[RCBinTN]

Whatever......just so we are clear there is no technical reason not to put that Singxer F-1 in a box (cardboard, plastic, wood, etc.) and use it.

Well, winders, just to be clear...I'm tempted to just send the F-1 back. It was your recommendation. Is it really worth me waiting on the correct box? Or, not.

 

[FrivolsListener]

With respect to USB/SPDIF nervosa:

1. It's important to keep in mind that most of the changes we're talking about (when discussing USB decrapifiers, converters, etc) are relatively small, at least IMO. I use "naked" USB all the time--yes, just a cable, sometimes not even a fancy PYST cable, and I feel absolutely no audiophila nervosa about it.

2. It's best to get a great DAC and see if you like it without any decrapification/conversion. Who knows, you may be like me.

3. If, after getting a great DAC, you decide you absolutely, positively have to try some kind of decrapifier/converter, it's probably best to wait a bit before spending tons of money...just saying...

What are you trying to do here -- insert rational thought and sane behavior into your thread?

Shame, shame.

 

[winders]

Well, winders, just to be clear...I'm tempted to just send the F-1 back. It was your recommendation. Is it really worth me waiting on the correct box? Or, not.

Whoa there, sparky! I didn't recommend buying one without the aluminum case. When I ordered, I read the description and looked at the photos. So don't deflect the blame that you didn't get one with a case onto me...

Yes, I think the Singxer F-1 is worth it. You can test it with out any worry at all without the case. Juts put it in a cardboard box so no the of the traces or components short out. Heck, you could just put it on top of some non conductive material and try it out. You aren't going to start a fire or kill yourself. The F-1 does a better job dealing with the crappy USB signals AND provides some galvanic isolation.

 

[pctazhp]

All we are doing is trying to improve the signal we feed Yggdrasil. Yggdrasil is not a miracle worker. It can only work with what you give it. Heck, my Bimby sounds quite a bit better when I use my Singxer F-1 to feed it versus straight USB.

My comment was partially in jest. I see comments all over the map regarding USB vs other inputs. Seems there may even be some disagreement between Jason and Mike. I use the USB by-pass function of my ASUS sound card to feed my Bimby's coax input and I believe it is a significant improvement over USB. It totally eliminates USB. Will certainly try it on Gumby or Yiggy, if and when I get one.

 

[earnmyturns]

I see comments all over the map regarding USB vs other inputs.

That's simply because USB sources are all over the place in what they send down the USB conductors to the DAC. I've always used dedicated, stripped down ARM CPU, Linux-based OS USB sources, not PCs or Macs, starting with a ~$100 CuBox-i at the lower end. Going from that low-end to (eventually) ~$1000 made a small difference for both Bimby and Iggy, but not as much as converting to S/PDIF coax, or, even better, bypassing USB and feeding AES to my Yggy. Again, the differences are not huge, and if I hadn't heard the better versions I'd still be pretty happy with what I started with. I suspect that a lot of USB nervosa comes from trying to use a noisy, constantly task-switching general PC or Mac a digital audio source for a very resolving audio chain.

 

[Oveja Negra]

That's simply because USB sources are all over the place in what they send down the USB conductors to the DAC. I've always used dedicated, stripped down ARM CPU, Linux-based OS USB sources, not PCs or Macs, starting with a ~$100 CuBox-i at the lower end. Going from that low-end to (eventually) ~$1000 made a small difference for both Bimby and Iggy, but not as much as converting to S/PDIF coax, or, even better, bypassing USB and feeding AES to my Yggy. Again, the differences are not huge, and if I hadn't heard the better versions I'd still be pretty happy with what I started with. I suspect that a lot of USB nervosa comes from trying to use a noisy, constantly task-switching general PC or Mac a digital audio source for a very resolving audio chain.

In my previous post about my kitty and her love for Asgard, I forgot to tell my story about how my system suddenly became useless after -I presume- a Windows 10 auto update.

Three weeks ago or so, I began to get that nasty Windows message about my USB device not being able to be recognized. After I googled about it, I proceeded to try everything: editing power management settings, changing cables, using other USB ports, uninstalling all the Windows updates until a date where I was 100% sure the system worked fine, etc.

Nothing worked, and the best I was able to deduce was that I needed to start my machine with both Wyrd and Bifrost turned off, then I had to turn Wyrd on, wait a little bit and then turn Bifrost on; the catch was the error message apperead if I did the power on cycle way too early or way too late. That meant I had to repeat that cycle around 40 times to end with my DAC recognized. I was both furious and depressed at the same time.

It's kinda funny how sometimes -a lot of times even- we enter in that tunnel vision mode when facing a problem, and that doesn't allow us to see alternative solutions. In my case, despite changing the USB cable to try other USB ports in my desktop PC, I failed miserably to see the SPDIF output my ASUS mobo has, lol.

So after pulling my hair and cursing very loudly for not seeing sooner the SPDIF port, I picked a cheap Monoprice toslink cable and voila, my system was working perfectly again.

The best part is -according to my ears- SPDIF sounds noticeably better than USB. Basically, all the frequencies sound more transparent and in the higher register cymbals and pinched hamonics (just to name two instances) now sound brighter, which is something that I love. I know it sounds cliché, but it's like a veil in front of my Genelec's disappeared and now everything sounds more in front of me, closer and more detailed.

So, thanks a lot Microsoft for ruining my USB device detection, cause otherwise most probably I would be using USB forever and missing a much better sound.

I've been listening all my favorites albums and discovering new details that were absent before. How cool is that?

