I feel tired of seeing a Mac Mini + Gustard U12 sitting on my Fraim, but the main thing is that I find the Linn Klimax is most happy with the wired ethernet, and Hugo does not sound as good as the Linn DS.
Hi Simon, indeed, and I have sonetimes been more pedantic and referred to DACs with good RF rejection including isolation of RF ground plane modulation, the absence of galvanic isolation if its USB input being where the Hugo falls down and why it needs an external isolator if used with a source like a standard computer.
Quinn_MT, my focus has been on sound quality, and that Audirvana does very well. I trialled Roon as an interface a couple of years ago and dudnāt like it. At that point my trial was just that aspect, leaving sound quality to assess and if necessary try and resolve if it managed better than Audurcaba in dealing with missing and imperfect metadata - it didnāt, and anyway I didnāt like the interface.
You havenāt clarified what you felt is troublesome about USB isolators/converters?
@Simon-in-Suffolk May I try to verify if Iāve properly caught. In term of rf noise the chord dac are disigned to be isolated but it term of rf usb noise the story is totally different. Due to that, considering that my dac is usb connected via audioquest cinnamon cable to a synology, I would see an enormous improvement using a server like innuos/melco which are really low noise source compared to a nas. Is it true?..Iāve some doubt about that because reading melco paul miller test it seems that non povered dac like dragonfly has a lot of improvement but for hi level dac it seems that the improvement is not tangible
I am not saying that the USB isolator is troublesome, it is primarily needed to eliminate or mitigate the effect of the magnetic field or radio frequency interference, but I have not found one that gives me a better SQ than a straight, simple wired ethernet to the streamer, plus you still need a good USB and a coax cable for connectivity and picking the right ones is really troublesome.
Also bearing in mind that if you use coax SPDIF, you cannot go higher than DSD 128 or 192/24.
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Iām very happy with the Innuos Zenith into nDAC via Audiophilleo 2 + PurePower Mk 2 into nDAC. The Zenith has lots of attention paid power regulation, vibration, EMI, RFI and isolation. The Audiophilleo is also well isolated as is the nDAC.
There is one review from Audioscience review of the Audiophilleo against the Gustard U12. Itās expensive compared to others.
Phil
Hey Flipe, you said earlier that the innuos zenith / audiophileo-purepower/ ndac sound as good or even better vs an nds. Did you have compared both in your system ? i am curious
I havenāt heard NDS in my system, but elsewhere.
NDS and nDAC have the same DAC chip and associated circuitry. ND555 also but refined a lot to overcome issues with NDS. My nDAC is kept far away from other digital noise sources including the Innuos rather than everything together in one box. So SQ comes down to the quality of the data into the nDAC and the environment of the DAC.
Phil
I have a suspicion that quite a bit of the āassociated circuitryā is rather different, especially in the ND555
@Filipe I own a dac v1 which has audioplhilleo embedded. My point is related to the source: assuming that innuos zen usb signal is clean compared to my synology it will affect the final sound or not? If you check audiosciencereview thay say no
RHi pieba, Yes, the source quality does affect the SQ. I have moved up from Zen Mini to Zen to Zenith and at each stage the SQ has improved. So I have come to accept that sources matter in the digital world, even the computer based as opposed to CD.
Yes, I know that the DAC V1 has the Audiophilleo technology in it. It will go some of the way, and I expect Naim will have put isolation in after the USB conversion to (spdif) data stream. The Zenith is reputed to have isolation at it end also.
As for reviews, I donāt know the details of the audioscience setup. If you can demo something like a Zenith then you can decide for yourself. It worth setting it up properly so the music is held locally etc. Itās far to easy to think that good setup doesnāt matter for a demo.
Phil
Of course it depends on the streamer. To me MM/Audirvana/USB - Gustard - Hugo sounded better than MM/UPnP - ND5XS - Hugo. Meanwhile MM/Audirvana - Dave sounded the same as MelcoN1A - Dave. However in the context of this thread, I have read others say that Innuos Zenith - DAC sounds better than MelcoN1A - DAC, while the finding that Zenith sounds better than Zen is unsurprising. All this suggests that Zenith might be the way to go.
