[enthusiast]

Can somebody comment on SQ of the V850 in comparison to the V800? Anybody tested this mothership yet? I could score one for $1100K, but I cannot compare.

 

[hypersonic]

   
It has !!

Hello Mr Reim, could you comment on the effectiveness of devices like "USB Regen" from Uptone Audio (and all other similar products)?
It basically takes the USB digital output from a computer and generate a reclocked, "optimized" signal for DACs, and claims every DAC would be benefitted
I am suffering from audio dropouts from time to time, although with the V850 it seems to happen much, much rarer (once in hours?) than my old DAC (guess a better driver by Violectric!)
I don't know if such a product can fix congested USB throughput problem.
The culprit should be the busy USB controller buses on my laptop, as it's my main computer too I cannot eliminate the problem by disabling everything, so I am searching for some external solutions for quite a while now
Sadly I'm not knowledgeable nor experienced enough to distinguish between snake oil product and real deal

Online reputation seems very good on this kind of products, but I would love to hear more educated opinion
I'll be very grateful if you can shed some light on this

 

 

[enthusiast]

In case you use Windows Operating System (I would recommend MAC or Linux for all things Audio), you need to go into Energy Options and switch your current profile to "High Performance". This is explained here: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/support/knowledge-base/show/3671/windows-78-tuning-tips-for-audio-processing/

 

[hypersonic]

  In case you use Windows Operating System (I would recommend MAC or Linux for all things Audio), you need to go into Energy Options and switch your current profile to "High Performance". This is explained here: https://www.native-instruments.com/en/support/knowledge-base/show/3671/windows-78-tuning-tips-for-audio-processing/

Thanks for the advice. But I've already tried those and more. 
From the LatencyMon software, I found some drivers were causing the issue.
One of them is my nvidia display driver, of course I cannot disable it
The other is Intel storage driver responsible for my RAID array, my computer won't work without it
That's why I am looking for an external fix

 

[fdg]

@ hypersonic
 
The USB Regen is a device (like many others) which isolates the USB datastream from the computer.
This may be made "asychronous" or "adaptive" - most times those manufacurers don´t go very deep in their explanations.
But I quote Uptone Audio to be among the serious ones.
Often a better and cleaner power supply is added.
These measures may help to clean the USB data stream and remove some jitter.
Be it phase jitter, period jitter, cycle to cycle jitter or time domain jitter.
Geting deeper into the jitter problem may show some more kind of jitter ...
 
All this and even more is made inside DAC V800 and V850 which offer the "asynchronous" mode and galvanic isolation.
Further more they offer the resampling feature which virtually removes all jitter from the digital data.
Resampling means that the incoming data is unpacked and isolated from its clocks - which are the cause of jitter.
Subsequently the data is recombined with the internal (precise) clock and send as a clean signal to the D/A converters.
Resampling is the ONLY way to remove (nearly) all jitter !!!
Resampling is costly and need some knowledge.
We are doing resampling since 1994 (Lake People SRC F24 -> here ) - who offers more ?!
 
However, unfortunately all this wont help against your dropouts ...
 
Thank you,
 
Fried Reim

 

[enthusiast]

You can remove your Nvidia Driver and use a windows-based driver. As a power-supply I would recommend a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro, it is not audible and is the highest quality power supply I ever owned, and I owned many good ones. Good luck!
 
Or for (much) more performance you could always go Linux, it's free and the community provides tons of excellent audioplayers, like Banshee (shown below). You can even install yourself a real-time kernel in order to get even higher audio performance.
 

 
 
@fdg:
Could you shed some light on the sound quality of the v850 and if has significantly improved over the v800 to justify a $500 higher price tag? I could get a used v800 for half the price of a new v850.

 

[hypersonic]

  @ hypersonic
 
The USB Regen is a device (like many others) which isolates the USB datastream from the computer.
This may be made "asychronous" or "adaptive" - most times those manufacurers don´t go very deep in their explanations.
 

