[RonaldDumsfeld]

I don't understand what you are trying to say mate. I suspect you don't either as you appear to contradict yourself.
 
Bit perfect to the DAC is bit perfect. Any half way competent modern DAC will receive the data packets in the same sequence and with exact same numerical values as they left the transport then buffer them up ready for the conversion process. Even if something went horribly wrong along the way and some of the zeros became 1s or vice versa you wouldn't hear that as 'tighter bass' or 'sweeter highs' . You'd hear clicks and pops if it was really bad.  It's not the transport or the transfer protocol at issue here anyway. All standard old school CD players contain a separate DAC component anyway so if changes where taking place to the signal, which there aren't but if they were, the same argument would apply.
 
But I mean. So what? It's your ears and your money. Believe what you will. Sensible people will spend their cash on decent speakers and tip their caps respectfully to those nice Chinese chaps and chapesses who have made good quality electronics accessible to all.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I don't understand what you are trying to say mate. I suspect you don't either as you appear to contradict yourself.

 
How did I contradict myself? You would only get the "clicks and pops" if the digital signal has deteriorated so badly that the DAC can no longer maintain a lock. The effects of jitter are not nearly so obvious. What does jitter sound like? It adds a harshness to the treble, thiness to to the midrange, and generally makes the sound more unpleasant and more "hifi" as opposed to "musical".
 
You don't even need to compare completely different formats. Take the M2Tech Hiface and the Empirical Off-Ramp. Fundamentally they both do the exact same thing, convert USB to S/Pdif. Both use separate clocks for 44.1 and 48, so there's no timing errors due to clock synthesis. One costs $150, the other costs $1200. By your logic, anyone would be a complete fool to by the Off-Ramp, when both can send a bit-perfect S/Pdif signal to "any half way competent modern DAC will receive the data packets in the same sequence and with exact same numerical values as they left the transport then buffer them up ready for the conversion process."
 
So the Off-Ramp is literally just flushing over $1,000 down the toilet, right? Neeewp. The "bits are bits, it's either a 1 or a 0" thinking about digital is just completely wrong. You don't understand the processes at work.

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

 
The "bits are bits, it's either a 1 or a 0" thinking about digital is just completely wrong. You don't understand the processes at work.

 
Dave, one of the things I hope to do in 2014 (!) is to be able to spend serious time - and a few dollars - revisiting my Tosh DVD experiment with a decent DAC.  I wanted so very badly to believe the 'bits are bits' line that it was a huge disappointment with the Carat.  That said, there was no attempt at unsighted testing - I just know I didn't like the result. Same-same my PS3's Toslink out - even hooking it up to the DAC for gaming resulted in a somewhat hollow, artificial sound. Still, its worth another shot in the future. 
 
@RonaldDumsfeld, there IS something between 'pops and clicks' and 'perfect sound' - what you are suggesting assumes that its one or the other. Whether its jitter or evil faeries is of less interest to me than eliminating it - I started this thread from simple frustration around the state of USB DACs, specifically the need to buy a second expensive  box simply to be able to get what you paid for when you bought the DAC, but it has devolved somewhat into the merits of dedicated CDTs. I accept that I might have titled it more appropriately, but 'Frustration about USB DACs' probably wouldnt have garnered a single hit. The irony is that going to a boutique CDT-DAC combination would cost as much as something like the Offramp->DAC combination I'm ranting about, and you would still be juggling CDs - hardly a winning proposition, but then I look at the money folk are prepared to pay for a good phono stage. It would seem that, whatever the medium, there is a price to be paid for getting the best from the pits and furrows which hold all that digital and analog magnificence.  

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Fair enough. I see what you mean now.
 
It must be a right pisser to buy an expensive DAC box, add a Transport and possibly even separate power supply, connect it all with golden plugs and mount it on a special shelf. Only to discover that if you had simply plugged in your laptop and not looked very hard you wouldn't be able to hear the difference.
 
I dunno. I'm an optimist. I think that's a good thing.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

It must be a right pisser to buy an expensive DAC box, add a Transport and possibly even separate power supply, connect it all with golden plugs and mount it on a special shelf. Only to discover that if you had simply plugged in your laptop and not looked very hard you wouldn't be able to hear the difference.

 
Says you. I've tried using optical digital output from my computer into both old school and new school DACs. The old was an EAD DSP-7000 MKIII. The digital receiver on that DAC was the very common CS8412 which was not known for its amazing performance, but EAD incorporated what they called "digital flywheel" to deal with the high levels of jitter coming through the DAC from the receiver. Otherwise the DSP-7000 was known as a stellar performer in its day. The performance was extremely disappointing, so much so that I actually preferred the line-out from my Hifiman HM-801 portable!
 
I also tried more modern delta sigma DACs like the Bel Canto DAC3 and a few others, with identical results. Very substandard sound. Digital audio is a combination of data and timing. Laptops produce extremely high levels of jitter (that goes double when they are plugged in with their switch-mode power supplies) and even modern, well designed DACs cannot wipe all of that away with some sort of magic dust.

 

[El_Doug]

sighted tests, I assume? 
 
 
edited for typo

 

[estreeter]

Yep, he remained onsite for the duration of the sighted tests, El_Doug !  

 
Was just browsing through this review, thinking 'Wow - this sounds like a game-changer ...', then I scrolled down to the price. It certainly changed my game - I could fly to the US, buy the Empirical Overdrive and fly back for 7K - hell, a night in Vegas might even pay for the trip. Or mean I dont have to carry those ugly grey boxes back with me ......  

