[qusp]

tested via optical and coax both from my G5 and actually from the RME itself. both as dac/amp and also with both amps feeding my Lisa III. like this I was able to have .

so tested
iriver->ibasso D10

very nice output, but lacks the air and slight organic edge of the lisa III amp section. although with burn-in and my latest set of op-amps, im getting a little closer SQ wise, but still lags behind in sheer power and authority.

iriver->D10->Lisa III (this is my every day portable combo if I have my bag)


wow, i've never heard portable audio sound this detailed. with W3, its very involving.. I missed my bus stop the other night and ended up 10 minutes up the road before I realized.

DIYMOD 5.5G-> teflon VCAP dock->D10

nothing to be sneezed at either and with these op-amps its actually not worse, for the same reason I prefer the D10 HP out, to the HP out on my 9632 for shear musical involvement and musicality. the DIYMOD is technically inferior to the external dac rig, but there are still some types of music I prefer it with; for example it sounds better with my SE530 and rock than the D10 rig does.

9632->D10 via optical
G5->(optical)D10
G5->(optical) D10->Lisa III
9632->optical->D10->Lisa III


RME->HP out
RME->Lisa III via jena/cryo silver RCA (analogue)
RME->D10 (analogue)

I didnt bother via USB as I find it to be inferior. this wasnt an oprganized test; more like extensive listening durig burn-in

the DAC spec on the RME is better no question, but its just not as enjoyable and I actually find the soundstage with the D10 fed from the RME then to Lisa superb. the RME has a really great clock and supplies a really nice sounding digital output. so much better than the iriver. I find with rolled op-amps in the D10 that I can achieve more the sound I like; where as i'm stuck with the RME sound sig of the 9632 headamp that is.

when using the D10 as dac only to lisa III it loses out to the RME used the same way, but not by a huge margin. the RME is technically superior in almost every way, But I think you got defensive before actually reading what I wrote

y as a dac, but rthe HP out is a bit disappointing compared to the other 2 options here; and thats no surprize as the RME is designed to be as flat as possible, although I dont find the RME gear to be as dry as some pro audio gear.


Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp the D10 DAC equals or betters the performance of my secondary audio card RME HAMMERFALL 9632 at least for driving headphones anyway.

I just find the D10 to be more involving and musical than the RME is. and if I want full-on high-rez audio I have my RME Fireface 400. the D10 dac chip is the same as the D2, but the amp section is miles ahead IMO and it seems some respcted reviewers have agreed and with LMH4032 and AD8656, the SQ is really very good.

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

I need to try the LMH4032 and AD8656 in the D10 in the next couple of days.

 

[n0ah]

i'm probably obsessing over this a bit too much but how much better is the optical out over s/pdif if i'd just be using the D10 for my laptop? i ask because mine doesn't come with optical. hope i'm not missing out on too much.

also what's a nice high end spdif cable i can purchase for the unit or does the d10 come with one already?

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif i'm probably obsessing over this a bit too much but how much better is the optical out over s/pdif if i'd just be using the D10 for my laptop? i ask because mine doesn't come with optical. hope i'm not missing out on too much. also what's a nice high end spdif cable i can purchase for the unit or does the d10 come with one already?

Optical and coax ARE S/PDIF, and USB is USB. The D10 comes with a decent optical cable, or you can go to Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more and have them build you a nice custom optical cable. Any decent 75 ohm coax cable should work off the shelf.

Regarding your other questions - my answer is in my reviews, but I will restate it here for you: The D10 USB DAC is very close to the D10 optical DAC but very slightly below it, while the gap widens if you are using the D10 optical with native 24/96 studio masters. For normal 16/44.1 ripped CD music the difference is very small and the D10 is very good with USB audio for it's size and price (not quite up to the Apogee mini-DAC, Stello DA100 or PS Audio DL3 desktop USB DACs).

The D10 USB DAC is also better than most of the other portable USB DAC in the review, except for the Pico and Headroom Micro DAC with which it is very close but does not exceed. The Pico seems to sound better to me when used as a preamp to drive a full size amp than it does driving headphones, so I really prefer to use it to bridge my Macbook to a full size rig when I use it (so, I've ordered a Pico DAC-only as well). I've read of people trashing the Micro DAC USB for jitter, but with my Macbook the Micro DAC with Micro Amp via USB sounded almost identical to the Pico. The Micro DAC had a very slight edge over the Pico with optical input when both were used for portable listening and not used for feeding better desktop amps. I have not and don't have time to compare the D10/Micro DAC/Pico when feeding USB audio to a full size rig like my Woo GES/Stax O2.

Lastly, I would also say the the D10 USB DAC section is slightly more detailed than the USB DAC in the iBasso D2 or D3, but some of that could be due to what I am hearing as the amp section improves when I go up to better models. The D10 USB DAC does have slightly more micro-detail, ambience, air and space (and refinement) when compared vs the 3MOVE, Predator, XM5, Nuforce, V1, Lyrix or D1 - which are still very nice but not on the same level.

 

[n0ah]

so there's no difference between optical and coax? i have an hp laptop in question and do know that "s/pdif" is built into my headphone jack on this unit but when looking up "optical toslink" cords there's no way it fits a standard headphone jack so i'm guessing coax is what my laptop supports.