This is sad. Looks like I will have to live with it. It actually happen very very rarely now.
I'm just nitpicking

 pretty common with audiophiles right?
I am very happy with the performance of the V850, it's my computer which disappoints me.
No need to add another device as V850 already does the resampling job for me, is it?
 
 
Quote:

  You can remove your Nvidia Driver and use a windows-based driver. As a power-supply I would recommend a BeQuiet Dark Power Pro, it is not audible and is the highest quality power supply I ever owned, and I owned many good ones. Good luck!
 
Or for (much) more performance you could always go Linux, it's free and the community provides tons of excellent audioplayers, like Banshee (shown below). You can even install yourself a real-time kernel in order to get even higher audio performance.
 

I think the only solution would be getting another source instead, may it be a music server or portable player, something dedicated to audio from head to toe
What do you mean by windows based driver lol My nvidia driver is windows based

And my power supply is fanless, make absolutely no sound at all, because I am using a laptop
I do want to retain the functions of my computer. 
Using Linux means I'm sacrificing everything for audio, and even doing so doesn't guarantee the problem will be solved. I had the dropout problem even on a brand new, unused macbook pro
 
Anyway thanks for the tips

 

[enthusiast]

Sorry if this is going too offtopic, but Linux absolutely positively will solve all your problems and only introduce new ones in the domain of Peripherals like Printer and Scanner, but that's it! You will sacrifice nothing except these two devices if you have them already, you will be gaining a lot. To go back on topic: A Windows Laptop is probably the most horrible choice you can do for Audio Quality. The internal PSU is -to be frank- horse**** compared to a $100-$200 PSU Unit from Seasonic or BeQuiet. With quiet I mean also the noise you are hearing in your headphone, this is maybe the afformentioned "Jitter", but I just call it PSU noise. In any case, except you own a Alienware Notebook, I would suggest to go Desktop as Audio Source. 

 

[hypersonic]

  Sorry if this is going too offtopic, but Linux absolutely positively will solve all your problems and only introduce new ones in the domain of Peripherals like Printer and Scanner, but that's it! You will sacrifice nothing except these two devices if you have them already, you will be gaining a lot. To go back on topic: A Windows Laptop is probably the most horrible choice you can do for Audio Quality. The internal PSU is -to be frank- horse**** compared to a $100-$200 PSU Unit from Seasonic or BeQuiet. With quiet I mean also the noise you are hearing in your headphone, this is maybe the afformentioned "Jitter", but I just call it PSU noise. In any case, except you own a Alienware Notebook, I would suggest to go Desktop as Audio Source. 

I am using an Alienware lol. To be honest I am not complaining about sound quality at all! The best power supply will not solve my problem.
I agree Linux is very good in doing specialized tasks. If I am going to build my own music server I'll definitely go for a Linux distro
The thing is for a day to day computer I'll still prefer a windows machine. I do game a bit and Linux is no good at it. 
Not mentioning the softwares only available on windows, using Linux is just nothing but inconvenience.
Perhaps it's just me being a long time windows user, but it is really frustrating to type this and that to install something while it only takes a few clicks in windows.
And because of the lack of huge userbase, googling for solution may not help many of the times
I've tried it and got fed up with it quickly.
 
Sticking to the topic, I found that using android phone (it's linux based I know that) works with the V850 via OTG.
From Android 6.0 it seems to be supporting external DAC as there is "audio source" in USB configuration so no special playback software is needed. I tested on android 4.4.4 with USB Audio Player PRO though.
Perhaps an android tablet could be the cure?

 

[13713]

Saying android is Linux at this point is like saying OSX is UNIX. It's a hybrid. If your running an Alienware dual partition and drop a small Linux partition for music on there.