 
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/426-aurender-s10-music-server-review/
 
Seriously, who am I kidding - my wallet was never meant for high-end. Back to IEMs and portable players for moi, methinks. 

 

[fordgtlover]

I hope people don't mind an on topic question
 
 
Does anyone have experience with DIY transports?
 
I have some old CD-ROM drives and I picked up a CD controller kit off ebay.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/REMOTE-CDROM-CONTROLLER-KIT-DIY-A48-/110895071603?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d1dc8173
 
These two combined with a TTL to SPDIF converter from the CD-ROM's digital output and I should have a perfectly serviceable transport.
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html
 
Thoughts?

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

sighted tests, I assume? 

 
Yup. It was actually an effort to keep listening to the optical out from the computer in each case. I've done A/B tests with different components where each has some strength, just in different areas. Those can be tough. This wasn't. Optical digital via sound card had no redeeming quality whatsoever. The sound was so flat and boring that listening was a chore. That's not a good sign.

 

[RonaldDumsfeld]

Does anyone else remember the scandal from last year when Ayre and Lexicon were both caught red handed buying $500 Oppo optical drives retail, putting them into a new box with their name on it and charging gullible punters several $1,000 for the privilege?
 
Lexicon were totally shameless. They actually built their own box round the original, even left the back plate unchanged. At least at Ayre they had the decency to take the original apart into it's 4 main component parts and reassemble it again into a custom designed case.
 
The spokesbloke for Ayre was pretty cool. He came straight out and put his hand up. His explanation was that the best available parts were the best available parts. Oppo could afford the licensing, a relatively small company like his couldn't. So it made sense to acquire the bits they needed pre licensed. Still, a price increase to the consumer from ~$500 to ~$5,000 does sound a little steep for a few inches of bullion grade wire and a pretty aluminum box.

 

[estreeter]

I thought it was accepted that boutique audio had to rely on others for things like optical drives ? I agree that the markup is crazy, but again I thought most accepted that high-end markups were crazy. Companies like TEAC and Phillips make a lot of the boring stuff, but get little of the credit. That's showbiz, I guess. 

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

I thought it was accepted that boutique audio had to rely on others for things like optical drives ? I agree that the markup is crazy, but again I thought most accepted that high-end markups were crazy. Companies like TEAC and Phillips make a lot of the boring stuff, but get little of the credit. That's showbiz, I guess. 

There are VERY few transports out there that can spin BR discs, SACD, DVD-A, etc. No small audiophile company can afford to engineer that sort of thing, you're going to have to buy one from Denon, Pioneer, or one of the other huge electronics companies. What you then choose to do with that is up to you. Esoteric is pretty much the only company that makes ultra high-end SACD/CD players with their own transports. Everyone else either just buys the VRDS from Esoteric (Levinson, EMM), or from Philips (pretty much everyone else). Many of the Philips based versions are heavily modified, which goes in to the ultimate price of the component.
 
Is a heavily modified Oppo worth it? Depends on what was done, and how much better it sounds. What Ayre is doing isn't really that different from this, they just choose to put their own name on it.
 

 

[estreeter]

I wouldnt be spending 2K on a Nuforce-modded Oppo when Oppo make a $500 universal that most people seem perfectly happy with - horses for courses. 

 

[Chris J]

I hope people don't mind an on topic question


Does anyone have experience with DIY transports?

I have some old CD-ROM drives and I picked up a CD controller kit off ebay.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/REMOTE-CDROM-CONTROLLER-KIT-DIY-A48-/110895071603?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19d1dc8173

These two combined with a TTL to SPDIF converter from the CD-ROM's digital output and I should have a perfectly serviceable transport.
http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html

Thoughts?

Please!
No On Topic Questions Allowed!

Getting back off topic again:
The cheap transport discussion;
How much extraneous noise do you think a computer conducts down that copper line?
How much extraneous noise do you think that computer radiates?
How much jitter does that computer generate? So now you need a better DAC to reject all that jitter. I'm not talking about crazy kilobucks, say a well engineering, no nonsense product like rhe stuff Benchmark makes.

Yes, Lexicon disgusts me.:mad:
It speaks of a certain amount of contempt for the consumer.

 

[DaveBSC]

Quote:

The cheap transport discussion;
How much extraneous noise do you think a computer conducts down that copper line?
How much extraneous noise do you think that computer radiates?
How much jitter does that computer generate? So now you need a better DAC to reject all that jitter. I'm not talking about crazy kilobucks, say a well engineering, no nonsense product like rhe stuff Benchmark makes.
Yes, Lexicon disgusts me.

It speaks of a certain amount of contempt for the consumer.

 
Per AQVOX, they showed a measure of ~50mV of DC ripple on the 5V USB power line. This is without hdd access. With hdd access, they show closer to 100mV. The ATX specification states that a unit should remain at or below 120mV of ripple and noise on the 12v rail while under 50mV on the 3.3v/5v rails. This means that the quality of the 5V DC power coming from a typical USB port would fail the ATX spec, which is pretty generous. An ATX power supply that is bumping up against the ATX limits isn't a good one. So, you have very noisy, poor quality power coming from the USB port. That's why all of the better converters (apart from the Diverter 192) operate on either batteries or wall AC. The other problem besides the crappy power is the ground noise, which is where galvanic isolation comes in.
 
The Benchmarks might be "no nonsense" but they also aren't that good. Their USB tech is beyond obsolete, and the SRC and output stages are mediocre. The sound is bright, sterile, and tiring. You can do better for less - the Audiolab M-DAC or example.