[Nick Dangerous]

Steve Nugent (of www.empiricalaudio.com) recently installed a USB port in the back of my Meridian 566.24 DAC. After hearing the praises of USB audio circulating around the internet, I had to give it a try. One of the three coaxial inputs was replaced with a USB (type B) connector. Total cost was about $500 including the upgrade of the bridge rectifier and AC output caps.

Result? AWESOME. This was one of the top 3 improvements I've ever made to my system. The difference was immediately noticeable & enjoyable "across the board". Everything got better, nothing was sacrificed. Rare indeed for an upgrade to accomplish that!

Forget exotic CD transports (or any CD transports for that matter). PC audio is the way to go for best quality and convenience.

I'm still experimenting with drivers and whatnot so my final software configuration is subject to change. Right now, I'm using the M-Audio USB-Transit driver (the USB/SP-DIF converter uses it), Foobar2000, EAC, and the ASIO4ALL driver. Haven't decided to go with FLAC yet, but I might. All audio is uncompressed WAV at present.

Recommended? Heck yeah. Get in line ASAP.

 

[NotoriousBIG_PJ]

So you are saying a good soundcard->dac is worse then usb->dac?

Biggie.

 

[MichaelFranks]

This is confusing, why the transit driver?

Meridian should go right into the computer, then rca/analog out into the amplifier, correct?

 

[NeilPeart]

Why would you use ASIO4ALL when the Transit has native ASIO 2.0? Also, why install a USB port on the DAC? Just use the Transit as the transport and connect to the DAC via optical (instead of coaxial digital to bypass the PC's power supply). I'm confused...

Example system:

USB Port->USB Cable->M-Audio Transit->Optical Output->Glass Optical->DAC's Optical Input

I don't understand why you installed a USB interface onto the DAC itself?

 

[VitaminJosh]

I always thought there would be more jitter involved if you put a USB component in a DAC and ran it that way from your PC USB bus, versus just a lightpipe or standard RCA interconnect....?

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NeilPeart why install a USB port on the DAC? Just use the Transit as the transport and connect to the DAC via optical (instead of coaxial digital to bypass the PC's power supply).:

Steve talks about it here:

http://www4.head-fi.org/forums/showt...hlight=usb+dac

...evidently, he's able to bypass the DACs receiver chip (as well as two jitter-inducing spdif connectors) by adding a usb port directly to the dac.

Probably a good way to go if you have a DAC you really like and want PC audio. Unclear at this point if this is a better solution to the "jitter hobgoblin" than using a jitter-resistant DAC (like the Benchmark) or a reclocker (like the LC Audio or TentLabs units).

It'd be very, very interesting to directly compare units utilizing these three solutions.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I think it's to have as few conversions as possible. Doing it the empirical audio way eliminates an interface between the transit and the dac.

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo I think it's to have as few conversions as possible. Doing it the empirical audio way eliminates an interface between the transit and the dac.

Specifically, it eliminates the s/pdif interface, a well-known source of jitter.

 

[00940]

well typically, adding a transit would make the path like that :

usb data - usb receiver - spdif data - coax receiver - i2s data - dac

here it can be :

usb data - usb receiver - i2s data - dac

using the PCM2707 which can output I2s

 

[loveheadphones]

i've been thinking about this for awhile (a couple months or so), and i think it might be better to do the usb mod to a monarchy DIP so that you can swap DACs whenever you want. but I don't know if I'm ready to drop the cash. good luck to whoever tries this (btw, I would assume since you use the sonica drivers you should have no problem with lossy encoded files... they'll just sound the best they can sound theoretically)
I'm looking forward to reading additional impressions!

 

[clarke68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by loveheadphones i think it might be better to do the usb mod to a monarchy DIP so that you can swap DACs whenever you want.

Yeah, I too like the flexibility of "DAC rolling", but this still doesn't address the fundamental problem with outboard jitter-reduction units: you still have to convert the signal back to s/pdif, which is the source of the most audible form of jitter.

Units like the DIP may have less jitter going out of them then they had going into them, but what matters is the amount of jitter at the DAC chip. The only real way to deal with jitter, as long as we're stuck with s/pdif, is in the DAC itself.

 

[loveheadphones]

yeah i was concerned about that as well - empirical has a whole suite of mods where they optimize the DIP itself - to avoid jitter re-introduction and other stuff

 

[Nick Dangerous]

"So you are saying a good soundcard->dac is worse then usb->dac?"

In my experience, yes. I have a M-Audio Delta Dio 24/96 which outputs coax and optical. I did a 3-way comparison since my DAC takes all three inputs: USB, coax, optical. Result? USB was noticeably better than the other two.

I'm selling my sound card.

"I don't understand why you installed a USB interface onto the DAC itself?"

The quality of the SP/DIF cable no longer matters (since there isn't one)... nor the problems with creating jitter due to using a SP/DIF cable shorter than 1.5m. Best of all, no sound card or external devices required.

Pardon me, I'm off to listen to some music...

 

[raif]

I am thinking about making myself a ppa and picking up an AOS made DAC. Will this guy add the usb option to a DIY product? I would think that this would also eliminate the need for any sheet metal work and might lower the cost a bit.

 

[xantus]

my only response to this is:

my computer makes more noise than my marantz

but i'm a college student with no time, and with 8 hard drives, a silent PC is kind of an excersize in futility.