[desik]

   
@desik No need to apologize for correcting me. My ego isn't particularly fragile to begin with, and I like being corrected when I'm wrong, so thank you.
 
#2 first: Cables are analog. I'll grant you that there is a difference between application (analog vs. digital) but "no knowledge of materials making a difference"? Let's agree to disagree. I trust my ears, you trust yours, others trust others. End of story, and I'll spread whatever heretical experience I experience while being willing to be corrected as I stated. So I'll read your links but I trust my ears. Oh, and yes the connectors: the point of BNC for me was to ensure I got the intended 75 ohm electrical value that that input specifies. RCA is supposedly much more difficult to "get right." You know, I'm not an electrician or EE, and I don't play one on t.v., so I have to trust my ears. But thanks for posting the links; I'll review.
 
#1. Maybe I'm confused here, but I seem to recall that the experts I was reading suggested impedance (again, the main reason along with silver that I was trying BNC to begin with) was better at shorter lengths. Whatever, I don't need 6 meters of cable and I don't care if it's 0.7m or 1.0m because in the end, it's just sound that makes me happy. My attempts to interest others in MUSIC played thru simply GOOD audio gear have largely met with what's known as good enough syndrome (i.e., the reason VHS beat out Betamax). Regardless, my cable fits my system and I wanted to share how great things sound now ("end-game" good, in fact) with these affordable products/tweaks/cables as @Pharmaboy points out.
 
Cheers, Desik.

#2. Materials. I suspect in your case switching to BNC made the improvement, not the silver.
#1. Length. Longer cable being better is counter-intuitive, totally agree. The reason why it's better is because long length counter-acts negative effect of reflections when impedance is not matched perfectly. And it's never matched perfectly. This is only a problem for digital cables.
 
I did not listen to any cables myself yet. My DAC-19 will arrive in a few days. Just gathering the info on-line to build the most well-rounded setup.

 

[desik]

  A shootout is a good idea (24/192 V-Link vs Singxer SU-1, all else being the same). I'll try to do that when the time comes. Not sure how many out there have V-Links like mine, but probably fewer have Singxer SU-1's than the other/older SPDIF converters, so maybe that comparison will be of iinterest.
 
Your question--"Wouldn't you get more for same $200 for a better SPDIF transport or better amp?"--is good one. Logical & rational. But reality isn't always linear. When I got that cable, to me it was "end-game." I'd never heard of the Singxer boxes then, or the Supra USB 2.0, or any of the potential SPDIF upgrades I've become aware of since. I thought that was it...
 
(oh, well!)

I have no doubt of what the result will be for "24/192 V-Link vs Singxer SU-1, all else being the same". Net has have plenty of shoot-outs for transports. It would be most interesting to compare several combinations of cable+transport. Like BJ+V-Link, BJ+Singxer, Oyaide+V-Link etc, and make a ranking of them. I couldn't find any such comparison online. This way we can figure out what made a bigger improvement - the cable or the transport.

 

[Riffle]

I downloaded the rar file showing the ground wire move on the amanero board. The problem is my 10th anniversay DAC 19 amanero board wire connections are not soldered anything like the picture. Is this mod for older DAC 19's and is it already corrected in my 10 month old DAC?

 

[feelingears]

Try asking Kingwa directly at the email on their site.

 

[lenroot77]

Just checking if anyone has an extra knob for the input selector on their Dac 19?

 

[Riffle]

Kingwa helped me with the .rar image and as I had no wire connected to "Mute" I did not need any hardware mods or re-soldering. As fo the DSP upgrade it went off without a hitch and took all of 3 minutes. I listenened last night to the standard 8x OS, PLL enabled and DITH enabled setup. I have to say the V7 is an excellent upgrade. The clarity, soundstage width and depth is improved over the old version through my speaker setup. I am trying NOS with PLL disabled right now. Thanks Kingwa!

 

[feelingears]

Any chance you can share how you got the DSP upgrade installed?

 

[Riffle]

Any chance you can share how you got the DSP upgrade installed?

Bought this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/401158753382?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Installed the free version of Quartus II 12.1 from the Altera website

Installed free Teamviewer 11

Registered above software for free

Made an appointment and followed the directions on the Audio-gd website

 

[feelingears]

I have that unit too. I was hoping to avoid Audio-GD's site. The instructions make me worry I'm going to brick my DAC.

Thanks.

 

[stjj89]

Found the instructions at:
 
http://www.audio-gd.com/Master/Master-7_384/DSPupdataEN.htm
 
Looks like the only way to get the update is to install some untrusted software on your machine, then let an unknown person from China remotely access it to install the update. That's better than paying to ship the DAC-19 back to China, but I'm probably going to try to do this in a virtual machine or something to contain the security risk.

 

[lenroot77]

Have to sell my Dac 19 if anyone is looking. It has the amonero upgrade as well as dual RCA output. My classified can be viewed from my profile.

