Aftermarket USB interfaces, anyone have any experiences?

[routlaw]

There are number of companies manufacturing "audiophile grade" USB interfaces that purportedly perform much better than the majority of on board USB ports in DACS and Pre Pros, Sonore Rendu comes to mind, Empirical Audio made the Off Ramp and maybe still does and no doubt there are many others. Just curious if anyone here has had experience with any of these and if so are they cracked up to be what they claim? Some are quite expensive, others offered at more modest prices.

Thanks in advance.

[Casey Leedom]

Why is the audiophile business so full of Snake Oil? And it's been this way since at least the early '80s when I first started paying attention to it. I guess it's because there's so much subjectivity and so few audiophiles have engineering backgrounds ...

In any case, unless the company can offer an objective description of why their product helps in a way that makes sense from an engineering perspective, I'd steer clear. USB carries digital data packets these days. Either the data gets there or it doesn't.

Casey

[routlaw]

Jitter, or lack of it.

[KeithL]

Unfortunately, even among the expensive ones, it's often difficult to separate the real ones from the bogus ones.
(You'll notice how few publish actual specifications.)
Bear in mind that what you're doing is simply replacing the DAC's USB input with one that performs slightly better - and usually only in terms of jitter.
(Which is why, if your DAC includes an ASRC, which eliminates most of the jitter that makes it in past that point anyway, the effect tends to be minimal.)
I should also point out that many of these devices also give you galvanic isolation - which can also be sueful (but only if you're having noise problems).

In general, with the few I've tried that actually could be confirmed to reduce jitter, what I've found is that......
- on DACs with asynch USB inputs, and internal re-clocking, the benefits are minimal to none
    (so, on a DC-1, the effect may be noticeable, depending on your source, with the ASRC off... but will probably disappear when you turn the ASRC on)
- on older DACs, with old-style USB ports, the benefit is major (old non-asynch USB ports were pretty bad)
- on something like the XMC-1, which has both a good asynch USB input, and an ASRC inside, I would expect the differences to be minimal to nonexistent

Also note that you are in fact NOT replacing JUST the USB input portion of the DAC.
- What you are bypassing is the USB input circuitry on your DAC, and any other circuitry between that and the main digital signal path in the DAC.
- What you are replacing it with is your new USB-to-S/PDIF converter, the S/PDIF receiver in your DAC, and the circuitry between it and the main signal path inside the DAC.

Also note that the folks who sell USB tweeks have a habit of quoting impressive numbers - like the jitter rating on the clock crystal they use.
Unfortunately, in devices like this, board layout and other factors are critical, which means that, while it's a limiting factor, a good quality clock does NOT guarantee overall good performance.
The short answer is that, with most modern DACs, the majority of these will make little to no difference.

Apr 27, 2018 15:41:23 GMT -5 routlaw said:

There are number of companies manufacturing "audiophile grade" USB interfaces that purportedly perform much better than the majority of on board USB ports in DACS and Pre Pros, Sonore Rendu comes to mind, Empirical Audio made the Off Ramp and maybe still does and no doubt there are many others. Just curious if anyone here has had experience with any of these and if so are they cracked up to be what they claim? Some are quite expensive, others offered at more modest prices.

Thanks in advance.

[routlaw]

I guess I don't understand why sample rate conversion would effectively change jitter or other anomalies. Regardless interesting information. There sure is a lot of anecdotal evidence that seems to support these devices though.

[copperpipe]

Apr 27, 2018 15:51:49 GMT -5 Casey Leedom said:

Why is the audiophile business so full of Snake Oil? And it's been this way since at least the early '80s when I first started paying attention to it. I guess it's because there's so much subjectivity and so few audiophiles have engineering backgrounds ...

In any case, unless the company can offer an objective description of why their product helps in a way that makes sense from an engineering perspective, I'd steer clear. USB carries digital data packets these days. Either the data gets there or it doesn't.

Casey

I used to think this too. As a software developer used to protocols like TCP/IP, the whole notion of fancy USB cables and devices was extremely puzzling to me; these protocols can guarantee that a 5 TB (or larger) file gets copied from Toronto to Tokyo with not 1 bit of data corruption. Not even one single "1" or "0" would get corrupted.

BUT

USB Audio is a different ball game. It doesn't use a bit perfect stream with error correction. It's more like UDP (or analog) that way, there is definitely corruption between the DAC stage and the speaker cone.

[routlaw]

Apr 27, 2018 16:25:52 GMT -5 copperpipe said:

BUT

USB Audio is a different ball game. It doesn't use a bit perfect stream with error correction. It's more like UDP (or analog) that way, there is definitely corruption between the DAC stage and the speaker cone.

Can you elaborate, in way that us who are not software engineers can grasp?

[DYohn]

I use a Schiit Eitr USB to S/PDIF converter that in my system FAR surpasses the performance of the USB input on my DAC. YMMV.

