[mrspeakers]

 
Quote:

I was checking out the Tweak Geek web site yesterday and they are recommending the Harrison Attenuators for RCA HiFaces.  Is there any downside to using an audio attenuator on a coax cable?
 
"Attenuators - The hiFace is known to have a pretty high output, too high for some DACS. We have had great success using signal attenuators to get the output to a lower level, and the end result is a smoother sound.

1. RCA Attenuators - for RCA hiFaces, the Harrison Labs 12 dB RCA line level attenuators are highly recommended."

 

 
 
http://www.tweekgeek.com/_e/Portable_Computer_Audio/product/HiFace/M2Tech_HiFace.htm

 
This does not look like the right way to attenuate the signal.  Unless this is a 75 ohm stepdown transformer, it could REALLY mess up the signal, especially at higher bit rates. I couldn't find a spec on the device, but from what I could tell, it appears to be meant as a gain adjustment between preamp and amp, or source and preamp.  As such, it's probably a high impedance resistive device, and will not work reliably in a 75ohm setup.
 
 

 

[elwappo99]

Question for the group. I've got a BNC Hiface. When using it during normal playback, every 15-20 seconds I get a small click that is a fraction of a second. It's quite irritating, and makes this pretty unusable. Any ideas on how to address this?

 

[mrspeakers]

Question for the group. I've got a BNC Hiface. When using it during normal playback, every 15-20 seconds I get a small click that is a fraction of a second. It's quite irritating, and makes this pretty unusable. Any ideas on how to address this?

Try their tech support, Marco is quite responsive.

 

[elwappo99]

Thanks for the suggestion. I did figure it out though. It was an issue with my reference 1! If I had more than one source connected, the hiface got completely erradic! So as long as it's the only thing connected, so hiccups at all. 
Quote:

Quote:

Question for the group. I've got a BNC Hiface. When using it during normal playback, every 15-20 seconds I get a small click that is a fraction of a second. It's quite irritating, and makes this pretty unusable. Any ideas on how to address this?

Try their tech support, Marco is quite responsive.

 

 

[Yahoe]

Bonjour,

Marco Manunta from M2tech has sent me the following answer by email on April 30th:

"I'm afraid hiFace cannot be used with Linux as we didn't develope the driver, nor we have plans to do that so far."

So we won't be able to use the hiFace with Linux after all. To bad for the millions of Linux users out there.

Regards.

Alain-Olivier

 

[simonleger]

I am new to this forum, I joined as I saw this huge thread on the hiface. Basically since I switched from my old mac mini to the new mac mini (the hdmi one) I have problems when watching movies through VLC as I only get stereo output and there seems to be no way to select anything else. The sound does go through the hiface to the receiver but only as stereo. It used to work fine with my previous mac mini but cant figure out the difference...
 
I have it configure in audio midi setup and when i right click on it to select "configure speakers" it only offers stereo setup. Do other people have the same, is it normal ? Is there something else to do to be able to pass DTS and such... ?
 
Thanks for your help !

 

[mrspeakers]

Quote:

I am new to this forum, I joined as I saw this huge thread on the hiface. Basically since I switched from my old mac mini to the new mac mini (the hdmi one) I have problems when watching movies through VLC as I only get stereo output and there seems to be no way to select anything else. The sound does go through the hiface to the receiver but only as stereo. It used to work fine with my previous mac mini but cant figure out the difference...
 
I have it configure in audio midi setup and when i right click on it to select "configure speakers" it only offers stereo setup. Do other people have the same, is it normal ? Is there something else to do to be able to pass DTS and such... ?
 
Thanks for your help !

I use HDMI out of my new mini for home theatre, so I have a different configuration and don't have this problem.  I would suggest your first thing is to verify you have the most recent driver.
 
 

 

[simonleger]

This is the first thing I did : went to the website downloaded installed latest driver and rebooted, but did not work. Another difference is that my previous mac was on Leopard vs Snow Leopard now.

 

[gameguytw]

DIYER MOD From Taiwan (courtry on the Earth)
 
1.MOD Frist Time (Not Good = Fail)

2.MOD Second Time (So Good = Sucess)

 

[lltfdaniel]

I keep hearing cracks and pops like you would with an old vinyl.
 
Maybe it is the latency jitter???? 
 
Music plays fine though.

 

[lltfdaniel]

The cracks and pops are not normal.

 

[mrspeakers]

Cracks and pops are not jitter, that's data loss.  It could be multiple possibilities, one is that the high output voltage of the HiFace is overloading your input, another is a driver issue with the HiFace.  Contact M2Tech support and get the latest driver, the driver that was on the website (when I last checked) was not current (why?  who knows.).
 
It would make debugging easier if you had a second DAC to try.  If not pops, then the problem is the HiFace output voltage.  They can be modified to be S/PDIF voltage spec (they made the voltage much higher than spec to support long cable runs like my 18 footer).  
 

 

[cYbernation]

I'm planing on buying the hiface and connect it to the dacmagic.
Has anyone experience with this combination?
Can the dacmagic handle the higher output of the hiface?
 

 

[cYbernation]

anyone?
is it common that the hiface overload the input stage of DACs?

 

[mrspeakers]

I have had trouble at 192K on my Burson and my iBasso D12.  I haven't found a good RCA 75ohm 6db attenuator to see if dropping the voltage helps but that is the next step.  I think it was a bad design idea to set the voltage so high, most good cables won't have a huge drop over moderate runs.