[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi Fujak, Here is what happened to me: I set up the SoX resampler in Foobar to upsample everything to 96K except for 88.2 files and 96 files. Everhting played fine until I played a native 24/88 file from Linn Records. It played fine but last time I played it with the Musiland it sounded much better. So I deactivated all DSP plugins and the file still didn't sound good. Up to that point my assumptions were: a) There was some resampling going on specifically on the 88.2 files b) The clock was poorly generated for 88.2K frequencies c) a little of both a) and b) Then I checked the control panel of the Teralink X2 and it showed 24/96 while playing different 24/88. So I got even more suspicious. The control panel showed correctly the 44.1, 48 and 96 frequencies but not the 88.2. Then when you talked about having a DAC which displays sample rates, it made me remember that the control panel of the emu 0404 usb had that function: it displays the digital input sample rate. So finally I repeated the test with Emu 0404 usb and it confirmed what I suspected: 44.1, 48 and 96 are played fine but not 88.2 which is resampled to 96. Overall, it is not a big problem for me but I thought it was worth mentioning it. For now I have set the SoX upsampler to upsample everything to 96K and the SoX plugin does sound better than the software upsampling that seems to be going on with the Teralink X2.

Silm you have great ears and good technical understanding, a real asset around here. I guess I was the one who suggested compueter upsampling to avoid having the TerraX2 sample with its lower quality PLL.

Have you had a chance to compare 44.1 upsampled to 48khz via the TerralinX vs the Hiface at 44.1? I still have an X1 but you almost have me convinced on the Hiface, I propose overly critical possible design issues with products before I buy something because I'm a cheapstake and need to know the + and -'s of a product before the purchase (a bit OCD as my wife says

).

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif Silm you have great ears and good technical understanding, a real asset around here. I guess I was the one who suggested compueter upsampling to avoid having the TerraX2 sample with its lower quality PLL. Have you had a chance to compare 44.1 upsampled to 48khz via the TerralinX vs the Hiface at 44.1? I still have an X1 but you almost have me convinced on the Hiface, I propose overly critical possible design issues with products before I buy something because I'm a cheapstake and need to know the + and -'s of a product before the purchase (a bit OCD as my wife says ).

I usually use upsampling to 96k, because most sigma-delta DACs (with built-in digital filters) sound horrible to my ears at 44.1 and 48.

But when I read on the Teralink X2 thread that you suggested to try upsampling to multiples of the 12mhz frequency of the clock (to minimize the effects of generating an improper 44.1 clock), I did try it with the both the Musiland and the Teralink X1. I think the Musiland is the one that improved more when going from 44.1 to 48 (maybe because it accepts 24 bit data?).
However, with my system at no time, I could tweak either the Teralink X (or the Musiland for that matter) to sound as good as the Hiface running 44.1.

I have to note one more thing that might interests you: I noticed that the PMD100 seemed to be less sensitive to the quality of the transport than the DF1704 (which is a good thing).
When my hiface broke and I still had the dac19mk3, I switched right away to the PMD100 module as it didn't show a decrease in performance when using "lesser" converters as big as the one showed by the DF1704.

 

[Patu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif I have to note one more thing that might interests you: I noticed that the PMD100 seemed to be less sensitive to the quality of the transport than the DF1704 (which is a good thing). When my hiface broke and I still had the dac19mk3, I switched right away to the PMD100 module as it didn't show a decrease in performance when using "lesser" converters as big as the one showed by the DF1704.

Sorry I haven't followed this thread actively so I might have missed it but how did your HiFace get broken?

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patu /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry I haven't followed this thread actively so I might have missed it but how did your HiFace get broken?

I was using a heavy digital cable (the oyaide) that was putting too much strain on the hiface in my previous configuration. It caused the usb plug to loose contact/solder I think. I sent it back to m2tech for repair and they are supposed to have mailed it back to me by now. Next time, I will be more careful with the way I set up the cable.

 

[t/sound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by digger945 /img/forum/go_quote.gif slim.a, I have an XV2 on the way and would like to know what you think of it.

Hoping not to influense you, but to state my experience.