 

[MOFOfunk]

Hopefully Eithr's going to fix that for the rest of us. And drive USB to the galvanically isolated place where it belongs.

 

[winders]

My plan is to get a Ethernet-based roon endpoint/streamer that has an AES/EBU output. I agree that we should banish USB fro the audio chain completely!

 

[Pandahead]

In my previous post about my kitty and her love for Asgard, I forgot to tell my story about how my system suddenly became useless after -I presume- a Windows 10 auto update.

Three weeks ago or so, I began to get that nasty Windows message about my USB device not being able to be recognized. After I googled about it, I proceeded to try everything: editing power management settings, changing cables, using other USB ports, uninstalling all the Windows updates until a date where I was 100% sure the system worked fine, etc.

Nothing worked, and the best I was able to deduce was that I needed to start my machine with both Wyrd and Bifrost turned off, then I had to turn Wyrd on, wait a little bit and then turn Bifrost on; the catch was the error message apperead if I did the power on cycle way too early or way too late. That meant I had to repeat that cycle around 40 times to end with my DAC recognized. I was both furious and depressed at the same time.

It's kinda funny how sometimes -a lot of times even- we enter in that tunnel vision mode when facing a problem, and that doesn't allow us to see alternative solutions. In my case, despite changing the USB cable to try other USB ports in my desktop PC, I failed miserably to see the SPDIF output my ASUS mobo has, lol.

So after pulling my hair and cursing very loudly for not seeing sooner the SPDIF port, I picked a cheap Monoprice toslink cable and voila, my system was working perfectly again.

The best part is -according to my ears- SPDIF sounds noticeably better than USB. Basically, all the frequencies sound more transparent and in the higher register cymbals and pinched hamonics (just to name two instances) now sound brighter, which is something that I love. I know it sounds cliché, but it's like a veil in front of my Genelec's disappeared and now everything sounds more in front of me, closer and more detailed.

So, thanks a lot Microsoft for ruining my USB device detection, cause otherwise most probably I would be using USB forever and missing a much better sound.

I've been listening all my favorites albums and discovering new details that were absent before. How cool is that?

It's always good to have back up. Now that you are enjoying tunes again and relieved, have you tried other working USB sources? I had a similar problem and it was the Schiit USB receiver board, (the Wyrd was fine) they occasionally go bad. Do you have the Gen 2 board in your Bifrost?

Like your cat, she could curl up inside a shoe box and think it was a palace! Ah, simple things!

 

[hornytoad]

Honestly I would buy a

My plan is to get a Ethernet-based roon endpoint/streamer that has an AES/EBU output. I agree that we should banish USB fro the audio chain completely!

I use an Auralic Aries, Femto version and like it with the Yggy using Aes

 

[sam6550a]

"Burning down the house". Such a great song.

Not with 5V @ 500 ma.

 

[mhamel]

The Singxer F-1 arrived today, and the evaluation's gonna have to wait. I received just the PC board, no aluminum case. So today I ordered the case from who knows where across the pond. Will probably take another month. BTW, the web reco is to break-in the Singxer for 500 hours. That's nearly a life-time of Head-Fi anticipation...don't wait on me - the Eitr will probably be launched first.

No need to wait forever for a case just to eval... a few minutes and a few dollars for a cheap project case and it's good to go.

 

[rlow]

I'm thinking that converting from USB back to something else (e.g. SPDIF, AES etc) is still limited by the fact that it starts-off as USB with all the junk introduced from the computer...which means you still need to sanitize it - so is this really any better just going with a USB sanitizer (i.e. isolator+reclocker) product and staying USB into the DAC?

I currently use a microRendu for this reason - data comes in initially through Ethernet (rather than USB from the computer) and then is sent through an ultra-minimal PC essentially to convert it to a clean USB signal - which should be pretty clean compared to something that started life coming from a full computer USB port and all its potential problems...

 

[pctazhp]

I'm thinking that converting from USB back to something else (e.g. SPDIF, AES etc) is still limited by the fact that it starts-off as USB with all the junk introduced from the computer...which means you still need to sanitize it - so is this really any better just going with a USB sanitizer (i.e. isolator+reclocker) product and staying USB into the DAC?

I currently use a microRendu for this reason - data comes in initially through Ethernet (rather than USB from the computer) and then is sent through an ultra-minimal PC essentially to convert it to a clean USB signal - which should be pretty clean compared to something that started life coming from a full computer USB port and all its potential problems...

I use this with my Bimby to completely avoid USB. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product..._sfl_title_7?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

Works great for me. With the USB by-pass function it completely avoids USB and feeds low jitter SPDIF to Bimby coax input. It brought a significant improvement to my system.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

My plan is to get a Ethernet-based roon endpoint/streamer that has an AES/EBU output. I agree that we should banish USB fro the audio chain completely!

I've seen the Dante ethernet to aes/ebu box, looks promising though expensive (and perhaps more functionality than I need). The thunderbolt stuff has been pretty minimal so far, and mostly Analog to Digital conversion, if I'm not mistaken.

Are there any noise-reduction advantages to audio over thunderbolt—which now that it's USB-C-shaped might actually take off? Is ethernet itself unacceptably loud? Let me reiterate how disgusted I am that apple took out their optical functionality from their headphone jack on the new iMacs, as well as last autumn's MacBook Pros. MacBook Air and the new MacBook Adorable never had it to start, of course, meaning that only the aging Mac Pro and Mac Mini have optical out. Mac Pro is sure to have it excised when it makes its return in 2018 or beyond, and Mac Mini is likely to be chopped from the lineup or allowed to age out like the iPod and MacBook Air.