Best USB to SPDIF converter

[star]

That is what I said, but I cannot stress enough that the quality of the clocking is greatly associated with power supply and ground plane currents, not to mention internal em/rfi. The inner workings of a DAC reek havoc in those items, and it should be noted that the Weiss DAC202 uses a single clock with a PLL, and yet had the lowest jitter they had measured to date at the time of that review. Point being is that Gordon Rankin's argument is theoretical. Actual applications vary greatly, and getting a good signal down a properly tuned and terminated connection offers a lot in relation to the harsh environment within the DAC itself. I am certain companies such as dCS would just put it internally if they thought they could provide better clocking by doing so. Even Antelope offers an outboard oscillator for their high end devices, further improving the performance of their word clocks. General Radio would put them in a shielded sub enclosure on the other side of the chassis in theirs to reduce interactions.

 

 

 

,spdif cable ,

fire wire to usb,

halide design bridge ,

thunderbolt,

OR5,

MCRU linear power supply.

 

bottom line am not tech but just practical terms step by step ,how do i set up my dac to my laptop or CDP for up-most results in sound quality ?

[slartibartfast]

Hello,

does anybody have some experience with the Weiss INT202 ? How does it compare to other converters?

I am considering this interface since I have the possibility to get it used for a quite good price and M2Tech doesn't seem to be able to release the drivers for Mavericks anytime soon.

As the new Macbook Pro only has Thunderbolt ports, I will have to use an adapter. Will this be a problem? (I don't like adapters)

[gsquared]

Hello,

does anybody have some experience with the Weiss INT202 ? How does it compare to other converters?

I am considering this interface since I have the possibility to get it used for a quite good price and M2Tech doesn't seem to be able to release the drivers for Mavericks anytime soon.

As the new Macbook Pro only has Thunderbolt ports, I will have to use an adapter. Will this be a problem? (I don't like adapters)

 

I own and use a Weiss INT202 with a Paul Hynes PS. So far, the only converter that I've heard that competes with it is the Harmonic Technology INEX Photon Digital USB interface. A friend and I spent a few hours comparing the INEX to the Berkeley Audio Alpha USB and we had a little time after that comparison to throw the Weiss INT202 into the mix. But in the little time we had, the Weiss INT202 was very close to the INEX. By the way, the INEX was superior to the Berkeley.

 

Regarding the adaptor, I haven't done any comparisons yet. I will do some comparisons at some point. I have a 2011 Macbook Pro that has both Thunderbolt (which I can use with my adaptor) as well as Firewire 800 so comparing the two would be pretty easy.

 

Here's a link to the Harmonic Tech INEX device:

 

INEX Photon Digital / USB cable:

[Blake]

@gsquared: The Berkeley Alpha performs best when using AES/EBU rather than s/pdif. Did you try the Berkeley with AES/EBU, or just s/pdif?

 

Also, I thought the Weiss INT202 was a firewire converter, not usb converter, but perhaps I am mistaken on that.

[gsquared]

@gsquared: The Berkeley Alpha performs best when using AES/EBU rather than s/pdif. Did you try the Berkeley with AES/EBU, or just s/pdif?

 

Blake, yes we used AES/EBU into an APL DAC-S. I don't recall what cable we used, but I remember it was a very nice cable. It might have been a Crystal Cable $$$.

[Audio_ELF]

Also, I thought the Weiss INT202 was a firewire converter, not usb converter, but perhaps I am mistaken on that.

You're not mistaken, the INT202 is a FireWire to SPDIF converter. Though it is used for the same purpose really (connecting a computer to SPDIF input on a DAC).

 

Eloise

[gsquared]

Also, I thought the Weiss INT202 was a firewire converter, not usb converter, but perhaps I am mistaken on that.

 

Yes the Weiss INT202 is a firewire converter.

 

The problem with the Weiss is that it does not support Integer mode. To my ears, using Integer mode on other USB converters I've listened to makes a significant improvement.

[Blake]

@Eloise: Thanks.

 

@G2: Looking at the INEX Photon link you posted, it looks to be a multiple product approach- a usb cable, a spdif cable and a box with an xmos processor usb/spdif converter. Details are sparse though. I believe that you found the INEX to be superior, but personally I would be very surprised if that setup could beat a Berkeley Alpha, or a Weiss for that matter. I am not saying it would be impossible, just that I am skeptical.

