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Post by novisnick on Apr 28, 2018 21:09:01 GMT -5
And all of these devices eliminate full MQA implementation? If I’ve researched correctly they do.
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Post by vcautokid on Apr 29, 2018 7:01:51 GMT -5
USB interfaces to me with the exeption of richguy's post is a limited and perhaps dubious value to me. If you are doing audio creation or post production these are incredibly useful. Depending on how far you want to take it. Since most are running asynchronously anyway and reclocking at the destination, I am not so sure if it makes a whole ton of difference. Obviously you just can't send crap to the destination, but there is latitude. My USB interface from my PreSonus AR-12 Mixer is quite powerful and sounds quite good. But do I really use it? Not really. At least not now. USB interface covers a lot of ground here, and depending on your application, sometimes, less is more.
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Post by wilburthegoose on Apr 29, 2018 7:11:11 GMT -5
Has anybody compared the USB DAC in the XMC-1 to anything else? I like the XMC-1's USB performance quite a lot, actually.
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Post by fbczar on Apr 29, 2018 7:25:08 GMT -5
I'm a double blind test kinda guy  The problem here is none of the folks who are skeptical of the Rendu's, the EITR or other similar products have heard the effect of one. They just assume they cannot work and dismiss them out of hand. They also seem to refuse to accept the fact that more than jitter reduction is going on. Check out the credentials of the people who make the EITR and the Rendu's and ask yourself if their work might deserve the benefit of the doubt. |
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Post by fbczar on Apr 29, 2018 7:27:25 GMT -5
Has anybody compared the USB DAC in the XMC-1 to anything else? I like the XMC-1's USB performance quite a lot, actually. It would be great if those who have compared the XMC-1 to standalone DAC's would comment. Their perspective would be valuable. |
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Post by fbczar on Apr 29, 2018 8:11:36 GMT -5
And all of these devices eliminate full MQA implementation? If I’ve researched correctly they do. No. The microRendu and the UltraRendu are compatible with MQA. I use the microRendu and EITR together and MQA works perfectly so the EITR must be ok too. |
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Post by pknaz on Apr 29, 2018 9:51:58 GMT -5
I'm a double blind test kinda guy The problem here is none of the folks who are skeptical of the Rendu's, the EITR or other similar products have heard the effect of one. They just assume they cannot work and dismiss them out of hand. They also seem to refuse to accept the fact that more than jitter reduction is going on. Check out the credentials of the people who make the EITR and the Rendu's and ask yourself if their work might deserve the benefit of the doubt. Or some of us are very well aware of what psycho-acoustics is and how reliable it is I'm not saying that they don't make a difference, but I'd want to see double blind tests to verify. It is the only way to get statistically significant results that are accurate without bias. |
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Post by routlaw on Apr 29, 2018 13:13:21 GMT -5
Thanks for all the contributions to this discussion, lots of great info which in most cases seem to bare out what persist throughout the audiophile community. I am also including a link below from HeadFi forums where an individual has completed about as exhaustive of a review as your likely to ever encounter regarding these DDC's (digital to digital converters) as he refers to them. Its definitely worth the read both for the doubters and believers IMHO. His approach strikes me as bare bones honest, no frills and presents the upsides as well as the potential downsides, especially for this one product he is reviewing. www.head-fi.org/showcase/singxer-su-1-usb-bridge.21724/reviewsHopefully you'll find it as interesting as I have. Thanks |
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Post by RichGuy on Apr 29, 2018 14:13:06 GMT -5
Thanks for all the contributions to this discussion, lots of great info which in most cases seem to bare out what persist throughout the audiophile community. I am also including a link below from HeadFi forums where an individual has completed about as exhaustive of a review as your likely to ever encounter regarding these DDC's (digital to digital converters) as he refers to them. Its definitely worth the read both for the doubters and believers IMHO. His approach strikes me as bare bones honest, no frills and presents the upsides as well as the potential downsides, especially for this one product he is reviewing. www.head-fi.org/showcase/singxer-su-1-usb-bridge.21724/reviewsHopefully you'll find it as interesting as I have. Thanks I was also considering the Singxer su 1 before I choose my Matrix XSPDIF 2, I think both are very good choices Here's another head-fi thread www.head-fi.org/threads/matrix-x-spdif-2-a-singxer-su-1-killer.855159/page-4#post-14042970 |
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Post by Casey Leedom on Apr 29, 2018 14:13:34 GMT -5
I'm a double blind test kinda guy The problem here is none of the folks who are skeptical of the Rendu's, the EITR or other similar products have heard the effect of one. They just assume they cannot work and dismiss them out of hand. They also seem to refuse to accept the fact that more than jitter reduction is going on. Check out the credentials of the people who make the EITR and the Rendu's and ask yourself if their work might deserve the benefit of the doubt. has covered this several times. Possible reasons why USB could be a problem: - Synchronous or Adaptive USB Audio can cause lots of problems. Asynchronous USB Audio is simply delivering Audio Data to the DAC. It's the DAC's job to clock that Audio Data out of its own buffers using an internal clock. It would be nice if DAC Manufacturers universally called out the exact kind of USB implementation being used.