[Casey Leedom]

So I know that most modern decent DACs reclock the data coming in off their USB Interfaces. Is the same true for Optical/Coaxial S/DIF Interfaces?

Casey

[routlaw]

Apr 27, 2018 17:03:09 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I use a Schiit Eitr USB to S/PDIF converter that in my system FAR surpasses the performance of the USB input on my DAC. YMMV.

Thanks, this is exactly what I keep hearing from so many other people who use these things. Does you Eitr only convert to S/PDIF, and to also output a higher quality USB signal?

[DYohn]

Apr 27, 2018 17:33:34 GMT -5 routlaw said:

Apr 27, 2018 17:03:09 GMT -5 DYohn said:

I use a Schiit Eitr USB to S/PDIF converter that in my system FAR surpasses the performance of the USB input on my DAC. YMMV.

Thanks, this is exactly what I keep hearing from so many other people who use these things. Does you Eitr only convert to S/PDIF, and to also output a higher quality USB signal?

It is just USB to S/PDIF (coax.)

[Loop 7]

I've been irrationally tempted to purchase a USB re-clocker or a USB-to-SPDIF converter with re-clocking claims but have resisted. My DAC is async so I need to knock it off.

[fbczar]

Apr 27, 2018 17:56:32 GMT -5 DYohn said:

Apr 27, 2018 17:33:34 GMT -5 routlaw said:

Thanks, this is exactly what I keep hearing from so many other people who use these things. Does you Eitr only convert to S/PDIF, and to also output a higher quality USB signal?

It is just USB to S/PDIF (coax.)

I use a microRendu and a Schiit EITR with my XMC-1. The improvement in the realism of the system due to the addition of those two components has been profound. I do not use the word "profound" lightly. Clearly, these components address USB deficiencies beyond the simple reduction of jitter. I use an iMac with Audirvana with a NAS. I think the focus should be on what the microRendu or UltraRendu does better than the computer functions  it replaces, not just jitter. What level or kind of interference or electrical noise are eliminated is at least as important as jitter reduction.

If we listen and cannot hear it, fine, but to dismiss the effectiveness of such devices without testing any of them in your system is not a reasonable approach. 

[brubacca]

Put me in the Sonore MicroRendu with Schiit Eitr camp. The Eitr brought a definite improvement to my system over going Usb direct to my DAC (Schiit Gumby) or using my Musical Fidelity USB/coax adapter (forget the name).

so I have had success on that front.

[wilburthegoose]

I use Roon on a Windows 10 PC. I listen to music on my XMC-1.

I've tried playing music 3 ways:
a) USB from my PC to the XMC-1
b) Toslink from my PC to the XMC-1
c) Coax digital from my PC to the XMC-1
d) HDMI from my Oppo UDP-203 to the XMC-1 (the Oppo can act as a Roon endpoint).

To be honest, I didn't hear any difference - they all sounded great!

[RichGuy]

I use a Matrix SPDIF 2, the sound is considerably better than using USB straight from my HTPC. The Matrix SPDIF 2 has a USB input with 4 outputs a digital coax as well as a Toslink optical, also a balanced digital AES/EBU XLR and the fourth is an IIS port which looks like an hdmi port and excepts an hdmi cable but functions completely differently than hdmi. The IIS port is supposed to be very good but requires a DAC that has an IIS port input.

I use both the digital coax and digital AES/EBU XLR outputs, coax to my MHDT Havana DAC and the AES/EBU XLR to my balanced MHDT  Stockholm and this works very well for me.

The sound quality is excellent as well as the build quality, the case is a very nice CNC machined aluminum chassis design

matrix-digi.com/en/products/158/index.html#page1

[Loop 7]

Apr 28, 2018 6:06:00 GMT -5 brubacca said:

Put me in the Sonore MicroRendu with Schiit Eitr camp. The Eitr brought a definite improvement to my system over going Usb direct to my DAC (Schiit Gumby) or using my Musical Fidelity USB/coax adapter (forget the name).

so I have had success on that front.

Not what I wanted to hear. My temptation is renewed.

[Casey Leedom]

Sounds like a bad USB implementation on the Schiit Gumby ...

Casey

[RichGuy]

Apr 28, 2018 18:38:35 GMT -5 Casey Leedom said:

Sounds like a bad USB implementation on the Schiit Gumby ...

Casey

It's not that the USB implementation on the Schitt Gumby is bad, it's just that the USB implementation on most DAC's can be improved. Schitt has upgraded their newer DAC's to include the improvements offered by their Eitr. You can also have your older Schitt DAC upgraded to have the Eiter's improvements installed.

It's not much different than using a better DAC than the one included in your receiver/processor etc. In most cases there is always room for improvement.

With the DAC's I've owned I have always found the USB input to not sound as well as using the digital coax input did using my ASUS Xonar Essence sound cards digital coax out, but I have found the USB can be greatly improved with external USB conversion, I've used a couple different ones now and the Matrix SPDIF 2 has been my favorite.

[pknaz]

I'm a double blind test kinda guy