[gsquared]

@Eloise: Thanks.

 

@G2: Looking at the INEX Photon link you posted, it looks to be a multiple product approach- a usb cable, a spdif cable and a box with an xmos processor usb/spdif converter. Details are sparse though. I believe that you found the INEX to be superior, but personally I would be very surprised if that setup could beat a Berkeley Alpha, or a Weiss for that matter. I am not saying it would be impossible, just that I am skeptical.

 

Blake, I was skeptical too. Trust me. When I got a call from my friend who told me about it and all the technical reasons why it should sound great, the first thing I said (in a skeptical tone) was "well... let's compare it to the Berkeley." So he borrowed a Berkeley unit from a dealer friend and we listened for about 2 hours, and the INEX definitely let more mid to high frequency information through. It didn't sound lean or bright, it just had more information, particularly in the high end. We kept going back and forth between the INEX and the Berkeley and overall, the Berkeley sounded veiled compared to the INEX. I will say this, listening to bright recordings at high volumes, it got pretty bright through the INEX. For example, Eva Cassidy Songbird, one track was a little too bright at the volumes we were playing it and some might prefer the Berkeley on that track.

 

Personally, I would have to live with it for a few days or a week to make any final conclusions, but this is what we heard. In fact, my friend was going to buy the Berkeley unit from the dealer, but he just wanted to do this comparison before moving forward. He ended up returning the Berkeley.

 

Of course, system synergy played a big part in what we were hearing. If your system is on the bright or lean side of neutral, you might not like the INEX setup. We were listening through a Macbook Pro into an APL DAC-S direct to a McIntosh 275 power amp using Harbeth 30.1s and it sounded incredible.

[gsquared]

Weiss just announced a new USB interface called the INT204 that looks pretty interesting. It also converts DSD files to PCM. I would be interested in listening to this in Integer mode compared to my Weiss Firewire interface.

 

Here's the link:

 

INT204 | Weiss Engineering Ltd.

[pigfatcat]

Thank you.. I guess I was hopeful for some jitter specs but maybe that's futile. I'm trying to get a hold of a sonicweld to see if it betters the legato 2, which is quite alot better than a AP2+PP. Stahl will be difficult for me, but looks interesting.

 

 

I agree with tubesound here. It sounds very easy to say "why don't we encourage good quality in a DAC to start with", because honestly, that is what is the goal of all DAC manufacturers... thing is, there is no DAC i have ever heard that does not benefit from a usb/spdif converter. This is my personal experience, up to the emm labs I own now.

 

Again, I repeat I do not consider what big brands like emm labs or chord to have done to be bad. It's just that the performance can be bettered. To me, a usb/spdif converter helps more with the problems about a PC, rather than a problem about the DAC, so I wouldn't put these guys down at all.

 

I'm also not sure why people seem to be able to accept the fact that an expensive CD transport (fed into a DAC) provides better performance to the system than a cheap CD transport, but find it harder to agree that a usb/spdif converter or a custom-made PC makes a lot of difference. If my PC (with no converter) can rival emm labs' matching $15k CD transport, why would anyone even bother with it? Can we condemn a company if their usb input doesn't equal the performance of the spdif input from a $15k CD transport? If the answer is no.. then hopefully you will be more open minded about a spdif input from an expensive usb/spdif converter.

 

Hopefully this thread will be less about this and more about discussing usb/spdif converters.

 

Having read tons of talks on the digital interfaces.The really good ones are priced more than $1500 . They are not portable and are bound to be desktop stuff. Why not simply dispense with the PC altogether and adopt serious audiophile servers on your desktop ? Candidates include Auralic Aries ( with dual Femto clocks and priced at $1599, or cheaper ones like Soundware 100 Pro ($1100) with proprietary IIS to SPDIF conversion inside . These servers play everything over SPDIF or even USB . You can attached several USB HDDS of 2TBs or even 3TBs to it. They cab assess NAS , DNLA files .They are controllable by iphone , ipad or android devices . To get purist you can have QLS 660 ( $ 450) with IIS output, and can also output DoP in SPDIF , but works with SD card only .

The culprit is the PC , which may cost the least in the chain , and is responsible for all the efforts that everyone have put into in the past few years to get around the USB jitter and noise problem.

