Thanks for your answer. I am using roon in fact just for the convolutional filter support as I got some HAF filters. Those were made to remove some nasty room modes, which they successfully did. So I am a slave to roon at the moment and the idea of inserting a streamer to use as just a roon endpoint to get a decent coax spdif sounds not the most efficient.
I don’t know if there are streamers which could apply a given conv filter? (Not standard room correction such as dirac etc)
Otherwise I’d like to keep within my limited budget and get the best sound per pound possible optimizing the signal in between mm and dac.
My doubts as well have to also do with the particular implementation of the naim dac. It serms it does not rely that much on the external clock received through the spdif input but on local clocks. That made me think that maybe inproving clocks on the usb to spdif converter might be useless.
I am no expert on either the Mac’s design or Audirvana’s internal workings. I assume it means that there are different USB buses within the Mac’s architecture (3 rings s bell from somewhere), and that Audirvana’s coding is such that it can ensure that its output and nothing else can use one, any other USB functions being routed via the others. For more info you’d probably have to research Audirvana.
I have no knowledge as to how true or what actual effect they may be, but it made sufficient sense to me to not question the claim, while sound quality is very good.
Interesting, thanks, do you use it in a chain to feed an ndac?
In the systen in your profile I fail to see where the isolator would fit, but not familiar with the inouts of an ndx2, does it accept async usb? Or did you use it maybe in a second or prior system?
Audiowise SRC-X - I wrote here in the forum about my experience lately and I have a very similar setup as yours. Sorry I don’t know how to link my post…
Yes, the Audiowise I believe mostly made for Chord dacs as they have 2 BNC inputs and than it can upscale to 752 hertz.
The Ndac SPDIF input anyway is max of 192 so I use just one BNC cable. I upscale from Audirvāna. The results are amazing and better than CDX2.2+xps2 I had.
I also use Roon and have a SN3 and nDAC (with small Proac speakers)
For several years, I fiddled around with several USB>SPDIF converters with variable (and sometimes unsuccessful) results but I eventually switched to using a network streamer instead, which is what Roon themselves recommend.
For several years I used a Raspberry Pi + Hi-Fi Berry SPDIF add-on card which worked absolutely perfectly and sounded great.
I eventually moved the Rpi to my study system and replaced it with an iFi Audio ZEN Stream Wi-Fi Audio Transport which connects to the nDAC via SPDIF and sounds fantastic plus adds Spotify, AirPlay and Chromecast streaming smarts.
I’d recommend you give up on USB>SPDIF convertor path and put your funds towards a similar network streaming solution.
For clarity, the industry standard specs state that 192Khz is the max sample rate for SPDIF and 96Khz for Toslink (it’s not a nDAC limitation)
I will try to upscale from roon and see what happens.
likely not much
Seems like i’m walking a path you walked in the past, thanks for the advice, I’ll give it serious thought, plus, second hand the zen stream is within budget.
I did not know roon recommends using a streamer as an endpoint
I used a 2011 Mac mini for a good while via toslink and Audirvāna to a Naim DAC. It was very good (252/300) and a long way ahead of my CDX2.
When the Mac died I had to move to spdif usb and it was a big step back, only solved by getting a streamer, which enabled me to use the Mac completely away fro:the hi fi.
A streaming device to the DAC is the way to go.
I have a question for @Blackbird if he’s so kind to answer.
I’ve seen you tested both ndx2 as a streaming transport and your limetree bridge into an ndac.
May I ask what differences you found between both?
Thanks, I’m investigating the bridge as a roon endpoint as per the advice recieved in this thread and was wondering whether it’s that good.
It was into my NDS I don’t remember any big differences running NDX2 into NDS vs Lindemann Bridge II but it is a HUGE price difference. After all they use Streaming Unlimited streaming board in both but I believe the one in Lindemann is a later version (810) vs 800 in Naim products. Using NDX2 or ND5XS2 as a streamer only is just waste of money IMO since you just use a tiny part of that big box and also pay for it being unused. Lindemann Bridge II sounds great into Naim products IMO.
I also liked Lumin U1 mini which I had on my former 272. Very good indeed. Big uplift in quality. Their app is so so and therefore I would propose Lindemann instead. Lindemann today updated their products so they now can stream Tidal Max over connect. Naim is not there yet. I only use the Naim app to control volume and mute.
@Lucifer has also added Bridge II to his NDS and is very happy with it
So I bought a preloved limetree bridge 1 to test the concept. Version 1 of this device always upsamples to 192 or 176 24 bits.
I got a pop/click when changing tracks, usually when changing from a 44.1 to a 48 sampling rate family and vice versa.
On the other hand, I can’t say I performed a fair evaluation of the SQ difference since the pop/click was really spoiling the listening experience for me, but did not seem to be night and day, in fact I couldn’t spot any obvious difference.
It was probably a defective unit, since many forumites are using it succssfully to front old streamers or naim dac, but I had to return it.
Thanks to all who contributed, and thank you all for this great forum.
I don’t remember any big differences running NDX2 into NDS vs Lindemann Bridge II but it is a HUGE price difference. After all they use Streaming Unlimited streaming board in both but I believe the one in Lindemann is a later version (810) vs 800 in Naim products. Using NDX2 or ND5XS2 as a streamer only is just waste of money IMO since you just use a tiny part of that big box and also pay for it being unused. Lindemann Bridge II sounds great into Naim products IMO.