upstateguy
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2004
- Posts
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I want retract my rant on the Constantine USB DAC!
When I first compared the USB implementation of the Constantine to the optical what I thought I heard was a bright, less robust sound and a thin bass.
I said:
“So here I am, with a Constantine USB DAC connected optically to my Shuttle and I decide to check out the USB connection.
Wow,
lousy,
what a bummer!
Can't use it that way.
Apparently the USB circuit is inferior to the optical. Why would they even bother to do that? Just to say that they had a USB connection on their DAC? How much more could it possibly cost to get the USB quality up to the optical?"
And then I went on to say:
"It sounds like they used a cheap chip for the USB implementation. The USB sound is thin and the bass is a fraction of what it is via optical, so USB is not the way to get the most out of a Constantine....”
Well, I was wrong!
I recently needed a laptop set up in another room and since I replaced the Constantine USB with a Stello DA100 (and it was sitting around doing nothing), the Constantine was drafted for the job. I downloaded the latest ASIO4ALL and fired it up. Well, it was not as good as the Stello I had become used to, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I originally thought it was.
The Constantine’s USB circuit produces a clearer, cleaner sound, (as long as your source material is up to it), than the optical, which definitely has more bass and body, but it's muddier. Maybe this muddiness is jitter? If I really wanted to be picky, I might say that optical sounds like this gif looks compared to USB.
I fired up “Comfortably Numb” and Nora Jones’ “Sinkin’ Soon” (in FLAC), and started to compare the differences between optical and USB. There was no doubt that the USB bass, although seemingly attenuated when compared to optical, was in reality, much more defined and articulated and the vocals had several layers removed, compared to optical rendition. Still, it was bright from my 8065 M^3 and my ’03 880’s, and a little less so with my Cetron 7236 Woo3, which has more body, a little better tone and is a little less crisp than the 8065 chip'd M^3. This is not necessarily a bad thing because where the 8065 M^3 can pick up a tiny bit of sibilance, the Woo3 doesn’t. But, they are very close to sounding the same. Amazing tube amp, that Woo3, sounds like an M^3 solid state. And not to take anything away from AMB’s solid state M^3, that sounds very much like a Woo tube amp.
Another interesting song on Nora Jones’ album, “Not too Late” is “Broken.” It has some very good string bass decay that can be used for comparing implementations.
So how come I just noticed this? Maybe it was the new version of ASIO4ALL that made the difference. Maybe it was the new version of Foobar? Maybe it was getting used to the clarity of the USB Stello and then listening to the Constantine again? Maybe it was the volume difference that made the louder optical implementation seem better? Or maybe it was the synergy between my DIY computer, K701s, GS-1 and Stello DA100 that gave me a new reference level. What ever it is, the one thing that seems to be getting clearer all the time is that USB is going to be the way to get the 1's and 0's off the hard drive.
So for the record, the Constantine USB is not perfect, it is clean, clear and bright, but, it takes no prisoners and will reveal every flaw in a recording, and..... it is better than I thought.
USG
Update 5-9-10:
I officially want to post a retraction to my retraction. (see below)
When I first compared the USB implementation of the Constantine to the optical what I thought I heard was a bright, less robust sound and a thin bass.
I said:
“So here I am, with a Constantine USB DAC connected optically to my Shuttle and I decide to check out the USB connection.
Wow,
lousy,
what a bummer!
Can't use it that way.
Apparently the USB circuit is inferior to the optical. Why would they even bother to do that? Just to say that they had a USB connection on their DAC? How much more could it possibly cost to get the USB quality up to the optical?"
And then I went on to say:
"It sounds like they used a cheap chip for the USB implementation. The USB sound is thin and the bass is a fraction of what it is via optical, so USB is not the way to get the most out of a Constantine....”
Well, I was wrong!
I recently needed a laptop set up in another room and since I replaced the Constantine USB with a Stello DA100 (and it was sitting around doing nothing), the Constantine was drafted for the job. I downloaded the latest ASIO4ALL and fired it up. Well, it was not as good as the Stello I had become used to, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I originally thought it was.
The Constantine’s USB circuit produces a clearer, cleaner sound, (as long as your source material is up to it), than the optical, which definitely has more bass and body, but it's muddier. Maybe this muddiness is jitter? If I really wanted to be picky, I might say that optical sounds like this gif looks compared to USB.
I fired up “Comfortably Numb” and Nora Jones’ “Sinkin’ Soon” (in FLAC), and started to compare the differences between optical and USB. There was no doubt that the USB bass, although seemingly attenuated when compared to optical, was in reality, much more defined and articulated and the vocals had several layers removed, compared to optical rendition. Still, it was bright from my 8065 M^3 and my ’03 880’s, and a little less so with my Cetron 7236 Woo3, which has more body, a little better tone and is a little less crisp than the 8065 chip'd M^3. This is not necessarily a bad thing because where the 8065 M^3 can pick up a tiny bit of sibilance, the Woo3 doesn’t. But, they are very close to sounding the same. Amazing tube amp, that Woo3, sounds like an M^3 solid state. And not to take anything away from AMB’s solid state M^3, that sounds very much like a Woo tube amp.
Another interesting song on Nora Jones’ album, “Not too Late” is “Broken.” It has some very good string bass decay that can be used for comparing implementations.
So how come I just noticed this? Maybe it was the new version of ASIO4ALL that made the difference. Maybe it was the new version of Foobar? Maybe it was getting used to the clarity of the USB Stello and then listening to the Constantine again? Maybe it was the volume difference that made the louder optical implementation seem better? Or maybe it was the synergy between my DIY computer, K701s, GS-1 and Stello DA100 that gave me a new reference level. What ever it is, the one thing that seems to be getting clearer all the time is that USB is going to be the way to get the 1's and 0's off the hard drive.
So for the record, the Constantine USB is not perfect, it is clean, clear and bright, but, it takes no prisoners and will reveal every flaw in a recording, and..... it is better than I thought.
USG
Update 5-9-10:
I officially want to post a retraction to my retraction. (see below)
)