 

[b_jay_k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif so there's no difference between optical and coax? i have an hp laptop in question and do know that "s/pdif" is built into my headphone jack on this unit but when looking up "optical toslink" cords there's no way it fits a standard headphone jack so i'm guessing coax is what my laptop supports.

i think what you are getting at is not what's in discussion here. i have an x-fi soundcard which also supports s/pdif but i would need to buy a digital I/O module to get the coax and optical connections. i would still need to decide which is better of the two but i doubt the sound quality is going to be great with this kind of signal passage (comments anyone?). i'm guessing the scenario is the same for laptop users with built in digital support coming from a mini jack. this is why i bought a usb dac, bypassing the soundcard altogether and, in the process, making it redundant

 

[HeadphoneAddict]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif so there's no difference between optical and coax? i have an hp laptop in question and do know that "s/pdif" is built into my headphone jack on this unit but when looking up "optical toslink" cords there's no way it fits a standard headphone jack so i'm guessing coax is what my laptop supports.

You might have a mini-optical inside the headphone jack like the Macbook and iRiver H140 have, and you just need a small plastic "toslink-mini" plug adapter. A mini-optical plug looks like a headphone plug, and toslink is kind-of a square plug with two corners shaved or rounded.

The only time I've ever seen a mini-coax was (1) on a portable TV that used the mini-coax jack and came with a plug adapter that accepted a two wire TV antenna and the adapter plugged into the TV mini-input, and (2) Headroom Micro DAC has a mini-coax input, and it uses one of those mini-RCA cables like the portable DVD players use for video out (video cables are usually 75 ohm).

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by b_jay_k /img/forum/go_quote.gif i think what you are getting at is not what's in discussion here. i have an x-fi soundcard which also supports s/pdif but i would need to buy a digital I/O module to get the coax and optical connections. i would still need to decide which is better of the two but i doubt the sound quality is going to be great with this kind of signal passage (comments anyone?). i'm guessing the scenario is the same for laptop users with built in digital support coming from a mini jack. this is why i bought a usb dac, bypassing the soundcard altogether and, in the process, making it redundant

no what he is probably looking at is a mini/toslink combo jack; thats whats on most laptops; there is a few that are coax (mini coax), but they are rare. an X-FI feeding the D10- will be absolutely fine. you ARE bypassing the dac in that case. in that scenario you are simply using the audio card as the output for your computer as transport. sure it may contain slightly more jitter than a high end card or external device, but the D10 has clock recovery I think, so I really dont think its so much of an issue; I did and do find that my RME supplies a better signal than my iriver; but we are talking about a pro-sumer audio card here. optical will always sound better than USB IMO unless its a POC dac you are feeding with it and if you compare using USB on that same dac it will always sound slightly worse and in some casdes significantly worse. USB is more prone to interference and jitter IME

 

[n0ah]

what's the best toslink-mini adapter i can buy? and that's all i'll need since the d10 comes with the optical cord or is there anything else needed to cover bases? do all of you use the stock optical cord or are there reasonably priced ones that are better out there?

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...do all of you use the stock optical cord or are there reasonably priced ones that are better out there?

Same answer you've gotten before...and highly recommended:

Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more

 

[sfmatt]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif ... I think you got defensive before actually reading what I wrote ...

Sorry if I came across as defensive, it was not my intention.

Thank you very much that was just the kind of information I was looking for. It's good to know that with SPDIF the D10 SQ can be as good if not better than the 9632 + D10 (as an amp only).
If my laptop had SPDIF output I would get a D10 to replace my D2 but for USB output it's not worth it. As for the amp sections of the D10 and Viper, once you start rolling opamps they're close enough. But I'll make sure to have SPDIF on my next laptop

 

[b_jay_k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by qusp /img/forum/go_quote.gif no what he is probably looking at is a mini/toslink combo jack; thats whats on most laptops...

oh, ok. i've never owned a laptop

 

[n0ah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wolfen68 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Same answer you've gotten before...and highly recommended: Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more

which one though? and which of the two toslink adapters i see?

 

[wolfen68]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif which one though? and which of the two toslink adapters i see?

Cables:

Toslink to Toslink: Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more: Toslink to Toslink Premium Optical Cable 0.05 to 50 meters

Mini to Toslink (or Toslink to Mini): Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more: MiniPlug to Toslink Premium Optical Cable 0.05 to 50 meters

Adapter:

Toslink to Mini Adapter: Sys Concept Inc. Fiber Optic Products Attenuators, Patch cords, Laser Diodes, Connectors, MP3, Toslink, Hybrid Adapter and more: Adapter - Toslink to MiniPlug

You mentioned Toslink to Mini adapter...make sure that's what you need as there is also a Mini to Toslink variant as well. It really comes down to which cable you have and what configuration you want. If you are going to use the stock D10 optical cable with an H1xx, the one I linked is the one you'll need. If you wish to make the connection more "portable", then a different combination of parts may apply.

 

[qusp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by n0ah /img/forum/go_quote.gif which one though? and which of the two toslink adapters i see?

for portable cables you need either a short U shaped one which has a toslink one end and mini the other and if you want to make a low profile version, you need to buy a short U toslink to toslink and buy a right angle toslink to toslink and a RA toslink to mini as the RA only come with a toslink female; no minis available. plus you have to take into consideration what case if any you are going top use on your H1XX and supply spec to them. if you tell them at sysconcept what you want to do, they are very obliging and have dealt with many head-fiers buying cables for this exact purpose. they know what size to make them and what you need. I cant recommend them enough.