[Ragnar-BY]

Problem solved!

It was a cable. And it was not easy to find out.
I have done all logical things like switching off source chain and all other electronics, plugging cables in and out and hiss was still there. I was still hoping that problem is cable related, so I start to rotate BNC plugs gently and suddenly hiss disappeared. My system is dead silent at all levels again.

I assume, one of the cables have bad screen connection to the plug and rotation put it back. I think it`s time for me to look for better cables.

 

[Triode User]

Problem solved!

It was a cable. And it was not easy to find out.
I have done all logical things like switching off source chain and all other electronics, plugging cables in and out and hiss was still there. I was still hoping that problem is cable related, so I start to rotate BNC plugs gently and suddenly hiss disappeared. My system is dead silent at all levels again.

I assume, one of the cables have bad screen connection to the plug and rotation put it back. I think it`s time for me to look for better cables.

Phew!! Well done. What a relief!!

 

[Musikfan]

Hi, im using Dave+HMS in a 2 channel system. Using Moon Audio Silver dragon BNC cables. I tried swapping out the BNC cables with Snake River Boomsland Nd hi fidelity cables, but neither work. In one case the Dave reports no data and in other case I cant get Dual BNC mode to work. Everything works with the silver dragon bnc cables. I'm wondering if anyone has experienced similar issues with different brands of BNC cables, or if anyone has some insight into what might be causing the issue with these other cables and why they might not be working properly.....thanks for any assistance and hope you guys are catching the Chamions League final today....

 

[Amberlamps]

Problem solved!

It was a cable. And it was not easy to find out.
I have done all logical things like switching off source chain and all other electronics, plugging cables in and out and hiss was still there. I was still hoping that problem is cable related, so I start to rotate BNC plugs gently and suddenly hiss disappeared. My system is dead silent at all levels again.

I assume, one of the cables have bad screen connection to the plug and rotation put it back. I think it`s time for me to look for better cables.

I had a feeling that it was "stock cable related", as both of my stock ones would glitch out randomly, and at the slightest touch they would do the same.

I think the entire first batch of bnc cables that came with it were defective, as loads of folk have complained about them, not what one expects to find bundled with a £3500 product.

Yes I know that folk are likely to buy and use their own cables, but thats not the point, QC for those cables failed miserably.

Glad that you figured it out, and I'm glad that its just a cable problem, thats so much easier to accept than it being a faulty mscaler.

 

[ray-dude]

At long last, the embargo is lifted so I can post my review of the AudioWise OPTO•DX, and related opus on power and digital hygiene.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/audiowise-opto•dx.23757/reviews#review-22155

Link to product page:

https://audiowise-canada.myshopify.com


TL;DR - my Ferrited Cable of Shame is now officially retired, and I'm still shaking my head at the impact clean power has on the digital chain

My thanks to @dmance for inviting me to be part of the prerelease testing process. Thankfully, the OPTO•DX will soon ship so I can post this beast! (13k words!)

Happy to answer any questions folks may have, and even more interested to read others' experiences and learnings.

 

[ZappaMan]

At long last, the embargo is lifted so I can post my review of the AudioWise OPTO•DX, and related opus on power and digital hygiene.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/audiowise-opto•dx.23757/reviews#review-22155

TL;DR - my Ferrited Cable of Shame is now officially retired, and I'm still shaking my head at the impact clean power has on the digital chain

My thanks to @dmance for inviting me to be part of the prerelease testing process. Thankfully, the OPTO•DX will soon ship so I can post this beast! (13k words!)

Happy to answer any questions folks may have, and even more interested to read others' experiences and learnings.

Excellent, Dan must be an audio chiropractor, he believes in fixing the problem, rather than suppressing the symptom.

Im actually happy for dan, I saw him post over the year, and didn’t really have faith that his product would really be viable, so well done dan.

 

[ray-dude]

Excellent, Dan must be an audio chiropractor, he believes in fixing the problem, rather than suppressing the symptom.

