[xdanny]

 
Quote:

 
XDanny,  don't be so thin skinned you should see my speaker rig!  All I was pointing out is yes this is a head-phone forum and if you intend to compare your system to headphones you better be prepared to take some critism cause the fact is you have to spend a small fortune on a speaker rig to match a good headphone as far as detail and revealing transport and DAC flaws.   I wasn't trashing your system,  just stating facts.  I really I didn't like being put in that position but expect it from me if you compare a speaker rig to others headphone rigs in a headphone forum.

I am not thin skinned.  Please show me where and when I compared my system to other people's in this forum.  You have turned this into a speaker vs. headphone debate, when clearly it is not.  Again, google is your friend if you want to find pros and cons to each, the web is full of them with excellent arguments on both sides.
 
Don't tip-toe saying you didn't trash my system.  You did.  All I'm saying is get on a freaking plane, bring your your rig and see for yourself.  Until then, know that all you are saying about my system are speculations.
 
Also, for everyone to know:  jkeny has NOT offered to exchange my unit for a big clock one.  You are speaking for John when you clearly should not. 
 
Peace.
 

 

[sleepy dan]

regal, are you serious about your statement below?
 
Quote:

I'm doubtful that speakers could reveal differences between the worst/best transports ???
 
 

 

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

I am on the "COMPUTER AUDIO" section, am I not?  All it takes is a PM from one of the mods and I will respectfully bow out.  Please show me where it says "you must have headphones to post". 
 

Hey Danny. Ignore the negativity. You absolutely do not need headphones to be posting here and your contributions are valuable.

 
Quote:

regal, are you serious about your statement below?
 

I believe he made that statement in context with his comparison to similar priced headphones, in which case, I agree with him.

 

[shamu144]

Xdanny, your efforts are much appreciated but unfortunaltely, there are some points that really make it difficult to draw any conclusions:
 
1. You are comparing 2 jkeny modded HiFace, not stock HiFace... The best I can understand from you experience is that the modded small clock sounds nearly as good as the modded large MEC clock. That was already initially suggested by Regal. But this is of little help for those who are using stock HiFace (most of us).
 
2. I reckon to use strictly 2 identical digital cables for your listening tests. The digital cable will heavily influence the final results and invalidate your conclusions.
 
Quote:

@Junliang:  2' Oyaide DB510 BNC, 6' RadioShack 75ohm BNC cables and 6' Belkin USB cables.
 
I am running the Oyaide, but have bought the RadioShack BNC for the upcoming showdown: a "normal" big clock unit vs. my "one small, one big clock", both jkeny modded.  Stay tuned for the results...

Now that I am back from holidays, I hope to find some time to try the SoX test you suggested.
 

 

[sleepy dan]

The context was with regard to xdanny's sytem i.e. that he was using speakers, speakers do not reveal differences in the transport, with the implication being his results are not valid.  Frankly, it's a quite incredible claim.
 
Quote:

I believe he made that statement in context with his comparison to similar priced headphones, in which case, I agree with him.

 

[sleepy dan]

1. xdanny's results actually indicate that - to him - the small clock sounds better that the standard MEC part.  
 
2. Regal actually claimed that the small clock makes the Hiface sound worse than a $50 dollar sound card -  a very large degradation.
 
3. Using a modified Hiface doesn't invalidate the test.  If anything, a clean supply will remove PSU related jitter leaving that caused by the intrinsic phase noise of the clock more clearly exposed 
 
Quote:

Xdanny, your efforts are much appreciated but unfortunaltely, there are some points that really make it difficult to draw any conclusions:
 
1. You are comparing 2 jkeny modded HiFace, not stock HiFace... The best I can understand from you experience is that the modded small clock sounds nearly as good as the modded large MEC clock. That was already initially suggested by Regal. But this is of little help for those who are using stock HiFace (most of us).
 

 

[xdanny]

Thanks Shahrose, shamu and sleepy-dan!!
 
shamu,
1. You are correct.  I totally understand that this may not benefit those with stock units.  I wish I had the stock ones also...  I wanted to do this for my own peace of mind, and I think it was upstateguy who asked a question that no one has answered:  would it be safe to assume that a modded large MEC clock sounds better than a modded smaller one or  they both sound very close when modded, which would explain some of this controversy?  This is where it gets confusing and some experienced technical input would help shed a little light on this.  If a stock small clock sounds considerably worse than the stock big one, would modding it (battery power) help close the gap or would it improve both of them equally with the MEC still holding the lead, in which case an audible difference is still present?? 
 
2.  LOL, the Oyaide db-510 will be sitting this one out.  I bought 2 identical 75ohm  6 foot BNC cables from Radio Shack for this.  Also, I will not use the attenuators either, and I will have a couple of friends who are also audio enthusiasts over to help out.
 
Regards

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

Thanks Shahrose, shamu and sleepy-dan!!
 
shamu,
1. You are correct.  I totally understand that this may not benefit those with stock units.  I wish I had the stock ones also...  I wanted to do this for my own peace of mind, and I think it was upstateguy who asked a question that no one has answered:  would it be safe to assume that a modded large MEC clock sounds better than a modded smaller one or  they both sound very close when modded, which would explain some of this controversy?  This is where it gets confusing and some experienced technical input would help shed a little light on this.  If a stock small clock sounds considerably worse than the stock big one, would modding it (battery power) help close the gap or would it improve both of them equally with the MEC still holding the lead, in which case an audible difference is still present?? 
 