From what slim.a found in terms of synergy between hiface and the Oyaide cable I ordered one.
I go Macbook ( running battery )>Itunes 9.1 Aiff > Amarra > hiface bnc > Oyaide > Audio-gd Ref 1 bnc > DX1000 / K701

I usually use the Stereovox VX2 bnc.

I found the hiface as usb/ spdif to sound great comparing to other transports.

After replacing the vx2 with the Oyaide db510 bnc I experienced a consistent and reproduceable change in character of the sound of all of my favourite music.
I was thrilled with a much more solid and palpable bass performance, it helped a lot with the K701.
The rest of the spectrum was out of sorts, poor high freq detail muddy mids and no cohesion in the music, very compressed and undimensional.

At first I thought it was just bass heavy and with the JVC it was overkill, but it extended to the K701. There was just no life and passion in the music.

I gave it a week and had enough, I connected the Stereovox.

Back was everything I loved about the music.

So why this result ?

1) System synergy ?
2) Burn in time ?***?
3) Should I change the cable direction ?***?
4) Pre programming of my brain ? total satisfaction / subjective blockout ?
5) I got a lemon / dud /friday afternoon sample ?

I had high hopes for the Oyaide, well made, beautifull, well packaged but just totaly unacceptable sound.

Your take.

Shade.

 

[regal]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif When my hiface broke and I still had the dac19mk3, I switched right away to the PMD100 module as it didn't show a decrease in performance when using "lesser" converters as big as the one showed by the DF1704.

I think you may be my soul mate

there was actually a very good paper about the techniques used by PM to reduce the effects of jitter that has been taken off the web. I wish I had saved a copy of it but it was way over my head at the time. Still may try the Hiface just because I like to tinker.

thanks

 

[Fujak]

Hi Slim,

interesting experience you wrote about. It inspires me to find out, whether I can reproduce your observations. But I made the experience, that the 24/88 files are playing correct: In the GUI of Tenor driver it is shown 24/88100 and in the status window of foobar 1.0 as well. It also sounds o.k. like other sample rates with TeraLink X2.
So my conclusion is, that Teralink X2 transports the correct Samplingrate without a conversion / upsampling.

By the way: again it gives me the opportunity to compare TeraLink vs. Hiface and again I have to testify, that the Hiface has a much better resolution, that means more space around instruments (I'm listening to classical music most of the time), more texture in bass range - in sum: more joy of listening to the flow of music.

Although money might be an argument for the most of us, preferring the TeraLink X2 instead of Hiface just because of money would be a saving on the wrong point. There are not many things of a hifi chain which could be improved by so little costs.

Regards
Fujak

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by t/sound /img/forum/go_quote.gif So why this result ? 1) System synergy ? 2) Burn in time ?***? 3) Should I change the cable direction ?***? 4) Pre programming of my brain ? total satisfaction / subjective blockout ? 5) I got a lemon / dud /friday afternoon sample ?

Did you try to change the cable direction?
In my experience with some cables I don't notice any difference and with other cables the difference can be huge.
As for me, I have always tried the Oyaide with the arrows/writing pointing towards the DAC.

Let us know if changing the direction helps.

Edit -- I just remembered that punk_guy182 is using the same hiface + Oyaide + Ref-1 that you are using. And according to a PM, he was pretty satisfied with the results. Maybe he can help since he has a similar system.

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fujak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi Slim, interesting experience you wrote about. It inspires me to find out, whether I can reproduce your observations. But I made the experience, that the 24/88 files are playing correct: In the GUI of Tenor driver it is shown 24/88100 and in the status window of foobar 1.0 as well. It also sounds o.k. like other sample rates with TeraLink X2. So my conclusion is, that Teralink X2 transports the correct Samplingrate without a conversion / upsampling. By the way: again it gives me the opportunity to compare TeraLink vs. Hiface and again I have to testify, that the Hiface has a much better resolution, that means more space around instruments (I'm listening to classical music most of the time), more texture in bass range - in sum: more joy of listening to the flow of music. Although money might be an argument for the most of us, preferring the TeraLink X2 instead of Hiface just because of money would be a saving on the wrong point. There are not many things of a hifi chain which could be improved by so little costs. Regards Fujak

We might have had different results because of different drivers maybe? I am currently using the Tenor 0.9 beta drivers (usb3pkg_v0p9_20100325) that Teraguy gave a link to here: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/ter...ml#post6521430. With the 0.9 driver, both the Tenor control panel and the emu 0404 usb showed 96k instead of 88.2K. I don't think the problem is coming from anything else from my system because with the same software/settings, the Musiland can pass 88.2K.

