 

)
It even has it's own ADC/DAC on board for Karaoke hahahahahaha, now I can sing along when playing my songs, hahahaha     N O T   

 

 

 
 
Very glad I went this route, music files are stored safe now, redundant, using RAID5 with 4 2TB WD-Red drives and 1x 250Gb SSD for cache acceleration.
 
Minor issue: I have to update LMS 7.7.2 to 7.9.x to enable DSD playback and until now not find how to manage this.
 
 
 
Highly recommended!

 

[prot]

Congrats for the new toy & simplified setup.
I already have a custom storage server so I'll be more interested in your karaoke videos

 

[abartels]

Congrats for the new toy & simplified setup.
I already have a custom storage server so I'll be more interested in your karaoke videos

 
Hahahahahaha, not going to happen 

 

[baek47]

Hi
 
Have anyone succesfully connected F-1 XMOS USB Digital Interface Module XU208 to a Raspberry Pi2.
 
I have tried Moode, Volumio, Rune - no succes.
 
Please how to?
 
-baek47

 

[abartels]

  Hi
 
Have anyone succesfully connected F-1 XMOS USB Digital Interface Module XU208 to a Raspberry Pi2.
 
I have tried Moode, Volumio, Rune - no succes.
 
Please how to?
 
-baek47

 
Nope, I only tried once with a diyinhk isolated xmos and got it working with PiCoreplayer with "USB Audio" output setting.
 
But, since RPI has far better options than using it's USB-out to connect to a USB DDC I suppose there aren't many
who will walk this road.
 
Just buy a HAT with SPDIF-out for your RPI2, that's the best option if needed SPDIF. If you even could use I2S, that would be preferable, no extra conversions needed.
 
Good luck!

 

[b0bb]

  Hi
 
Have anyone succesfully connected F-1 XMOS USB Digital Interface Module XU208 to a Raspberry Pi2.
 
I have tried Moode, Volumio, Rune - no succes.
 
Please how to?
 
-baek47

I had the F-1 connected to the Pi on PicorePlayer, it just shows up on the list of the available interfaces and I select it.
Just make sure the power supply you are using with on the Pi is sufficient to power the Pi and the F-1,  I used a 5V@2.2A power supply.
 
Going usb->spdif via the F-1 sounds much worse than going to the usb input on the DAC directly.
I used it with my Schiit Yggy.

 

[hgpsemaj]

For your information:
 

 

[abartels]

  For your information:
 

 
Thanks for the info, can you post a link please? This is not a HAT but complete AK4497EQ dac, or am I missing something?

 

[hgpsemaj]

Work in progress, this is all I got in hand at this moment. And, I shall keep you inform about the progress.