2.  LOL, the Oyaide db-510 will be sitting this one out.  I bought 2 identical 75ohm  6 foot BNC cables from Radio Shack for this.  Also, I will not use the attenuators either, and I will have a couple of friends who are also audio enthusiasts over to help out.
 
Regards

Danny,
Your questions go to the heart of the matter - does a modded Hiface with small clocks sound the same as a modded one with large clocks? Regal seems to have indicated that his battery PS mods made the small clock sound as good as a large clock. How can he explain this if the bad sound is because of the inherent flaw of the small clock? How can something that sounds worse than a $50 soundcard because it is using such a bad clock suddenly become so incredibly good (his words) just from changing the PS to this bad clock? I don't understand this & maybe he or somebody could help me? 

 

[regal]

No Jenky here are my exact words,  and frankly no double blind testing was done I shouldn't even have mentioned it.  I got a correct version of the Hiface within a day and modded it right away.  So my time with the battery powered defective clocked unit was very minimal.  As I said in the previous post I was slapped down by the Hitech cool-aiders so hard I didn't dare mention the pissant clock again until this thread was started.  Our buddy M was caught lying about the BNC connector being a 75 ohm unit,   why the heck should we believe his statements about the clocks?  
 
This thread is pretty conclusive to any rational person so I think you should do the right thing and upgrade the clock for your customers who didn't receive the original design.
 
Quote:

.
I was so pissed at the stock unit with the small clock  that I didn't spend a lot of time with it on the batteries but what I remember was the batteries mostly cured the condition. 

 

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

No Jenky here are my exact words,  and frankly no double blind testing was done I shouldn't even have mentioned it.  I got a correct version of the Hiface within a day and modded it right away.  So my time with the battery powered defective clocked unit was very minimal.  As I said in the previous post I was slapped down by the Hitech cool-aiders so hard I didn't dare mention the pissant clock again until this thread was started.  Our buddy M was caught lying about the BNC connector being a 75 ohm unit,   why the heck should we believe his statements about the clocks?  
 
This thread is pretty conclusive to any rational person so I think you should do the right thing and upgrade the clock for your customers who didn't receive the original design.
 

 

OK, so you put a battery PS on the small clock & it sorted the problem. Can you explain this?
You are calling Marco a liar about the 75ohm BNC connectors - is this not what the manufacturer of claimed them to be? 

 

[regal]

Quote:

OK, so you put a battery PS on the small clock & it sorted the problem. Can you explain this?
You are calling Marco a liar about the 75ohm BNC connectors - is this not what the manufacturer of claimed them to be? 

No I said I listened to it breifly,  I'm claiming nothing other than a first impression,  hell it was several valiums ago and I listened to it for maybe 15 minuteswith the battery hardly a judgment can be made.
 
Just put an end to all the nonsense,  Hitech put you in a bad situation,  but don't forget who butters your bread.

 

[digger945]

The computeraudiophile.com review claimed an tested impedance of 73 or 74 ohms for the RCA connector(among other things), saying it was close enough for chris' friends(engineers). It is an easy calculation for almost any device, for anyone.

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

No I said I listened to it breifly,  I'm claiming nothing other than a first impression,  hell it was several valiums ago and I listened to it for maybe 15 minuteswith the battery hardly a judgment can be made.
 
Just put an end to all the nonsense,  Hitech put you in a bad situation,  but don't forget who butters your bread.

I believe you said that the battery mod would alleviate the problem so how do you explain this?
 
What I do for people who bought my modified Hiface is my business & not for you to comment on or make veiled threats about so back off there or is every manufacturer now your enemy?

 

[mmerrill99]

Quote:

The computeraudiophile.com review claimed an tested impedance of 73 or 74 ohms for the RCA connector(among other things), saying it was close enough for chris' friends(engineers). It is an easy calculation for almost any device, for anyone.

I went & checked your source digger945 - thanks for this info. It actually relates to the BNC connector not the RCA one:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/M2Tech-hiFace-Asynchronous-USB-SPDIF-Converter-Review
 
 
Quote:

Product Measurements (Using BNC version of hiFace):

Output Voltage [Image Link]
The output voltage with a 75 Ohm load is 2.328 Vpp. This is a lot higher than the nominal 0.5 Vpp desired at the digital input of most DACs. Sound quality may vary depending on how well a DAC handles this higher voltage. Some digital inputs can be over driven by this 2.328 Voltage PP when they amplify the digital signal, with an HC04UB inverter, that is the regular SPDIF recommendation for an input device.

Output Resistance [Image Link]
An approximate 73 Ohm output resistance can be calculated using the hiFace's 4.684 Vpp (without 75 Ohm load) and 2.328 Vpp (with 75 Ohm load). This is close enough to 75 Ohm for most engineers.

 

[regal]

73 ohms is not 75 ohms,  so you have reflections and hence an increased cable influence. Why would you not want replace the connector with a proper Amphenol for $15 and eliminate the reflections and the need to buy a $200 digital cable?  I also recommend the minicircuits 10 dB attenuator,  helps with the flip/flop overload issue.
 
Jkeny,  I'm not making any veiled threats I think you need to take off the tinfoil hat again and stop trolling.  Calm down,  we are all in this for the enoyment of the music,  thats all,  its a hobby to be enjoyed not start conspiracy theory and weirdo plots.