[dura]

Before the Touch I had a Classic; that clearly improved with another powersupply, even on digital out. I had the Russ Andrews Squeezepack.
However, on the Touch I could not hear any difference between the Squeezepack and the supplied PS, so I sold the Squeezepack. 
So I doubt if an upgraded PS voor the Touch is worth it.

 

[Audioexcels]

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Read John Darkos reviews at DigitalAudioReview before you go any further ...

After reading his reviews, I have discounted him as a solid resource.  He's good for enjoying the toys he gets in for review, but nothing more.  About the only good thing to say about him is that he doesn't write like some  Harvard Poet, drinking his 100K bottle of wine, and smoking Amsterdam weed while they spew out 1000 adjectives and lines that will put any regular person to sleep after a few sentences.

 

[Audioexcels]

Quote:

Before the Touch I had a Classic; that clearly improved with another powersupply, even on digital out. I had the Russ Andrews Squeezepack.
However, on the Touch I could not hear any difference between the Squeezepack and the supplied PS, so I sold the Squeezepack. 
So I doubt if an upgraded PS voor the Touch is worth it.

I have been discussing this with a person that they feel that the PS Klaus (Soundcheck) uses is indeed better than the regular pack, BUT, in "good enough" a/b testing, it wasn't so clear cut.  In other words, he guessed right about which was which only on a 60% basis, and what he heard is a "very subtle" darkening of the background (i.e. lower noise).  He did have the choice to send it back, but I think he chose not to because of both the inconvenience and the expense of having to ship it back.  This same person said the 3.0 Toolbox further darkened the background, but in this a/b testing, he could hear it 80% of the time...so the Toolbox mod did better in the a/b testing in terms of hearing improvements than did the power supply.  I think it would be interesting to see what his a/b is like putting the regular ps back in and seeing if he feels anything was lost or if he can even say which is which on a reliable enough a/b testing.
 

 

[LarsHP]

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After reading his reviews, I have discounted him as a solid resource. 

Why? In the next post you / Klaus (Soundcheck) seem to agree with John Darko, that a PS upgrade on the Squeezebox TOUCH is difficult to hear.
 
 

 

[LarsHP]

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I have used the RA Squeezepack and yes it is very hard to tell a difference in sound, its there but very very faint.
 
On the other hand power supplies like the one from CIA make a big difference in sound, its impossible to miss the change in sound...much more punch and everything is way more alive.

Interesting. And you are of course talking improvements on the Touch, not other SB's?
 
 

 

[LarsHP]

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Yes the Squeezebox Touch

Indeed interesting, because the consensus seems to be that with the Touch there is not much improvement (at least digital out), but older SB's has benefited more clearly from a linear PS upgrade.

 

[LarsHP]

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Originally Posted by fathead /img/forum/go_quote.gif
This is what I have tried so far.
 
CIA power supply  - clear improvement
Valab power supply - clear improvement
RA power supply - slight improvement almost none
Parts Express Linear / Regulated Power supply [adjustable voltage] - worse
 
The gains or improvements come in the same order as seen above with the RA being very faint to none and the Parts Express actually making it sound worse.
 
I also have a regular SB3 but this is about the SB-Touch.

And the improvements you experience is digital out (also)?

 

[Audioexcels]

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Why? In the next post you / Klaus (Soundcheck) seem to agree with John Darko, that a PS upgrade on the Squeezebox TOUCH is difficult to hear.
 
 

Sorry about that Lars.  I was meaning that Darko doesn't feel the Touch is up to the level of anything USB like Audiophilleo/Jkeny stuff/etc.  I just received an Audiophellio today just to hear and send it back.  I never had the Touch around long enough to truly say how it was by comparison, but even streaming radio sounded better IMHO)  Ok, really, it did))
 
They say to break in the Audiophilleo for like 500 hours or some rubbish.  I don't believe in break-in.  Put it like this.  It may or may not be real, but I need a recording of the music when that device was first inserted along with a recording when the device has broken in.  Then I can listen to that recording 10 times not knowing which I am listening to, and I must pick the correct one 10 times or there is no such thing as burn in.  But how one can setup a recorded song when a device is first inserted, then do the same once it has "burned in" is something I do not know about???
 