 

[enthusiast]

  Sticking to the topic, I found that using android phone (it's linux based I know that) works with the V850 via OTG.
From Android 6.0 it seems to be supporting external DAC as there is "audio source" in USB configuration so no special playback software is needed. I tested on android 4.4.4 with USB Audio Player PRO though.
Perhaps an android tablet could be the cure?

You dont need to type anymore in Linux. Those days are long gone. You see Android is not Linux-Based, it is Linux, and this is why you dont have any problems with it when it comes to audio. Windows Audio-Architecture is just crap afaik. Mac or a Linux real-time kernel is far superiour. Also FLAC, ALAC, OGG, everything just works out of the box in Ubuntu. Maybe you could try a Dual-Boot on your Laptop for trying it out? Or use 2 harddisks, something I did before switching all our household and office computers to Linux 5 years ago. When you are fed up, you just switch harddisks. Check this page out: omgubuntu.co.uk Good luck! /offtopic
 
In the meanwhile I have ordered myself a Violectric v800v2 for less than half the price of a v850. And will be reporting on how it sounds. I am planning on connecting it via 75 Ohm COAX Vector Cable by SommerCable to my ASUS STX as source. Any better ideas on connecting? Maybe a dedicated RME PCI card? I am planning on connecting both violectric devices (DAC + Amp) by an Albedo XLR Cable also by SommerCable, its the most expensive I could find before Vodoo level, so it better be good.

 

[hypersonic]

 
You dont need to type anymore in Linux. Those days are long gone. You see Android is not Linux-Based, it is Linux, and this is why you dont have any problems with it when it comes to audio. Windows Audio-Architecture is just crap afaik. Mac or a Linux real-time kernel is far superiour. Also FLAC, ALAC, OGG, everything just works out of the box in Ubuntu. Maybe you could try a Dual-Boot on your Laptop for trying it out? Or use 2 harddisks, something I did before switching all our household and office computers to Linux 5 years ago. When you are fed up, you just switch harddisks. Check this page out: omgubuntu.co.uk Good luck! /offtopic
 
In the meanwhile I have ordered myself a Violectric v800v2 for less than half the price of a v850. And will be reporting on how it sounds. I am planning on connecting it via 75 Ohm COAX Vector Cable by SommerCable to my ASUS STX as source. Any better ideas on connecting? Maybe a dedicated RME PCI card? I am planning on connecting both violectric devices (DAC + Amp) by an Albedo XLR Cable also by SommerCable, its the most expensive I could find before Vodoo level, so it better be good.

actually, I have tried dual booting linux multiple times. I do understand the benefits of Linux, just don't want it on my main machine.
Linux on a laptop with switchable graphics can be tricky. Especially mine can furthermore switch between "switchable" and "discrete only" modes. Tried a couple display drivers all failed to work.
Yes with linux's rudimentary driver (or should I say the driver comes with the more elaborated distroes?) the computer totally works. Just not very optimized and smooth. Like power management totally screwed up so the clockspeed is 100% all the time etc.
I may play with Linux on another platform though. Perhaps a little raspberry pi can be a good music server? 
 
I believe the V800 does resampling on the incoming signal as well? So I doubt the choice of spdif interface would bring any noticeable difference to the sound quality. Especially the asus sound card is already a pretty nice one.

 

[Fir33]

Looking forward to buy V850
Waitingf for big review

 

[13713]

Looking forward to buy V850
Waitingf for big review

I still owe a review as I have had my unit for a long while. I did the V850, V281, V600 stack. I am from a hardcore turntable/speaker camp so this setup with the HD800 was my intro to the headphone world.

I am going to the Pheonix meetup so until then I have no impressions of other gear. I will throw up a before/after review of the stack and especially the v850 for everyone so they can get an impression. Don't look for brilliantly word smith review as my background is in Math and software development.


So far I love the unit and the support for Violectric products here in America is top notch!

 

[ztxabc]

V800 is 739.99 at massdrop now.
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/violectric-audio-dac-v800