[Amberlamps]

Jim Jones and his cult

That wasn't a cult, that was a headfi meetup gone bad as only beats by dre turned up.

 

[Amberlamps]

Are people generally setting these up side by side? They are so compact that they are lost in my sanus rack sitting on their own shelves. And the Wave cables, while beautiful to behold, are heavy beasts. Side by side might help to support the cable but not sure if the 2 pieces should be isolated from each other. Also the way the power cord is configured, I assume an upgraded PC isn't something peeps are doing?

When I practise Ninja on tuesday night's, I use my wave cables as temporary nunchucks.

Or was it, when I practise nunchucks, I use ninja ?

 

[jlbrach]

My mscaler rattled so I opened it. There was an extra very small screw rolling around. Not a joke. Distributor offered to take it back but shipping and insurance was on me. I decided to close it up and keep the screw as a spare. So far so good.

When I received my blu2 some time ago I heard a rattle as well and opened the cd section and found a loose screw ....removed the screw and all has been good since then....

 

[racebit]

I can only presume that I was smoking crack when I said I couldn't hear the difference between tt2 and mtt2 the other week.

I found very strange that statement of yours that your could hear no difference with or without mscaler in the chain. Not because I heard mscaler to test how good or bad it performs, but because of two other things you said in parallel:
1. You said you noticed an improvement till the blue light, but none from there to the white light.
2. You said you noticed a clear improvement when adding WAVE cables.
None of those two would be possible if there was no difference with or without mscaler in the chain.

Regarding the ASR thread, you should not believe everything you read, without further investigating. If you read further the thread, near the end, some new measurements from Korea come up that confirm Chord measurements. So two against one. But even if it were only Chord against some other single measurement, I would still believe Chord.
Even if a third party test is totally unbiased, who would you think is more likely to make an (unintentionally) test error?
Only if several measurements came out against Chord measurements, i would put Chord measurements in question.

In that ASR case it seems to me there was both incompetence and bias. Although being pointed several times to try optical connection to rule out some possible test issues, that test was strangely avoided (first agreed, and then some time later there was no Mojo anymore to test). And not to mention the odd excuses to endorse other dacs that measure worse by their own measurements.

I am not saying there are not issues with Mojo. Some people using USB report RF issues, with cell phones, etc. I only use it via optical from my desktop PC for 3 years now, and it was always absolute perfection.
An unbiased review should not focus only on one potential issue they may find, but test behind it as well.

 

[Progisus]

It still astounds me that a $7k machine requires after market $3k cables to come to it's potential. This points to it being built with inferior shielding or pre testing as the massive gains this fix requires could have been eliminated at the factory level. I would think that Rob would have known this and advised of the improvement to be gained through further shielding in the manual.

The use of after market cables for iems, headphones etc is to sculpt the sound, not fix a problem inherent in the design.

 

[Amberlamps]

I found very strange that statement of yours that your could hear no difference with or without mscaler in the chain. Not because I heard mscaler to test how good or bad it performs, but because of two other things you said in parallel:
1. You said you noticed an improvement till the blue light, but none from there to the white light.
2. You said you noticed a clear improvement when adding WAVE cables.
None of those two would be possible if there was no difference with or without mscaler in the chain.

Regarding the ASR thread, you should not believe everything you read, without further investigating. If you read further the thread, near the end, some new measurements from Korea come up that confirm Chord measurements. So two against one. But even if it were only Chord against some other single measurement, I would still believe Chord.
Even if a third party test is totally unbiased, who would you think is more likely to make an (unintentionally) test error?
Only if several measurements came out against Chord measurements, i would put Chord measurements in question.

In that ASR case it seems to me there was both incompetence and bias. Although being pointed several times to try optical connection to rule out some possible test issues, that test was strangely avoided (first agreed, and then some time later there was no Mojo anymore to test). And not to mention the odd excuses to endorse other dacs that measure worse by their own measurements.

I am not saying there are not issues with Mojo. Some people using USB report RF issues, with cell phones, etc. I only use it via optical from my desktop PC for 3 years now, and it was always absolute perfection.
An unbiased review should not focus only on one potential issue they may find, but test behind it as well.

What can I say except,



I was informed privately that ASR had dubious testing methods and a bias for a certain brand, topping, which was kinda obvious as the dude mentioned topping dacs in nearly every review/test that I read. But I took it as him just liking topping dacs because they measured good.

I love my mojo/poly setup regardless of ***any testing results*** Plus it looks very nice in it's leather van nuys case.

 

[Drewligarchy]

I am conducting an experiment - and wondering if anyone has insight into what's going on.

In testing ways to reduce RFI, I am connecting my Auralic Aries to M Scaler via optical and the M Scaler to Dave via Optical - so upscaling is turned off.

Pass through sounds significantly better than Dave alone. It doesn't have quite the focus or depth you do at 1 MM taps, but it has significantly more of both than Dave alone. I am A/B testing and it's obvious.

If I am just using passthrough, and not essentially using any additional taps - what processing is affecting the sound? Given an entirely optical path, RFI shouldn't necessarily be greater than Dave alone - given all other conditions are the same?