Im actually happy for dan, I saw him post over the year, and didn’t really have faith that his product would really be viable, so well done dan.

+100

When we were first playing with mScaler on Blu2, we all sat around and brainstormed "What we really need is a BNC SPDIF to optical to BNC SPDIF converter...perfect optical isolation, we should build that"

Kudos to Dan for actually building it, and even more kudos for how well it works.

 

[Windseeker]

Deleted (already mentioned in the thread).

 

[Amberlamps]

At long last, the embargo is lifted so I can post my review of the AudioWise OPTO•DX, and related opus on power and digital hygiene.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/audiowise-opto•dx.23757/reviews#review-22155

Link to product page:

https://audiowise-canada.myshopify.com


TL;DR - my Ferrited Cable of Shame is now officially retired, and I'm still shaking my head at the impact clean power has on the digital chain

My thanks to @dmance for inviting me to be part of the prerelease testing process. Thankfully, the OPTO•DX will soon ship so I can post this beast! (13k words!)

Happy to answer any questions folks may have, and even more interested to read others' experiences and learnings.

Wouldn't an optical cable going into the mscaler from whatever source, and then another one going out of the mscaler and into to a dac, wouldn't that do the same job as the opto dx ?

The mscaler has galvanically isolated usb and bnc ports if I recall, does that not make those interfaces totally immune from electrical interference ?

How does the opto dx compare to a setup like say, a pc soundcard with an optical cable plugged into the mscaler and another optical or bnc cable coming out of the mscaler and going into a dac.

Would those methods not be as good/clean as the opto dx ?

I'm half asleep, so my post is probably doesn't make sense.

 

[naynay]

Wouldn't an optical cable going into the mscaler from whatever source, and then another one going out of the mscaler and into to a dac, wouldn't that do the same job as the opto dx ?

The mscaler has galvanically isolated usb and bnc ports if I recall, does that not make those interfaces totally immune from electrical interference ?

How does the opto dx compare to a setup like say, a pc soundcard with an optical cable plugged into the mscaler and another optical or bnc cable coming out of the mscaler and going into a dac.

Would those methods not be as good/clean as the opto dx ?

I'm half asleep, so my post is probably doesn't make sense.

No 1 M taps using optical out from M Scaler.

 

[ray-dude]

Wouldn't an optical cable going into the mscaler from whatever source, and then another one going out of the mscaler and into to a dac, wouldn't that do the same job as the opto dx ?

The mscaler has galvanically isolated usb and bnc ports if I recall, does that not make those interfaces totally immune from electrical interference ?

How does the opto dx compare to a setup like say, a pc soundcard with an optical cable plugged into the mscaler and another optical or bnc cable coming out of the mscaler and going into a dac.

Would those methods not be as good/clean as the opto dx ?

I'm half asleep, so my post is probably doesn't make sense.

There is a grand mystery to me on the optical in to Hugo mScaler. When comparing Chromecast Audio, HDMI output of a NUC, and optical output of a NUC (previous tests, not in my write up), I can clearly hear a difference in SQ going into HMS. If I improve the power on Chromecast Audio and HDMI audio extractor connected to NUC, I hear a clear difference in SQ.

How the heck is this possible? You have perfect electrical isolation in all cases, bit perfect in all cases, and in all cases the HMS is doing the reclocking on the optical input. Something somewhere is materially different enough to be audible (some sort of induced noise in the optical receiver based on some aspect of the SPDIF waveform? Some induced noise in the PLL based on the waveform? I have NFC)

This was my most maddening finding, and the finding that had me most thinking that Elon Musk is right, that we're living a grand cosmic level simulation, and some scientist somewhere is doing an experiment to see how I react to something that clearly should not be happening.

Whatever this X factor is, I'm convinced it is the key to understanding how to get optimum digital audio from a streaming end point or server.

As to optical from the HMS to the Chord DAC, that is basically what the OPTO•DX is doing so you can get the full 16fs signal from HMS to (in my case) DAVE. If you go standard SPDIF optical out from HMS to the Chord DAC, you're limited to 24/192 (only a 1/4 of the 1M taps available in HMS)

 

[Amberlamps]

No 1 M taps using optical out from M Scaler.