[alfe]

I have tried Off-Ramp 5 (borrowed for 3 weeks), Musical Fidelity V-Link and the EVO full stack with ex clock and external power trans (not the battery) sounded so good, I bought it. I listen to most music types into good quality Audio Note valve amps and hoen speakers, plus Stax Omega 2s, and the sound I am getting is amazing. Totally organic, smooth, great treble extension, beautiful midrange, extended highs and I get NO DIGITAL GRAIN or EDGE. Maybe the fact I am using none oversampling DAC technology, not sure.

 

I would recommend the EVO with all the goodies. It really is top quality, and can be built in blocks, so no big outlay at the start.

 

BTW I use Audirvana+ which for me proved streets ahead in clarity and realism to PM or Amarra.

 

Hope this helps.

 

You should test the EVO stack with maverick since they release the new driver you can use integer mode with A+, impressive!

[tgb]

Hi,

quite interesting discussion about quite pricey interfaces.

I did not know which one I could buy, so I decided to do a test with this one :

XMOS 192kHz high-quality USB to SPDIF with ultralow noise 6.5uV regulator w/auto power switch - DIYINHK

Knowing that this cheap one is brand new because based on new xmos chip, running with faster oscillators than quite all well known interfaces.

Result : a shock ! No more digital harshness, music flows even more.

Price is low, thus it makes my best hifi investment since ever.

Although the interface has a input for external PSU, I use it basically USB-powered on a SMS100 miniserver.

I would be very interesting in having a test between this $110 little box vs >$1000 usb interfaces. Surely I expect it will be better, but surely not with a large margin.

It's a keeper ;-)

Rgds

[pigfatcat]

Hi,

quite interesting discussion about quite pricey interfaces.

I did not know which one I could buy, so I decided to do a test with this one :

XMOS 192kHz high-quality USB to SPDIF with ultralow noise 6.5uV regulator w/auto power switch - DIYINHK

Knowing that this cheap one is brand new because based on new xmos chip, running with faster oscillators than quite all well known interfaces.

Result : a shock ! No more digital harshness, music flows even more.

Price is low, thus it makes my best hifi investment since ever.

Although the interface has a input for external PSU, I use it basically USB-powered on a SMS100 miniserver.

I would be very interesting in having a test between this $110 little box vs >$1000 usb interfaces. Surely I expect it will be better, but surely not with a large margin.

It's a keeper ;-)

Rgds

 

 

I found this new one in China based on XMOS with good components at less than $100 : seperate power supplies/ linear PSU AD 150 MuRata DA101C transformer /CMC816 terminals /0.5PPM TCOX.

¼«ÏÞ°æXMOSÊý×Ö½çÃæ(¶ÀÁ¢µçÔ´) ¾øÅäES9018 USBת¹âÏËͬÖá-ÌÔ±¦Íø

However , it can only transmit 24/192, but not DoP . I asked and was confirmed that this is not the inherent limitation of XMOS. I guess some DIYers are already trying some XMOS solutions which can also transmit DoP in coaxial/optical .

[tgb]

hi Pigfatcat,

my point was not about "xmos based is good". My point was about "last xmos version with oscillator running at higher rate than prévious ones", combined with good power regulation. My interface is big like a box of cigarettes, it makes the result & SQ very astonishing compared to price & size.

Yes it does not transmit DoP. No problem for me because DoP is useless because the number of albums released in DSD is & will remain very very low : no future for DSD. So why bother with DoP ;-) It's just my opinion about DoP&DSD ;-)

Rgds

[Miska]

However , it can only transmit 24/192, but not DoP . I asked and was confirmed that this is not the inherent limitation of XMOS. I guess some DIYers are already trying some XMOS solutions which can also transmit DoP in coaxial/optical .

 

Why not? If interface is bit-perfect and has at least 24-bits it can pass DoP...

 

DoP is actually good test to check that interface or drivers don't mess up with the data.

 

For example I can confirm that M2Tech hiFace (proprietary) and MuFi V-Link192 (XMOS based) both pass DoP just fine.

[fmak]

Why not? If interface is bit-perfect and has at least 24-bits it can pass DoP...

 

DoP is actually good test to check that interface or drivers don't mess up with the data.