- The USB Audio Data may arrive Too Late (Buffer Underflow)[1]. Late arrival of Audio Data will leave the DAC sucking on an Empty Buffer leading to Pauses, Dropouts, Beeps, etc.
- The USB Data may arrive Corrupted[1]. Since USB Audio works in Isochronous Mode, the CRC should catch any Corrupted Packet and simply drop it leading to Dropouts, etc. Corruption Issues would mostly likely be caused by very poor quality cables/connectors in an extremely Electro-Magnetically Noisy Environment.
- There is some possibility of Ground Loops, Electrical Noise Interference, etc. coming across the Electrical USB connection. Galvanic Isolation would be useful in such a case.
So, you want a well-designed/implemented DAC which uses Asynchronous USB Audio and has good Electrical Noise Isolation/Immunity. You should probably use a reasonable quality USB Cable, but don't go crazy. Casey [1] I have no idea how likely either of these errors is — and I haven't seen any DAC advertise an ability to flag such errors. |
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Post by RichGuy on Apr 29, 2018 15:02:02 GMT -5
I find it funny that when things are digital many people think well then it works its best and nothing can be better it either works at its best or does not work at all. But this thinking is wrong, there is more to it than just the digital portion there are other factors.
I remember a few years ago a guy I worked with thought he could buy some super cheap digital camera, I think it was some Barbie digital camera and he said to me that since it's a digital camera it ought to take the same great pictures as an expensive digital camera, digital is digital right?
He really thought that, I had to explain to him there was much more to it than that, in the cameras case the lens, pixels, controls, etc.
In any case in audio there definitely are other factors as well and just because something is digital doesn't mean it will always sound its best and cannot be better or that things cannot sound any differently.
For example the biggest difference in DAC chips is how they are implemented in the components using them.
There is more to it than just the digital 1's & 0's that effects the sound.
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Post by routlaw on Apr 29, 2018 15:19:19 GMT -5
All good points RichGuy, and to my way of thinking a great analogy with digital cameras. A classic case in point, Nikon for years have used Sony sensors in their cameras and to this very day Sony cameras for all of their qualities in some respect still either cannot or do not attain quite the image quality of what Nikon milks out of these same sensors. And this doesn't even begin to address all of the aftermarket software and various RAW camera processors that will render images differently and in some case dramatically so. Is this statistically meaningless because it hasn't passed double blind test? |
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Post by brubacca on Apr 29, 2018 15:30:22 GMT -5
The problem here is none of the folks who are skeptical of the Rendu's, the EITR or other similar products have heard the effect of one. They just assume they cannot work and dismiss them out of hand. They also seem to refuse to accept the fact that more than jitter reduction is going on. Check out the credentials of the people who make the EITR and the Rendu's and ask yourself if their work might deserve the benefit of the doubt. Or some of us are very well aware of what psycho-acoustics is and how reliable it is I'm not saying that they don't make a difference, but I'd want to see double blind tests to verify. It is the only way to get statistically significant results that are accurate without bias. I have found immediate comparison (either blind, double blind or anti-blind) to be fairly useless in my long term success with a component. Until I have lived with a component for months in my system I don't get a sense for how I like it. Honestly my only requirement at the end of the day is do I enjoy listening to music or not. My system is currently at its best balance of ease of use and enjoyment. I actually have "better" gear sitting unused in favor of my current system in place. mR/Eitr/Gumby makes my most expensive component by far and well worth the money. |
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Post by RichGuy on Apr 29, 2018 15:46:25 GMT -5
True, in blind tests most people will have a very difficult time even distinguishing different speakers correctly without night and day differences. I guess all speakers sound the same.  The best comparisons are with time spent with your gear and music you are very familiar with. |
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Post by Casey Leedom on Apr 30, 2018 2:06:27 GMT -5
Okay, let's approach this problem from a different angle ...
