[SunByrne]

OK, so I've had one of these for a while and I figured it was time for a little review. Probably not long enough or thorough enough to rate a sticky, but it might be useful to some:

http://byrneweb.com/sunburn/audio/yamahadpu50.html

Feedback welcome!

 

[Edwood]

Nice review.

Why not post it here?

-Ed

P.S. I spy the same Canoscan that I have. Heheh, where's Waldo in that pic?

 

[ampgalore]

Great review!

What software are you using with the Mac? You are not missing much in terms of Yamaha's software.

 

[SunByrne]

Thanks.

I didn't post it here directly because it's a lot easier for me to generate HTML than the vBulletin markup--better tools.

As for software, Mac OS X just recognizes it as a generic USB audio device, and pretty much anything works with it, but there are no device-specific controls available. So, I mostly just use iTunes for playback. For recording, I've tried Sound Studio, CD Spin Doctor, and Audio Hijack. Each one is good for different things.

As for Waldo, I thought he retired to a private island in the South Pacific on all those book royalties...

 

[3lusiv3]

The DP-U50 was on my shortlist for use as an external DAC but after realising how big it is I've crossed it off the list. It seems like a pretty good device though.

 

[jhenderson010759]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunByrne OK, so I've had one of these for a while and I figured it was time for a little review. Probably not long enough or thorough enough to rate a sticky, but it might be useful to some: http://byrneweb.com/sunburn/audio/yamahadpu50.html Feedback welcome!

Did you ever run RMAA digital loopthru tests on the DP-U50? I am interested in discovering whether it's capable of bit-perfect delivery of digital data to my headphone amp.

 

[go_vtec]

Nice review. Wow, you got lots of equipment in very small space

 

[dsavitsk]

Not to pick nits, but can I ask why you would watch video on a low resolution tv when you have two nice hi-rez LCD screens?

-d

 

[insomniac]

How does the U50 compare as a DAC to mid-priced sound cards out there like the M-Audio Revolution?

 

[jhenderson010759]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhenderson010759 Did you ever run RMAA digital loopthru tests on the DP-U50? I am interested in discovering whether it's capable of bit-perfect delivery of digital data to my headphone amp.

As a follow-up to my own message, I ran the RMAA loopback on the DP-U50 configured in 2-channel stereo mode. The results indicated bit-perfect data transport via USB 1.x for 44.1 and 48 kHz sample rates. However, operation at 96 kHz was imperfect. I reason that this is the result of insufficient USB bandwidth: 24 bit stereo data (packed as 3-bytes), sampled at 96 kHz operating bidirectionally (loopback=record+play) equates to 9.216 Mb/sec. This exceeds the best-case usable USB 1.x bandwidth, as outlined below:

This also corresponds to the achievable bandwidth that I've been able to coerce from the USB drivers that I have developed for Innovative Integration's DSP boards.

So, it seems that the DP-U50 is suitable as a bidirectional lossless TOSLink digital transport at sample rates of 48 kHz and below, only. However, unidirectional (i.e. playback) operation at 96 kHz, 24-bit should be fine as should unidirectional or bidirectional 16-bit operation at all speeds up to 96 kHz.