[musickid]

 

[organicmac]

Anyone pairing their Mscaler with DAVE? Seems like most people are going w/ the TT2.

Another user of DAVE + HMS - I find there is a wonderful improvement in the sound with HMS especially in older redbook material but in general, it is difficult to predict which recordings will benefit most from the HMS effect. In my case, I use the DAVE direct to speakers - B&W 805D3 with DB3D sub.

 

[seaice]

Anyone pairing their Mscaler with DAVE? Seems like most people are going w/ the TT2.

+1: HMS+Dave combo is really really great!

I got 100% full retail price off everything. One item was a 2 year old beyerdynamic headphone for eg. Nintronics are unmatched here and enable the "smaller fish" to remain in the upgrade path.

Everything? There must be some limits... I can imagine that the 100% full retail price is not usually higher than a discount the dealer could give to you anyway... Something like this?

 

[Amberlamps]

Is Optical the ultimate input to the Hugo MScaler?

The received wisdom is that optical is the best input because it isolates RF noise from getting into the HMS through the input.

BUT, what if it is possible to get a completely noise free USB input is it not possible then that the slight noise introduced by the optical transducer itself in the HMS might mean that in my scenario that is worse than my theoretically totally clean USB input?

I am assuming in this that the optical transducer might generate a small amount of noise. No doubt some would say it is so small as not to be important or that there are isolating circuits to take it out but isolating circuits are not always perfect and we are also seeing more and more that even small noise can be important.

Thoughts?

Intona industrial, medically approved usb galvanic isolation in a box, and if I had to guess, I would think it would be a more robust solution than whats in the mscaler.

It’s just a guess, as the intona just has to focus on usb I/O nothing more. I would suggest that an intona industrial connected to a usb port on a pc, and then from there connected to the mscaler. I think that would basically kill any bad juju entering the mscaler from a pc.

I did think about buying one previously, it might now be a good idea to make doubly sure the mscaler is free from incoming rfi from a pc usb port.

 

[Amberlamps]

Everything? There must be some limits... I can imagine that the 100% full retail price is not usually higher than a discount the dealer could give to you anyway... Something like this?

Nintronics offered me £1800 trade in for my £1500 hugo 2 and £5200 cash for a TT2 and MScaler, but I decided I wanted to keep my Hugo and I found a dealer near me which was a total What moment, as I was usually buying from stores in england. I got just as good of a deal from my dealer, plus a mug which gives me 768 hp and 512 xp points

It is weird how they can do 100% tradein and still stay in business. They must do a roaring trade.

 

[maxh22]

Nintronics offered me £1800 trade in for my £1500 hugo 2 and £5200 cash for a TT2 and MScaler, but I decided I wanted to keep my Hugo and I found a dealer near me which was a total What moment, as I was usually buying from stores in england. I got just as good of a deal from my dealer, plus a mug which gives me 768 hp and 512 xp points

It is weird how they can do 100% tradein and still stay in business. They must do a roaring trade.

Happy customer = repeat sales

 

[dmance]

Intona industrial, medically approved usb galvanic isolation in a box, and if I had to guess, I would think it would be a more robust solution than whats in the mscaler.
(...)

I ditched USB with Intona plus a battery pack plus 20 ferrites ...for optical to my Hugo2. It was easy for me to hear the difference. It was hard for me to accept that RF noise could bypass an Intona - a respected product. But it is true - gigahertz noise jumps the gap on the Intona and goes on down the balance of the USB cable to affect the analog processing and reference ground of the DAC. I have been converted to optical to my DAC to avoid the entire USB mess. My opinion is that even industry leaders underestimate the effects of RF noise and/or downplay the effects because they need to design products to a budget and always allow 'some' RF noise.