I can put it this way...having heard a few transports now, they each have their own sound...but...it's not like they extract more musical information or they do things that I have not already heard.  People promoting these devices claim that the transport is more important than the dac...old school of thought is that the dac is what is most important and if you have a good dac, transport should sound no different between one and the other...maybe subtle differences as I explain, but otherwise, alike.  I can say this about the Audiophilleo vs. just my dvd player's coax out...Coltrane's sax does not sound real, nor is the grand sound stage of him and the rest of his band existing with Audiophilleo.  Even with a synthesized voice from this electronic song, Audiophilleo makes it sound "very electronic", as if it's not even a real voice going through an electronic machine, but just a robot/electronic sound.  DVD transport distinguishes that sound as a voice being processed through a digitizing effect rather than the entire voice being digital/robot like.
 
I don't want to say the Audiophilleo is bad, nor do I want to say the same about Hiface, but they both seem to do something wrong to my ears.  I'm still trying to understand what exactly it is about these devices that others seem to be hearing otherwise.  Maybe with the rest of their equipment either not very revealing, poor dac to begin with, poor gain structure so the computer's volume can help crank some gain into the system, or everything else in the system is or has been USB based...I dunno???

 

[korzena]

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Sorry about that Lars.  I was meaning that Darko doesn't feel the Touch is up to the level of anything USB like Audiophilleo/Jkeny stuff/etc.  I just received an Audiophellio today just to hear and send it back.  I never had the Touch around long enough to truly say how it was by comparison, but even streaming radio sounded better IMHO)  Ok, really, it did))
 
They say to break in the Audiophilleo for like 500 hours or some rubbish.  I don't believe in break-in.  

I have completely different experience with my Jkeny HiFace MK3. I share the same positive impressions of it with John Darko.
Before I used Squeezebox Touch (digital out-->external DAC) and was moderately satisfied as I've always felt I am missing something (especially depth and dynamics).
After reading many good reviews, I decide to get the HiFace. This little device made everything sound better in my system! The overall sound quality, dynamics, more lively, more depth, more body, more analog sound - just amazing!
This is what HiFace introduced to my system. Maybe this is system dependent thing. The difference the HiFace made was big!
 
 
 

 

[dura]

I don't know about the USB-coax thing, using a Squeezebox Touch (which, btw can be used to put computer audio into coax/toslink) but there is a weird systemdependency between transport, coax cable and dac.
I used to have a Touch into an Audio-GD Ref5 dac and when I used a Oyaide 510 cable the sound was clearly better then with a simple but good Canare digiflex gold. When I switched to the Rega DAC I own now it was the other way around, the digiflex beat the nowadays 8x times as expensive Oyaide on all fronts.
I couldn't understand it, thinking difference between coax cables was only about jitter and noise. Since both cables seems well-designed and well-shielded they should sound the same, yet they didn't.
Then I read about impedance match; without pretending to understand anything about it, transport digital out, cable and digital in on the dac aside should have the same 75 ohm impedance, otherwise impedance mismatch can occur, giving the impression transports or cables sound significantly different.
Real measured impedance of these components seem to vary I read.
What impedance mismatch actually does I do not know, judging by ear it ads jitter, since the oyaide gave a duller sound with less detail and dynamics, classic jitter symptoms IMO.
Anyway, systemdependency is real and can give a wrong impression about a cable or transport or dac.

 

[Audioexcels]

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I have completely different experience with my Jkeny HiFace MK3. I share the same positive impressions of it with John Darko.
Before I used Squeezebox Touch (digital out-->external DAC) and was moderately satisfied as I've always felt I am missing something (especially depth and dynamics).
After reading many good reviews, I decide to get the HiFace. This little device made everything sound better in my system! The overall sound quality, dynamics, more lively, more depth, more body, more analog sound - just amazing!
This is what HiFace introduced to my system. Maybe this is system dependent thing. The difference the HiFace made was big!
 