What processing is mscaler doing via passthrough alone?

 

[dmance]

@Drewligarchy
in pass-through mscaler is doing nothing to the bits except reclocking them. Are you 100% certain you are not upsampling to the Toslink max of 192/24?

 

[Drewligarchy]

Yes. This particular cable won't do 192 - I tried.

Could reclocking have this much of an audible effect? Maybe I have just been listening too long.

 

[Triode User]

I am conducting an experiment - and wondering if anyone has insight into what's going on.

In testing ways to reduce RFI, I am connecting my Auralic Aries to M Scaler via optical and the M Scaler to Dave via Optical - so upscaling is turned off.

Pass through sounds significantly better than Dave alone. It doesn't have quite the focus or depth you do at 1 MM taps, but it has significantly more of both than Dave alone. I am A/B testing and it's obvious.

If I am just using passthrough, and not essentially using any additional taps - what processing is affecting the sound? Given an entirely optical path, RFI shouldn't necessarily be greater than Dave alone - given all other conditions are the same?

What processing is mscaler doing via passthrough alone?

I agree that I think that pass through does not sound the same as Dave alone but I disagree with you in saying that it is better than Dave alone.

When I listen to pass through on the Mscaler going to Dave vs Dave alone (Mscaler disconnected and switched off) I much prefer Dave alone. Dave alone seemed to me to have a softer and preferable sound compared to pass through. That is just my 2p though.

 

[dmance]

Yes. This particular cable won't do 192 - I tried.

Could reclocking have this much of an audible effect? Maybe I have just been listening too long.

As you know, i continue to plead my case with whomever listens about the detrimental effects of RF from digital components. At today's level of technical advancement with Chord DACs, it's not jitter nor bit fidelity issues that produces the general sense of 'sounds better/worse' or 'less/more fatiguing' - its all to do with RF getting into the Dave's innards to upset the final 'analog' D/A process. Anything you do upstream of Dave varies the RF emissions spectrum via the signal, power or radiated. So changing sources, USB cables, power supplies, etc. just modifies the amount and frequency of energy that gets out and (incredulously) affects the Dave. I know, because a fully RF isolated Chord DAC (I have a TT2 and Hugo2) sounds amazingly analog-like yet retains all the mscaler goodness.

In your test case, Toslink is a 100% guarantee against RF in the signal path - so that's good. For no RF in the power path, mScaler (and all its metal conductive tentacles) needs to be isolated from Dave (and all its metal conductive tentacles). Note that what I am referring to is RF from digital components using the metal in power cables (and the short air gaps) to make it to your Dave. (This is not normal AC line noise which you need to deal with separately). My solution here for you is powering mscaler from a battery (there are lots of posts about what works here). Lastly, move you digital chain components as far as practical from your Dave. So get long lengths of Toslink to maximize the inverse square law for radiated RF.

All this should get you to the point where Auralic -> Dave via Toslink will sound exactly (pretty darn close) to Auralic -> mScaler-on-passthrough -> Dave via Toslink.

Dan

 

[Progisus]

Audiobacon noticed that the sound from passthru was different from direct connect. I was going to try the optical test as well as I think this rfi issue is either bogus or bad design by Chord in the mscaler producing massive rfi that has not been filtered out properly. Or there should have been a disclaimer. Or ferrited coax cords should have been provided. I actually feel misled in my purchase as there should have been a disclaimer.

 

[Ciggavelli]

This thread has got me rethinking buying a usb reclocker, as I did not know the m-scaler already performed re-clocking. I was going to buy the SOtM trifecta (usb reclocker, ethernet switch, network player). But, is it even worth it, if I already have an M-scaler going into my TT2? :hmm:

So, I guess my question is, will a reclocker add any benefit to sound quality coming from my M-Scaler/TT2 combo? Or, would a reclocker actually bypass the reclocking in the m-scaler, therefore lessening the sound quality?

 

[dmance]

This thread has got me rethinking buying a usb reclocker, as I did not know the m-scaler already performed re-clocking. I was going to buy the SOtM trifecta (usb reclocker, ethernet switch, network player). But, is it even worth it, if I already have an M-scaler going into my TT2? :hmm:

So, I guess my question is, will a reclocker add any benefit to sound quality coming from my M-Scaler/TT2 combo? Or, would a reclocker actually bypass the reclocking in the m-scaler, therefore lessening the sound quality?

mScaler reclocks all input samples to its own super-accurate clock ...which when sent via dual-coax to your TT2 will, itself, reclock those input samples to its own super-accurate clock. The answer for whether to spend money on yet another reclocker is self-evident.

 

[ZappaMan]

mScaler reclocks all input samples to its own super-accurate clock ...which when sent via dual-coax to your TT2 will, itself, reclock those input samples to its own super-accurate clock. The answer for whether to spend money on yet another reclocker is self-evident.

But what is being reclocked? And if I’m in a state of having been reclocked, what is left then to reclock.
Can you ever be 100% reclocked.