Yes, I know

I'm just trying to figure out exactly where the opto dx fits into the chain, before the mscaler or between mscaler and dac ?

 

[JM1979]

At long last, the embargo is lifted so I can post my review of the AudioWise OPTO•DX, and related opus on power and digital hygiene.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/audiowise-opto•dx.23757/reviews#review-22155

Link to product page:

https://audiowise-canada.myshopify.com


TL;DR - my Ferrited Cable of Shame is now officially retired, and I'm still shaking my head at the impact clean power has on the digital chain

My thanks to @dmance for inviting me to be part of the prerelease testing process. Thankfully, the OPTO•DX will soon ship so I can post this beast! (13k words!)

Happy to answer any questions folks may have, and even more interested to read others' experiences and learnings.

Fantastic review. I’m going to read that so many times. There is so much great ‘food for thought’ as it comes to setting up a digital chain with an mScaler. Thank you for taking the time to do all of that.

 

[ray-dude]

Yes, I know

I'm just trying to figure out exactly where the opto dx fits into the chain, before the mscaler or between mscaler and dac ?

Here's my chain. OPTO•DX goes between the Hugo mScaler and the DAC. You have 2 coax cables coming out of the Hugo mScaler that connect to a OPTO•DX box on the "dirty" side. It converts the BNC SPDIF signal to optical, and uses 2 fiber optic cables to transmit the signal to a 2nd box on the "clean" side. That box then converts the optical signal back to dual BNC, and you use dual coax to connect the "clean" box to the DAC.

As side benefit of this scheme is the fiber optics can be as long as you (reasonably) want (10 meters should be no problem). Let's you put all your digital stuff as far away from your main setup as you like.

 

[Amberlamps]

There is a grand mystery to me on the optical in to Hugo mScaler. When comparing Chromecast Audio, HDMI output of a NUC, and optical output of a NUC (previous tests, not in my write up), I can clearly hear a difference in SQ going into HMS. If I improve the power on Chromecast Audio and HDMI audio extractor connected to NUC, I hear a clear difference in SQ.

How the heck is this possible? You have perfect electrical isolation in all cases, bit perfect in all cases, and in all cases the HMS is doing the reclocking on the optical input. Something somewhere is materially different enough to be audible (some sort of induced noise in the optical receiver based on some aspect of the SPDIF waveform? Some induced noise in the PLL based on the waveform? I have NFC)

This was my most maddening finding, and the finding that had me most thinking that Elon Musk is right, that we're living a grand cosmic level simulation, and some scientist somewhere is doing an experiment to see how I react to something that clearly should not be happening.

Whatever this X factor is, I'm convinced it is the key to understanding how to get optimum digital audio from a streaming end point or server.

As to optical from the HMS to the Chord DAC, that is basically what the OPTO•DX is doing so you can get the full 16fs signal from HMS to (in my case) DAVE. If you go standard SPDIF optical out from HMS to the Chord DAC, you're limited to 24/192 (only a 1/4 of the 1M taps available in HMS)

Yeah, it's weird, but I don't go too deep, aslong as the music sounds good, I'm happy. I couldn't do what rob or yourself and many others do, tweak or make tiny changes and then listen to hear the difference, I would in all probability not notice any difference, just like the filters on h2 and my tt2, they all sound the same to me, but xphd is audible to me.

I'm sure the Opto DX will be a hit, as I know a few people who can't wait to see what it's like.

As for elon musks theory, I said it first, and my said, said "we are living in the matrix".

Yes, opt does indeed tap out at 192, but if all things are equal, since its opt it should sound the same as opto dx if that was limited to 192khz, but it's not and if it's the cleanest way to get them 1 million taps, then lots of people will be happy.

I just wish it was canadian dollars he was charging for it, as it would help offset the customs charges we will have to pay for it.
if it gets rave reviews, maybe I buy ???