 

[EricGC]

Good to know SU-1 works with DAC-19 on HDMI-I2S. Can I assume NOS-19 should work the same?
 
Also why did you pick DAC-19 over NOS-19? NOS-19 is a little expensive and should sound a little better too?
 
Eric
 
 
Quote:

   
1. I have not yet done any critical listening to compare HDMI vs Coax fully. I do have both plugged in and have verified that the SU-1 sends out signal on both so it's very easy to A/B them live by turning the input dial on the Dac 19 back and forth in realtime. Once back tomorrow and things are burnt in I will follow up with an update.
 
2. Yes, the SU-1 works out of the box with the Dac 19. The SU-1 has dip switches for HDMI pinouts but the only one of consequence is switch 6 for phase/channel inversion. I tried it and sure enough the channels were backwards ... except that:
 
3. for some reason, 24/176 material plays with channels inverted! All other resolutions including 24/192, 24/96, 24/88, redbook, etc are ok. And once 24/176 inverts the channels, they stay like this on red book until you force it back with a piece of 24/96 or 24/192. So for now, I am avoiding my very few pieces of 24/176 tracks that I have. Of course, one could get up and flip the above mentioned dip switch if you wanted, and one might even care that much if channels are flipped.
 
I don't know if the 24/176 thing is an issue with the SU-1 or the Dac 19 - I am going to try some tests this week to try and identify the cause. I think that if I power off/on each of the two pieces in the chain after playing a 24/176 piece and before a red book piece, I should be able to identify it.

 

[intrepidcase]

 

Yes, I would assume that the NOS-19 works the same as the DAC-19 in terms of interfaces. I2S should work fine.
 
The issue with 24/176 only happens with certain tracks/triggers. I don't really understand the cause entirely yet. And I2S sounds better than SPDIF - just a little better in the bass and overall clarity, soundstage.
 
Why did I get the DAC-19 over NOS-19? Because I was not sure that I wanted no oversampling. Not sure why there is a presumption that NOS is better than some oversampling other than purists wanting the data to be as unprocessed as possible. So I got the DAC-19 and thought I would try the NOS oversampling jumpers to see if like a sound with less oversampling. 8x is default, and I tried 4x and 2x. Didn't try pure NOS of course as that has issues on the DAC-19 with the master clock. But I decided that if I like 2x oversampling a lot then I might do the wiring upgrade to the NOS-19 model myself.
 
However, I got the same results as feelingears in post #1608 a couple of weeks ago - less oversampling/closer to NOS makes the sound "warmer" and "fuller" but at the loss of clarity, etc. It became muddier. I went back to 8x oversampling. But I also found that the PLL bypass helped a bit - in my case, the SU-1 in front of the DAC-19 helps with that. 
 
So I am glad I did not get the NOS-19 instead of the DAC-19. I think it's up to each person - there is a *trade-off* and the NOS-19 is *not* better, but different. If you want really gooey, warm, full sound you may like it but you will pay a price.
 
Now I am excited to try the DSP upgrade to v7.
 
Hope that helps!

 

[manishex]

Does anyone know where I can get more Jumpers? Or alternatives.

 

[EricGC]

Interesting... I wonder if there is anyone heard both and can compare them. From what I read from this forum, NOS 19 should sound better than DAC19 running in NOS mode.
 
Is the wire upgrade to NOS 19 easy to do? There is $80 difference between the 2 models, it seems the upgrade requires new parts.
 
 
Quote:

 
Yes, I would assume that the NOS-19 works the same as the DAC-19 in terms of interfaces. I2S should work fine.
 
The issue with 24/176 only happens with certain tracks/triggers. I don't really understand the cause entirely yet. And I2S sounds better than SPDIF - just a little better in the bass and overall clarity, soundstage.
 
Why did I get the DAC-19 over NOS-19? Because I was not sure that I wanted no oversampling. Not sure why there is a presumption that NOS is better than some oversampling other than purists wanting the data to be as unprocessed as possible. So I got the DAC-19 and thought I would try the NOS oversampling jumpers to see if like a sound with less oversampling. 8x is default, and I tried 4x and 2x. Didn't try pure NOS of course as that has issues on the DAC-19 with the master clock. But I decided that if I like 2x oversampling a lot then I might do the wiring upgrade to the NOS-19 model myself.
 
However, I got the same results as feelingears in post #1608 a couple of weeks ago - less oversampling/closer to NOS makes the sound "warmer" and "fuller" but at the loss of clarity, etc. It became muddier. I went back to 8x oversampling. But I also found that the PLL bypass helped a bit - in my case, the SU-1 in front of the DAC-19 helps with that. 
 
So I am glad I did not get the NOS-19 instead of the DAC-19. I think it's up to each person - there is a *trade-off* and the NOS-19 is *not* better, but different. If you want really gooey, warm, full sound you may like it but you will pay a price.
 
Now I am excited to try the DSP upgrade to v7.
 
Hope that helps!