 
 

Stock you purchased first or you went with the MKIII?  I have only tried the stock and imagine the MKIII to be much better.  Let me know if what you are describing above is the stock or the MKIII version.

Regards!
 

 

[Audioexcels]

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What impedance mismatch actually does I do not know, judging by ear it ads jitter, since the oyaide gave a duller sound with less detail and dynamics, classic jitter symptoms IMO.
Anyway, systemdependency is real and can give a wrong impression about a cable or transport or dac.

Definitely agree.  I had what a person gave me and was/is said to be a great coaxial cable.  I found another cable in my drawer that I just had sitting around, tossed it in, and sound was vastly superior.  Like you, I have zero explanation for it, but I would be curious if this holds true for the rest of the digital devices I have around.  I should definitely swap the cables and see if the one just happens to be superior regardless or if the other beats it out in certain cases.
 
I think the most important aspect of all things is the dac.  I can only theorize that dealing with USB issues is helpful because one can theorize about the noise coming out of the USB source/motherboard/etc.  So my theory is that the trend with people loving USB stuff is that they get a hot source (even John's so called no draw off USB is supplied with a 20db attenuator which he claims works best with the unit, but it tells me it's drawing and has signal involved in it), it gives more signal to the system, this signal can be controlled with attenuators, then preamp, etc.  At least in my current, but not much longer to be weaker gain system, these USB devices definitely can pump some nice gain and it can easily lead to a false impression of greater dynamics/detail/etc. etc.  But it is in the upper registers and not the bass that I hear this pinch more of dynamics.
 
I live very close to Empirical Audio, so I will be taking my pre-dac out there soon to see what we can do for a transport and to see just how it does vs. hooking it to one of his nice standalone machines I'm sure he has around.  I consider Empirical to have the very best USB to dac-computer transport solution available w/exception of the highest end gear that Empirical can still match since it has its own USB based dac (mega money).  I'm sure after hearing what my pre-dac does in this environment, it will enable me to truly understand and know that there can be great, subtle, not much of any improvement.  Though this will be in his system, it still does have merits of proof that would show up in my system since I can hear what works and more importantly, how/why/what exactly is going on, etc.

 

[korzena]

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Stock you purchased first or you went with the MKIII?  I have only tried the stock and imagine the MKIII to be much better.  Let me know if what you are describing above is the stock or the MKIII version.
 
 

My first and only HiFace is MKIII. I've never listened to previous versions so unfortunately I cannot give you a comparison. 
 

 

[korzena]

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Definitely agree.  I had what a person gave me and was/is said to be a great coaxial cable.  I found another cable in my drawer that I just had sitting around, tossed it in, and sound was vastly superior.  Like you, I have zero explanation for it, but I would be curious if this holds true for the rest of the digital devices I have around.  I should definitely swap the cables and see if the one just happens to be superior regardless or if the other beats it out in certain cases.
 

To start with, all components in audio chain should be of a decent quality. Then the fun begins when one searches for synergy between the components as well as them and cables. Not an easy task as everything impacts the sound. It sometimes takes quite a lot of testing. Sometime if one is lucky enough and one can find a good recommendation from someone on the forum who's gone the way with the similar components. But here, it is also not 100% proof as different people hear differently

 

[Audioexcels]

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My first and only HiFace is MKIII. I've never listened to previous versions so unfortunately I cannot give you a comparison. 
 

Ahhh, gotcha!  For a moment I was thinking you felt this way about the stock Hi-Face, but now that you say the MKIII, that would make more sense!  One thing that I'd like people to do is put the USB device on an equal playing field to the Touch or any other device by using attenuators so the final signal is exactly the same or equal enough because all of these USB devices have very hot signal whereas a device like the Squeezebox has fixed signal, similar to using a standalone platter...so you are stuck with the fixed signal which for many, may not be good enough in their system.