Since M Scaler is a digital-to-digital device, no amount of input selection, RF isolation or PSU improvement affects the output DX data bits ...they are always the same. The only effect is mitigation of the cascading preponderance of analog RF noise from inputs, AC power and M FPGA that is carried down the metallic DX cable to your DAC. Now, if only we could avoid the metallic conduction of DX coax with an optical bridge ...that would be great. And that may be possible soon. If curious, PM me.
Dan

 

[seaice]

Intona industrial, medically approved usb galvanic isolation in a box, and if I had to guess, I would think it would be a more robust solution than whats in the mscaler.

It’s just a guess, as the intona just has to focus on usb I/O nothing more. I would suggest that an intona industrial connected to a usb port on a pc, and then from there connected to the mscaler. I think that would basically kill any bad juju entering the mscaler from a pc.

I did think about buying one previously, it might now be a good idea to make doubly sure the mscaler is free from incoming rfi from a pc usb port.

Intona may help... Check also iFi iGalvanic 3.0.

I am very happy with iFi micro iUSB3 in my setup with iFi Gemini 3 and Audioquest Coffee USB cables.

 

[Triode User]

Intona industrial, medically approved usb galvanic isolation in a box, and if I had to guess, I would think it would be a more robust solution than whats in the mscaler.
It’s just a guess, as the intona just has to focus on usb I/O nothing more. I would suggest that an intona industrial connected to a usb port on a pc, and then from there connected to the mscaler. I think that would basically kill any bad juju entering the mscaler from a pc.
I did think about buying one previously, it might now be a good idea to make doubly sure the mscaler is free from incoming rfi from a pc usb port.

I started my question about noise comparisons between optical and usb and also about noise generated by transducers have heard Nuno from Innuos talking about this to John Darko. Obviously Nuno has an axe to grind and supports USB but his basic point was that having measured various USB isolation methods they were not fully successful and somehow noise always seemed to creep around the isolation. Hence going to extremes to keep the noise out in the first place. That begs the question whether £300 worth of Intona kit would do what it says it does on the tin (or do it as much as one might be expecting) or even whether it might make things worse (that does sometimes happen).

 

[SuperBurrito]

Is Optical the ultimate input to the Hugo MScaler?

Thoughts?

My HMS has not arrived yet but for my Dave there is zero difference between my CD transport's optical, PC Optical and PC USB. I custom built the PC.

 

[Amberlamps]

Happy customer = repeat sales

Yup, I agree, the dealer I have now is old school, he doesn’t do sales over the net, he wants you to come experience the products in his store, which he has built up since 1978. Old skool

He was the person I got the Chord Mug from.

He is my new dealer, my old one was a chain store and they were less flexible when it came to prices, but my new dealer Rob, with him, so far it’s been all rose’s and if it continues to be like this with my TT2 purchase, he will get my 2go order also. The dude drove 120 miles after his store closed at night to deliver my mscaler. < What good guy.

I ditched USB with Intona plus a battery pack plus 20 ferrites ...for optical to my Hugo2. It was easy for me to hear the difference. It was hard for me to accept that RF noise could bypass an Intona - a respected product. But it is true - gigahertz noise jumps the gap on the Intona and goes on down the balance of the USB cable to affect the analog processing and reference ground of the DAC. I have been converted to optical to my DAC to avoid the entire USB mess. My opinion is that even industry leaders underestimate the effects of RF noise and/or downplay the effects because they need to design products to a budget and always allow 'some' RF noise.

Since M Scaler is a digital-to-digital device, no amount of input selection, RF isolation or PSU improvement affects the output DX data bits ...they are always the same. The only effect is mitigation of the cascading preponderance of analog RF noise from inputs, AC power and M FPGA that is carried down the metallic DX cable to your DAC. Now, if only we could avoid the metallic conduction of DX coax with an optical bridge ...that would be great. And that may be possible soon. If curious, PM me.
Dan

I didn’t know that about the intona, it’s true, we learn something new everyday. I would of thought that since it was cleared for medical use and also for other purposes that needed that kind of screening because not having it would affect the measurements of whatever.

