Musical Fidelity V-LINK USB SPDIF

[WarrenR]

Has anyone tried this with the Dacmagic??
 
Any thoughts?
 
Cheers.

 

[grokit]

 
Quote:

I have discovered some oddities lately. I was re-arranging my ‘office’ at home and moved my gear. Now it’s closer to my desktop computer than where my laptop sits so I plugged it into the desktop for the heck of it. It got better. My initial belief is that the usb ports on my laptop are underpowered. It made a difference which actual port I used on the laptop. I sometimes heard some low level crud when I played music at 24/96. I would sometimes get dropouts. On my desktop, I can hear no difference if I use the usb galvanic isolator dongle (both data and power lines). Switching cables seems to make no difference. No problems. All is well in musicland. I am going to buy a powered usb hub for the laptop and see if it makes a difference.
 
In the meantime, I cannot tell if it’s the asynch or coax instead of usb in my dac, but the v-link has made a nice improvement. Ideally, I would have a one box dac with asych (to i2s) and galvanic isolation built-in, but where’s the fun in that? Waiting for perfection isn’t really Head-Fi-ish is it?

 
Quote:

 
Thanks for the report. I look forward to what the powered hub does. Which one are you getting?

 
I am interested as well, because I don't think it's a power issue, but rather a power filtering issue. It makes sense that there would be noisier power on a laptop than on a desktop. Have you compared running the laptop off the battery only to when it is plugged in to AC power?

 

[Justin Uthadude]

I have a usb dongle to isolate the data lines and power line, and it doesn't seem to make a difference. I've tried with battery and without; also not a repeatable change. A possibility is the fact that I've tweaked and gutted the O/S to disable most services except basic i/o, but I'm not motivated to re-install windows. First I'll try a powered hub. Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations on a specific make/model?

 

 

[grokit]

I've had good luck with this one so far:
 
http://www.amazon.com/Medialink-4-Port-Powered-External-Supply/dp/B0038YGQTO/ref=sr_1_34?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1303566998&sr=1-34

 

[is2us]

I hate to see this thread getting so quite...
Any serious comparison between the VLink and AudioGD DI on the way from any of you guys?

 

[wushuliu]

I just got an Audio-GD DI this past weekend. I tried out the V-link briefly a couple weeks ago. Unless the V-link does a lot of break-in over time, I thought the DI was better hands down from the first note. Not to say the V-link performed badly, sounded fine. But paying the same for a DI is a no-brainer. 

 

[pasgod]

The review of the V-Link by Stereophile is now available on line
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif-converter-0

 

[Justin Uthadude]

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.....hands down from the first note.......

 
 

 

[is2us]

Quote:

Quote:

.....hands down from the first note.......

 

 
Got It! Mail order from China it is. Thanks.
 
 

 

[WarrenR]

Quote:

The review of the V-Link by Stereophile is now available on line
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif-converter-0

Interesting.  I'm seriously considering the V-Link now.
 
For £89 its a no brainer.
 

 

[Nada]

Has anyone tried running the v-link on a battery supply via a modded USB cable?

 

[shadowlord]

not much to see in the unit.
sounds good though....

 

[shabta]

v-link just arrived! Putting it through the paces, both headphones and speakers. Set up took like all of two minutes.
 
 

 

[Justin Uthadude]

Sweet. Let us know what you think.

 

 

[WNBC]

I agree with wushuliu, I had both and attached to a PS Audio DLIII.  The V-link was no slouch, definitely better than the Hiface I owned earlier on.  The DI + PSU just seemed to open up the soundstage a bit and the mids were punchier.  It was obvious which one was better in my system.  In your system one may sound better.  Also, the V-link has an optical out and the DI doesn't, that may be important to some.  So, given the price, if I had to choose one it would be the DI but if you wanted something immediately that is going to sound pretty good I can recommend the V-link.  The DI popped up on the for sale forum after I bought the V-link.  I was happy with the V-link, the DI was the only other one I wanted to try in the <$200 USB to S/PDIF converters.   
 
 
Quote:

I just got an Audio-GD DI this past weekend. I tried out the V-link briefly a couple weeks ago. Unless the V-link does a lot of break-in over time, I thought the DI was better hands down from the first note. Not to say the V-link performed badly, sounded fine. But paying the same for a DI is a no-brainer.