Nothing pressing, but Iād like one day to improve on Audirvanaās library handling, and one day my Mac Mini will need replacing. So my query for my own needs is whether either Zenith - Dave sounds better than MM/Audirvana - Dave, or sounds the same but offers better library handling. Ditto other options like those based on ultraRendu or Allo DigiOne Signature etc. And in the middle of that, what the M-Scaler might bring to the party. Also relevant is which is most immune to cable and other influences. Threads like this are most useful to help build a picture.
Agreed, USB is not its strong card
better say perhaps in the same league soā¦Anyway the dac itself canāt be enough, you must add the implementation, the power supply, isolation from noiseā¦
The nds vs ndac is better in spdif mode, from what i heard many times. But some, as Simon, preferred the ndac soundā¦
Anyway the comparison in a same system could be interesting.
@Innocent_Bystander and @Simon-in-Suffolk I canāt understand the real advantage of an hi quality player if the dac is implementing async usb. With buffering and checksum I think that there is no audible differences with different transportā¦or I missed something
Its the same as for ethernetā¦ and largely the same as for SPDIF
The async part is about the requesting and sending of framesā¦ once the frames are sent they are obviously clocked over the serial twisted pair(s) until the next frame(s) are requested.
This has nothing to with DAC sample clocks - which I think some people get hung up on when ever they see the word ājitterā in audiophile circles.
The area we are talking about is data clocking cross talkā¦ which is why you need a quality transport to minimise the creation of these frequency distortion artefacts which will couple as (typically RF) noise into connected componentry. its not about data integrityā¦ which you would normally expect to be assured, even on a really basic and low cost transport
I donāt know enough about the technicalities to understand why one player may sound different from another, USB or Ethernet. But it is widely reported that there is a difference in sound quality between different software doing the rendering, and even the way the hardware is set up - e.g to maximise sound wpquality on a Mac, Audirvana bypasses Appleās drivers, and even reserving one of the USB buses just for its output)
It may be that this is all connected with electrical/RF noise: RF noise superimposed on the digital signal, or RF ground plane modulation, can cause adverse effects in the DAC, though I donāt know the mechanisms involved. I presume the same issues are the cause of any differences between cables connected to the DAC (or to something connected to the DAC), whether USB, SODIF or Ethernet, likewise network switches.
The simple explanation may be that anything connected to anything else (physically or by radio) may be a source, direct or acting as an aerial, sending unwanted electrical ānoiseā to the DAC, where it may interfere in some way with the conversion process, producing detectable differences in the final analogue output. How significant that will be depends not only on the contamination, but on how well the DAC itself rejects it, and presumably on the mechanism of the DAC process itself.
Rob Watts, the designer of the Chord DACs, has written much on the subject. Dave is the pinnacle of his DAC design, with a lot of effort expended on preventing these effects. IIUC (but I have not made a study of it) the main problem is ground plane modulation, and normal methods of galvanic isolation are not enough. I understand that his own favoured source is a Mac notebook, connected via USB, As last I was aware he found that a āUSB Regenā device (Audioquest IIRC) in the USB link improved rejection still further (just detectably) - in fact I think he may use two. And he runs the Mac on batteries disconnected from mains to prevent ground plane modulation by that path.
I have no idea what RW uses as his rendering software on the Mac, nor do I know if he has compared other rendering devices - I assume he must have done before concluding that was best, but for all I know there could be other reasons behind his decision (Maybe a major factor was portability, because I gather he does travel a lot - but that is conjecture).
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Iām sure RW would let you know what he uses if you were to pose the question to him over on an appropriate Headfi Chord thread. It would be good to know the answer.
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I find it interesting that Audirvana+ bypasses Appleās audio drivers, yet, even with their recent 3D update, Metric Halo are still happy to employ the core audio drivers for their AD converters like the ULN-8. Interesting also that MH have moved from Firewire to Ethernet and USB-C connectivity. I have a updated ULN-8 which I sometimes use as a DAC but have not done so since the arrival of an ND-555. I will do and compare to Hugo 2 out of the ND 555. So many roads, and so many byways to audio heaven ā¦