Personally, I don’t think my kit suffers from interference, as I think of interference as buzzing and hissing like you would see on a tv, and rob said rfi would makes things sound bright, so I don’t know. All I know is, hugo 2, mscaler and hd800S sound great.

I’m curious about the pm part, not sure if it will all be above my head, but I will message you once I get fed and have a spare minute tonight.

Intona may help... Check also iFi iGalvanic 3.0.

I am very happy with iFi micro iUSB3 in my setup with iFi Gemini 3 and Audioquest Coffee USB cables.

Cool, I bought a Tripp usb A - B cable for pc to mscaler, has some ferrites on it, but the main thing is, it’s a quality cable with a lifetime warranty. I cannot say if it’s better than the stock usb cable supplied with the mscaler.

I have looked into addon devices like the intona and others offerings, heck, the only reason I don’t have an intona today is because it was still using usb 2. Granted, 480mbits is plenty for music, but I would of preferred a usb 3 version nowadays. I will have a look and see whats what with ifi’s gear.

Cheers.

 

[wdh777]

So I’m upgrading from a TT to TT2+Mscaler. Keeping my LCD-4s. I drive it using tidal with an IPad using a USB A to USB B cable and an apple camera connection kit with a lightning connector. Do you think using the camera connection kit degrades the system? I also just upgraded to the new IPad Pro which uses USB C so now using a new camera connection kit with a USB C connector. Does anyone make a high end USB B to USB C cable and would that enable me to not use the camera connection kit? Thanks

 

[Amberlamps]

I started my question about noise comparisons between optical and usb and also about noise generated by transducers have heard Nuno from Innuos talking about this to John Darko. Obviously Nuno has an axe to grind and supports USB but his basic point was that having measured various USB isolation methods they were not fully successful and somehow noise always seemed to creep around the isolation. Hence going to extremes to keep the noise out in the first place. That begs the question whether £300 worth of Intona kit would do what it says it does on the tin (or do it as much as one might be expecting) or even whether it might make things worse (that does sometimes happen).

It may very well be useless, or only capable of blocking out a tiny proportion of interference, I have no idea so I wouldn’t like to say if it can or cannot. But I can understand why no method has been 100% succesful, as there is alot of noise coming from the inside a pc and I’m not sure if spread spectrum being enabled in the bios/uefi will make things better, worse, or do anything at all.

I would be doubtful about any product that claimed to eliminate all interference for x y z.

I was actually thinking about doing an opt v usb test today or tomorrow, when I have some free time. I want to see if there is an audible difference that I can detect between opt and usb. As I have never tried optical on the mscaler, just usb.

 

[Amberlamps]

So I’m upgrading from a TT to TT2+Mscaler. Keeping my LCD-4s. I drive it using tidal with an IPad using a USB A to USB B cable and an apple camera connection kit with a lightning connector. Do you think using the camera connection kit degrades the system? I also just upgraded to the new IPad Pro which uses USB C so now using a new camera connection kit with a USB C connector. Does anyone make a high end USB B to USB C cable and would that enable me to not use the camera connection kit? Thanks

I have used a iphone 6s+ with usb and cck once and it sounded good to me. I don’t know if you will think the same, but the one time that I tried it, I can’t remember having any problems with it.

YMMV

Amazon has thousands of different usb cables and adapters, you will probably find what you need there.

 

[SCBob]

So I’m upgrading from a TT to TT2+Mscaler. Keeping my LCD-4s. I drive it using tidal with an IPad using a USB A to USB B cable and an apple camera connection kit with a lightning connector. Do you think using the camera connection kit degrades the system? I also just upgraded to the new IPad Pro which uses USB C so now using a new camera connection kit with a USB C connector. Does anyone make a high end USB B to USB C cable and would that enable me to not use the camera connection kit? Thanks

Audioquest makes a USB B to C cable in 4 different quality levels up to diamond.