[Ragnar-BY]

I ordered my SR4 prior to my tests (for another part of my chain) so I have the variable output version (2A). I am hopeful that will be enough for the HMS.

Ultimately, I've allocated a DR SR7 rail for the HMS, which will have plenty of juice, but it may be another year (or three?) before Paul gets around to building mine.

Well, I hope you get it sooner or later. I was thinking about his SR4 PSU for my streamer, but Paul seems to be too unreliable person.

How do you think, what upgrade brought you more sonic benefits: isolating the DBNC or powering M Scaler with clean power? Comparing to all stock configuration.

 

[ray-dude]

No question about it, optical isolation (vs stock) is by far the biggest lift (esp. with great power on the "clean" side of OPTO•DX...if you don't have a DC supply like the Uptone LPS 1.2 handy to audition, Alex has a 30 day return offer on those...well worth giving a go to see what moves the needle in your system)

 

[dac64]

No question about it, optical isolation (vs stock) is by far the biggest lift (esp. with great power on the "clean" side of OPTO•DX...if you don't have a DC supply like the Uptone LPS 1.2 handy to audition, Alex has a 30 day return offer on those...well worth giving a go to see what moves the needle in your system)

What if you start from square one? I. E. Everything "stock" except the optical devices, how does it sounds?

 

[dmance]

Many thanks to @ray-dude for his excellent post on OPTO-DX and all his efforts. He is the best beta tester any manufacturer could hope for. And thanks to HeadFiers who have expressed interest - even though the product is still not quite shipping.

OPTO-DX optical isolation moves the game forward by clearly delineating the clean and dirty sides and allowing for continued progress in tweaks to improving Chord stack sound quality. As ray has mentioned, some changes ...like ultra low-noise regulated power on the clean side (at the SPDIF inputs and DAC power input) make a further big difference - presumably enabling a more accurate clock and stable reference/ground level for the DAC. On the dirty side ...i am still doing work to understand what is going on ..why changes here make a real difference. Optical isolation with no electron flow and huge attenuation beyond 70Mhz should be a theoretical brick wall for RF noise. Further @Rob Watts post regarding his DAC's total immunity to SPDIF jitter (down to an FFT noise floor of -180dB) means not only that he recovers the bits correctly, but that SPDIF phase noise has no effect on the DAC's analog outputs.

Yet, ray and others, as well as myself, have clear evidence with our own ears that better power on M Scaler makes a difference. What is going on? RF noise must be the culprit, but no good theory describes what is going on. Well, I have to find out. To this end, i have an APX555 being rented this month to run an entire set of tests on multiple configurations. I also have excellent DC-DC low noise regulators on order from MPAudio and LDOVR to complement my LPS1.2. These may not be of Paul Hynes caliber but are LT3045 based and allow me to feed them from batteries to stay off the AC mains. Further, just to make sure airborne RF is not an issue, i have ordered a large RF enclosure (a solid metal Faraday cage) with -90dB attenuation up to 6Ghz. I will be able to fit my entire dirty side chain on batteries and the only exposure to the outside world is through two OPTO-DX fibre optic cables.

My end goal is to distill all I learn into a simplified product chain that not only sounds better but works because it actually addresses root causes. That's my sincere hope. Anyhow, I will post results to this forum.

Dan

 

[ray-dude]

What if you start from square one? I. E. Everything "stock" except the optical devices, how does it sounds?

Difficult question to answer objectively. Some people hear no meaningful difference with ferrites on the BNC cables, others (like me) hear a very impactful difference. If you don't hear an impactful difference with ferrites on your BNC cables, the OPTO•DX probably isn't going to move the needle for you.

For me, if stock BNC cables are a 10, my Ferrited Cable of Shame is 12-13, and the stock OPTO•DX with SMPS is 14-15. A quality power supply on the ODX takes it to 15-16.

Your environment and your equipment and your ears will be sure to be very different than mine. For me, the ODX is the best option available for dual BNC RF hygiene, and has made it extremely easy to hear the impact of changes elsewhere in my chain. Of course, whether that is a worthwhile investment for you depends on your wallet, your ears, your system, and your environment.

 

[Amberlamps]

Yesterday I was listening to my setup, it's summer and the temp is nice and warm. A few hours into my tunes I pick up tt2's remote to add some xphd, pushed the button and Mscaler changed from usb to optical ?

I thought that I must be sitting on mscalers remote, nope, it was beside me and upside down and facing the wrong direction. I upturned the remote, just to make sure no buttons were being pushed, all good. I then use TT2's remote to see if that was the cause, I pushed xphd and yet again mscaler changed from usb to optical out, the green one, cant recall if thats opt 1 or 2.

I reset mscaler back to usb and I tried it for a third time, pushing and holding xphd on tt 2's remote and yet again it went from usb to opt on mscaler.

By this time I was What! so I reset mscaler back to usb and tried it again, nothing, just a change of xphd on tt2, which is the correct action.

I tried again and again and nothing untoward happened, now this wasn't a fluke, it happened 3 times one after the other and only when i pushed and held the xphd button on the remote.

It stopped doing it, I went and touched mscaler and tt2 to see if it was heat related, both were hot, the hottest that I've ever known them to be, I didnt get a proper temp as my temp gun was downstairs and my lazy powers were too strong and won the "will I go get my temp gun" debate. But suffice to say that they were hot. Not damaging hot, it was probably still within it's heat threshold by a good margin, or it would of shut down.

It's never happened before, so I will put it down to being hot, maybe it's a good idea if I unstack them ?

