[High_Q]

Can you break down more please?
 
Quote:

$880 - Ingenuity, Design and Marketing
 

 

 
 

 

 

[upstateguy]

Quote:

Can you break down more please?
 

 
You've got a PM

 

[svyr]

Can you break down more please?
 


 

I believe that's a euphemism for a word starting w f ending with d (noun, 5 letters)

 

[chinesekiwi]

I run my rig using a sub $10 2RCA to 2RCA cable. As long as it's well constructed and (optional really but reassurance) shielded, it's fine, which it is. I'm even supporting the local economy as it's made here. Oh ain't I kind.

 

[drez]

so does higher sampling rate, given the same bit size, does not require a higher frequency digital signal, the recovery of which would have a lower jitter tolerance? (from what I understand).
 
As per the high frequency artifacts why my DI is set to 192 kHz sampling rate, its either the interface or the cable, I currently can't verify which it is for now.  Sorry to confuse/mislead anyone.
 
Personally I don't have too much of a problem with over-engineering, as long as it is actually effective in setting out what it claims to do.  
 
IMO the aforementioned listening tests should be the primary means of debunking cables, as there are much easier ways to do this electronically.
 
As was mentioned, if jitter isn't important then a whole lot of what digital interfaces and DAC architectures are designed around is also rubbish.

 

[DaBomb77766]

From what I understand, according to USB spec, the signal's frequency is 24.000 MHz.  So no matter what frequency the audio is, it will always be packaged up into data and transferred at a frequency of 24 MHz.  The difference between the frequencies used in audio is negligible compared to this...so I'd assume, though I'm not 100% certain, that the sampling rate of the audio will make no difference whatsoever to the quality of the transfer.  Not to mention that any sort of audio signal will always be of a lower bitrate than the USB 2.0 spec is capable of...

 

[High_Q]

The cable is just a transfer medium of the modulated signal, the decoding and its timing are done on the DAC itself, and it should be very accurate.  The data does not flow through the cable during play.  I think people are confusing it with an analog signal interconnect.  That's probably how people get bought into the scam. For example, just look at how video is streamed through network.  The data is fetched before it is decoded.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

The cable is just a transfer medium, the decoding and its timing are done on the DAC itself, and it should be very accurate.  The data does not flow through the cable during play.  I think people are confusing it with an analog signal interconnect.  That's probably how people get bought into the scam. For example, just look at how video is streamed through network.  The data is fetched before it is decoded.

I'm not sure if that's how USB audio works though...any sort of network streaming also has error correction, while standard USB audio does not.  I don't think it fetches any data beforehand, I think it simply streams the raw data directly to the DAC.
 
Not that it'd make any huge difference in the end though, either way...the margin of error here is pretty small.

 

[High_Q]

Come on, you are saying it is streaming and it is doing error correction?  I know error correction does take place with digital data once data is demodulate.  Also, when you say stream, you can say video is being steamed, but it is fetched and loaded to memory before the decoding process begins.  Audio works the same way, on my ipod there is a brief pause before play because of the hard drive lag, dated is transferred during the lag.
 
Quote:

I'm not sure if that's how USB audio works though...any sort of network streaming also has error correction, while standard USB audio does not.  I don't think it fetches any data beforehand, I think it simply streams the raw data directly to the DAC.
 
Not that it'd make any huge difference in the end though, either way...the margin of error here is pretty small.

 

 

[uelover]

Quote:

The data does not flow through the cable during play.  I think people are confusing it with an analog signal interconnect. 

 
This is not true.
 
USB audio works like SPDIF and everything is live-stream.
 
There is no buffer like how computer deals with online audio/video stream.

 

[chinesekiwi]

Quote:

so does higher sampling rate, given the same bit size, does not require a higher frequency digital signal, the recovery of which would have a lower jitter tolerance? (from what I understand).
 
As per the high frequency artifacts why my DI is set to 192 kHz sampling rate, its either the interface or the cable, I currently can't verify which it is for now.  Sorry to confuse/mislead anyone.
 
Personally I don't have too much of a problem with over-engineering, as long as it is actually effective in setting out what it claims to do.  
 
IMO the aforementioned listening tests should be the primary means of debunking cables, as there are much easier ways to do this electronically.
 
As was mentioned, if jitter isn't important then a whole lot of what digital interfaces and DAC architectures are designed around is also rubbish.

Uh, you can't sample what isn't there!
Also not to mention there is ZERO practical use of 192kHz. The only reason it was invented was because the marketers wanted it. Really. What you doing is actually introducing sampling errors. Go read this entire topic: http://lavryengineering.com/lavry_forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24

 

[vandaven]

Quote:

 
This is not true.
 
USB audio works like SPDIF and everything is live-stream.
 
There is no buffer like how computer deals with online audio/video stream.

Absolutely untrue.
 
Every USB audio interface is accessed via a buffer. It is not like S/PDiF.
 

 

[uelover]

Quote:

Absolutely untrue.
 
Every USB audio interface is accessed via a buffer. It is not like S/PDiF.
 

 
http://www.hifi-advice.com/USB-synchronous-asynchronous-info.html

 

[High_Q]

This is the quote from your link:
 
The bottom line? Use your ears, not only your mind, and listen to the computer/transport/interface/dac of your choice and don't let the technical mumbo jumbo get too much in the way!
 

LOL, would not belive anything writton on the page, it's the first page that shows up on google search.  
 
Did you miss this?
 
 
Asynchronous USB (not to be confused with asynchronous samplerate conversion) uses a clock housed near the dac (usually in the external dac's casing) and allows it to drive the converter directly, thereby not relying on the instable computer's clock. Well, someone who is technically more adept at this matter than me informed me that this is still not entirely true as the interface or dac is still somewhat dependent upon the stability of the PC's bus clock.  It is called asychronous because the dac's master clock isn't synchronized directly to any clocks within the computer. Instead, the dac is controlled by a (potentially high-precision) fixed-frequency clock. This clock controls the datastream from the computer to a buffer near the DA converter.
 
 
The thing is: Asynchronous USB data transfer doesn't guarantee perfect sound. Well, technically speaking, it does. But bit-perfect transfer doesn't guarantee enjoyable sound. 
 
^Rediculous.  The whole read is play on words and jargons, you can tell the person does not know what he is talking about.  This is what you call marketing folks.
Quote:

 
http://www.hifi-advice.com/USB-synchronous-asynchronous-info.html

 

 

[svyr]

>The thing is: Asynchronous USB data transfer doesn't guarantee perfect sound. Well, technically speaking, it does. But bit-perfect transfer doesn't guarantee enjoyable sound.

async usb doesn't guarantee bit perfect transfer. That's BS. If you do have interface issues from the cable or the usb chip or something, these will show up as dropped samples (presumably corrupted and discarded after a crc check).

Since async transfer mode doesn't have retransmission on error, it can't guarantee bit-perfect transfer...It can however minimize timing errors in the form of jittteeer (bulk mode is still better, since the info at the DAC end comes out bit perfect/what left at the PC end )


Otherwise, I don't find their comment particularly criminal, heh, I think the website means it in the "don't necessarily trust bs marketing and test it for yourself" way, which is not a bad way 'as long as you're happy'. On a bright stax system, I was more happy with a NOS dac sound than I was with Benchmark DAC1, so their comment makes sense to me (although that's not async usb, but you get the point)... That said, a decent DAC instead of the NOS one would have done better so maybe there is a point to cut the romantic BS where it grows since NOS dac marketing is full of fluffy bs as well