I work in Computer Systems and Networking. Transferring Digital Data from place to place is my business. These days we're deploying 100Gb/s solutions and working on 200Gb/s and 400Gb/s solutions. We work with the Storage and the Content Delivery Markets predominantly because, let's face it, no one else needs that kind of bandwidth.
The rates we're talking about with respect to Audio Digital Data being fed into Digital-to-Analog Converters are many orders of magnitude slower than this. Heck, it's way slower than the simple 1Gb/s Ethernet I run throughout my entire home with commodity equipment.
Transferring Audio Digital Data across Digital Interconnects and making sure it arrives on time and correct is, by far, the least interesting or hard aspect of music recreation. Compared to the complexities of the Analog Signal Reconstruction done in DACs, the simple transport of the Digital Data to those DACs is frankly boring and 100% solved. A manufacturer which creates a product that can't handle the Digital Transport portion of the problem, shouldn't be trusted with the wildly harder task of getting the Digital-to-Analog Conversion process right.
Casey
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Post by brubacca on Apr 30, 2018 5:24:35 GMT -5
True, in blind tests most people will have a very difficult time even distinguishing different speakers correctly without night and day differences. I guess all speakers sound the same. The best comparisons are with time spent with your gear and music you are very familiar with. I'm not saying that I can't hear a difference. I'm saying that just because I can hear a difference when listening to the minutiae doesn't ensure long term happiness with the setup/product after a short audition. |
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Post by RichGuy on Apr 30, 2018 8:23:36 GMT -5
True, in blind tests most people will have a very difficult time even distinguishing different speakers correctly without night and day differences. I guess all speakers sound the same. The best comparisons are with time spent with your gear and music you are very familiar with. I'm not saying that I can't hear a difference. I'm saying that just because I can hear a difference when listening to the minutiae doesn't ensure long term happiness with the setup/product after a short audition. It was just an example, I think some people put too much into the need for blind testing. |
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Post by goodfellas27 on Apr 30, 2018 8:44:59 GMT -5
I have the Audioquest Jitterbug and it makes a difference. It filters the noise of my PC's cheap power supply when connected to XMC-1 via USB. It is just 50 dollars  |
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Post by routlaw on Apr 30, 2018 10:28:01 GMT -5
Has anybody compared the USB DAC in the XMC-1 to anything else? I like the XMC-1's USB performance quite a lot, actually. Sort of but probably not in the way you are thinking. I have compared the XMC-1 to the ERC-3 with analog outputs as well as via Coax into the XMC-1. Suffice it to say they sounded considerably different. I didn't care much for the Coax method at that time and preferred the ERC-3 via analog outputs (balanced). As well I have compared the XMC-1 to my Oppo 103, and now even my recently purchased Oppo 203. To my ears the 203 handily outperforms the 103 but again as in the case with the ERC-3 the 203 with analog outputs (RCA) it sounds considerably different than the DAC in the XMC-1, surprisingly so. Whether all this can be chalked up to the "sound signature" of analog cables I don't know. FWIW I used BJC LC-1's with the Oppo players, and the BJC XLR's for the ERC-3. |
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Post by routlaw on Apr 30, 2018 10:57:55 GMT -5
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! I find this interesting as I've done the same thing and found or heard significant differences. Please understand I don't have a dog in this race and could really care less which and if any of these connection methods performed better or the same. With Oppo 203/HDMI the sound to me was of hyper detail, sort of like stark naked detail. So much so it really had me doing a double take. The coax a bit less of this or at least a smoother representation, and then with my Mac Book Pro running Audirvana + via USB to my ears blew the other two out of the water. I was so surprised by this comparison I almost started another thread on the forum as to how and why this could be. It is worth pointing out too, I used the Oppo HDMI 2 output which is said to be better with less jitter etc than the HDMI 1 output. Oh and during this same exercise I also played disc via the Oppo 203 analog outputs, which were really different but very palatable. If bits are bits and the are all sent bit perfect and all digital cables are identical assuming they are functioning correctly how on earth could either of these methods of connection & delivery be so different in some cases dramatically so. While the HDMI output was interesting in its hyper detail I'm not sure I would want to live with it on a continual basis at least with Red Book CD/files. However when playing SACD/DSD disc via the Oppo/HDMI a transformation took place. The detail was still there but smoother and easier to listen to. Oh well! |
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