What drivers are you currently using?

As for the sound, it also seemed to me that the hiface had more resolution. But since memory is sometimes unreliable for such subtle differences, I was waiting to get the hiface back before mentioning it... but it seems that you have already done all the work comparing the 2 units

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think you may be my soul mate there was actually a very good paper about the techniques used by PM to reduce the effects of jitter that has been taken off the web. I wish I had saved a copy of it but it was way over my head at the time. Still may try the Hiface just because I like to tinker. thanks

Yes, those guys at Pacific Microsonics did some pretty amazing stuff almost 20 years ago. To me their PMD100 was the only digital filter I have listened to that sounded tonally right with 16/44 data. However, with my set-up, I also liked a lot the DF1704 filter with upsampling to 24/96 as it was faster and more dynamic. I am hoping that the DSP1 can beat both the PMD100 and the DF1704 (which accroding to Kingwa, it does), but I might be fooling myself...

 

[Fujak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif We might have had different results because of different drivers maybe? (...) What drivers are you currently using?

Information in the release notes: V1.01a 2009-12-10

Hm in so far you might be right that it is a matter of different drivers

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for the sound, it also seemed to me that the hiface had more resolution. But since memory is sometimes unreliable for such subtle differences, I was waiting to get the hiface back before mentioning it... but it seems that you have already done all the work comparing the 2 units

I didn't want to take over your work. I think, it's always better, that at least two people test the same units - because of possible placebo and other psychological effects...

Kind regards
Fujak

 

[slim.a]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fujak /img/forum/go_quote.gif Information in the release notes: V1.01a 2009-12-10 Hm in so far you might be right that it is a matter of different drivers

I tried to find another driver for the Teralink X2 but I wasn't very succesfull in finding it.
Do you still remember where you downloaded yours? I would like to try it later, thanks

 

[Fujak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif I tried to find another driver for the Teralink X2 but I wasn't very succesfull in finding it. Do you still remember where you downloaded yours? I would like to try it later, thanks

I've got mine from thoppa. If you send me your e-mail, I would send it to you directly.

Kind regards
Fujak

 

[Nada]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif Yes, those guys at Pacific Microsonics did some pretty amazing stuff almost 20 years ago. To me their PMD100 was the only digital filter I have listened to that sounded tonally right with 16/44 data. However, with my set-up, I also liked a lot the DF1704 filter with upsampling to 24/96 as it was faster and more dynamic. I am hoping that the DSP1 can beat both the PMD100 and the DF1704 (which accroding to Kingwa, it does), but I might be fooling myself...

Slim I wonder if you think the DSP1 implemented DACs like the new REF5 will still benefit from the HiFace, or will the DSP1 be so good that the HiFace will make little of no improvement in sound quality over motherboard RCA SPDIF out?

 

[Shahrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by slim.a /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you try to change the cable direction? In my experience with some cables I don't notice any difference and with other cables the difference can be huge. As for me, I have always tried the Oyaide with the arrows/writing pointing towards the DAC. Let us know if changing the direction helps. Edit -- I just remembered that punk_guy182 is using the same hiface + Oyaide + Ref-1 that you are using. And according to a PM, he was pretty satisfied with the results. Maybe he can help since he has a similar system.

I thought the Oyaide was a slight improvement over the BJC coax. The difference isn't night and day but it's there (with my setup). There are a couple people in your review thread who also feel the same was as t/sound. They prefer the Stereovox over the Oyaide.
EDIT: t/sound is using the HiFace, which I thought sounded worse with the Oyaide (as I mentioned earlier in the thread).