I'm not moaning about it, as if anything, it was just a glitch, and I have used my setup probably more than anyone else with the same setup, as i listen to it everyday for hours now that Jeremy Kyle has been banned from TV

Steve Steve Steve Steve Steve!

 

[kendavis]

Fresh Question... I didn't see any better place to post it...

When I've listened through an M-Scaler, I've found that old CDs are significantly improved. Since the M-Scaler outputs digital, is there any way to RIP my CDs and save them AFTER they have been through the M-Scaler. Some big money (from my pocket) rides on the answer of this question

BTW, if there is a better place to post this question, I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Amberlamps]

Fresh Question... I didn't see any better place to post it...

When I've listened through an M-Scaler, I've found that old CDs are significantly improved. Since the M-Scaler outputs digital, is there any way to RIP my CDs and save them AFTER they have been through the M-Scaler. Some big money (from my pocket) rides on the answer of this question

BTW, if there is a better place to post this question, I'm open to suggestions.

Sure it is possible, what the quality would be like is a different story. Im not sure if it could be done solely via the mscaler, or if you wanted 705 and 768khz, you may need to capture it from the output from a chord dac ? Maybe use it's two bnc dx digital outputs ?

But I think you will find that being able to record the 705/768khz would be a no go, as only chord products support dbnc, so it's kinda locked down, but you should be able to get everything from 384khz and down. You just need a capture card with a bnc input and you can get 384khz. 1/2 million taps.

With a capture cards, just push play on your cd and it will record as its playing, but you would need a fair amount of hard drive space, many gigs and it would probably be better to save the incoming data to a ssd, as a standard hard drive might not be quick enough at writing the incoming data, which may cause glitches when you goto listen to your recording. Not exactly ripping and it will take time, but thats the best I can think of at the moment.

You could also get a capture card with rca inputs, it would capture the audio in analogue waveform format, and you would then need to convert it to digital, but that would take time and be a pain in the ass to do I would think.

Rob has a 768khz recorder in the pipeline, Davina.

 

[lcasadonte]

Ken I think if you used an audio interface and took the output of the dave into it, you may be able to do this. You would use software with the audio interface. What is the format of the ultimate file you are trying to create?

 

[kendavis]

Thank you, Amberlamps. I did expect that additional hardware would be needed.

I don't know the Chord products very well. Are there Chord DACs that offer (downsampled) digital out? Also, how would I capture those samples on a PC? Is there software that will capture raw samples in real time? Is any additional hardware needed?

Has anyone actually tried this?

 

[Amberlamps]

Use audacity.

But you would still need a capture card, once you have one, download audacity or use the cards own software, select the input you wish to record from and then push play, with audacity you will see the audio waveform, you can record it, cut it, mix it etc, but for straight up recording itks easy.

But expect to use lots and lots of Gigabytes of hard drive space, as 384khz and up files / albums wont exactly be small.

I have single track dsd 256 files, one song is 3gigabytes.

What you really want is, digital out to digital in, as that would be the quickest way of doing it, analogue out to analogue in, say for example rca, it will need to be converted to digital, which will eat up time and MUCH more hard drive space.

The mscaler has digital out, bnc and optical, so you could just use that ? I presume you can, since you want to capture the digital signal without it needing to be converted to analogue first, so you can skip the dac and just do it direct from the mscaler.

 

[kendavis]

Ken I think if you used an audio interface and took the output of the dave into it, you may be able to do this. You would use software with the audio interface. What is the format of the ultimate file you are trying to create?

Wouldn't the audio interface (microphone input?) be analog?

I'd like any audio format that I can play with any media player on the PC... Groove Music, for instance.

 

[kendavis]

Use audacity.

But you would still need a capture card, once you have one, download audacity or use the cards own software, select the input you wish to record from and then push play, with audacity you will see the audio waveform, you can record it, cut it, mix it etc, but for straight up recording itks easy.

Sounds like my next step is to educate myself on "capture cards". Thanks for your inputs.

 

[Amberlamps]

Sounds like my next step is to educate myself on "capture cards". Thanks for your inputs.

I edited my post, you could or should be able to use either one bnc cable or an optical cable, direct from the mscaler, both of which are digital and you can connect that to a capture card.

You can pick up cheap capture cards, some computer soundcards may work, you may not need to buy anything ?

Audacity is free, download that and have a mess with it and see if it's suitable for what you need, but you dont need to spend lots of money on a card, £50 max, or if you want something more robust, you can get good ones in the 1-250 quid range.

Actually, you have made me think about doing the same with my cd's, im not sure if my dbpower amp software has the capability to capture a digital signal, probably not. Looks like my old xfi platinum soundcard with breakout box will come in handy, as on the box it has optical in.

 

[Triode User]

Fresh Question... I didn't see any better place to post it...
When I've listened through an M-Scaler, I've found that old CDs are significantly improved. Since the M-Scaler outputs digital, is there any way to RIP my CDs and save them AFTER they have been through the M-Scaler. Some big money (from my pocket) rides on the answer of this question
BTW, if there is a better place to post this question, I'm open to suggestions.

I am not sure of the point of what you are trying to do. If one has an Mscaler then why not just use it as intended and Mscale CDs or rips of the CDs in the normal way with the Mscaler in the circuit? If you are thinking of borrowing an Mscaler to do this rather than owning one then Rob Watts has mentioned capturing fully Mscaled files before and I am pretty sure he said that the file size is ENORMOUS (that is a technical term for flippin big).