 

For example I can confirm that M2Tech hiFace (proprietary) and MuFi V-Link192 (XMOS based) both pass DoP just fine.

 

Because it only outputs spdif/. Of course someone can tap the I2S lines.

 

If one can built a box, this is the one to get WaveIO

[Audio_ELF]

Why not? If interface is bit-perfect and has at least 24-bits it can pass DoP...

 

DoP is actually good test to check that interface or drivers don't mess up with the data.

 

For example I can confirm that M2Tech hiFace (proprietary) and MuFi V-Link192 (XMOS based) both pass DoP just fine.

 

Because it only outputs spdif/. Of course someone can tap the I2S lines.

 

If one can built a box, this is the one to get WaveIO

DoP (DSD over PCM) is transmitted over SPDIF perfectly - it's only if the DAC can't accept DoP vis SPDIF it doesn't work.

 

As ted comments, a lot of DACs CAN accept DoP via SPDIF just as well as vis USB.

 

Eloise

[pigfatcat]

hi Pigfatcat,

my point was not about "xmos based is good". My point was about "last xmos version with oscillator running at higher rate than prévious ones", combined with good power regulation. My interface is big like a box of cigarettes, it makes the result & SQ very astonishing compared to price & size.

Yes it does not transmit DoP. No problem for me because DoP is useless because the number of albums released in DSD is & will remain very very low : no future for DSD. So why bother with DoP ;-) It's just my opinion about DoP&DSD ;-)

Rgds

 

I cannot open your web link in China. Would you mind to paste the page top me ?

[jamesg11]

Yes, something I've read before - but I cannot get my Cuinas usb converter into Mytek dac to function DoP-wise!

 

Using Audirvana A+, playing dsd iso: set to dsd over pcm 1.0 gives nothing, Mytek getting no lock; set to initial dCS method gets 176.4 lock, but only a hiss sound. Have to revert to straight usb or fw to get dsd 64, 128 working. Is there a known issue here?

 

DoP (DSD over PCM) is transmitted over SPDIF perfectly - it's only if the DAC can't accept DoP vis SPDIF it doesn't work.

 

As ted comments, a lot of DACs CAN accept DoP via SPDIF just as well as vis USB.

 

Eloise

[fmak]

Yes, something I've read before - but I cannot get my Cuinas usb converter into Mytek dac to function DoP-wise!

 

Using Audirvana A+, playing dsd iso: set to dsd over pcm 1.0 gives nothing, Mytek getting no lock; set to initial dCS method gets 176.4 lock, but only a hiss sound. Have to revert to straight usb or fw to get dsd 64, 128 working. Is there a known issue here?

 

and hit and miss. It also depends on how one sets up the pcm to dsd conversion in a universal playing system.

 

I have gone off DoP a bit because of this when playing mixed files because of the effect on SQ. For PCM files, KS does sound better (with more definition and fluency). For DSD files, this is another story. On a power consumption monitored system, one can see the increase in this and the increase in CPU activity when cross play occurs ie dsd to pcm or pcm to dsd.

[Kevin M.]

Weiss just announced a new USB interface called the INT204 that looks pretty interesting. It also converts DSD files to PCM. I would be interested in listening to this in Integer mode compared to my Weiss Firewire interface.

 

Here's the link:

 

INT204 | Weiss Engineering Ltd.

 

Here is a youtube video. It's in Catonese but does show great video of the internals .

[Harpy]

Does anyone have any experience with the SOtM dX-USB-HD + SOtM mBPS-d2s combo? How do they compare to the OR5 and the Alpha USB.

 

I am running both. Purchased both pieces used and really like them. I did put different clocks in:

 

 

The Gustard U-10 converter uses the XMOS X-Core 32Bit/500 Mips 8 core USB receiver chip and supports native 24/32 bit uptp 384k output. It is fairly inexpensive, but I thought the build quality was low compared to the SOtM. It also has differential (balanced) I2S output. I don't know if the new XMOS Chip is the future or not.

[Padawan38]

Hello

 

I'm interested into the Gustard U-12.

Does anyone own it and compared it to the references of the category like Sotm , M2tech etc ... ?

 

Thank you

Rgds

[amir57bs]

On 12/8/2012 at 1:07 PM, Elberoth said:

 

Apples to Oragnges really, as you are using two different USB converters. To prove barrow's points, one would have to compare two identical USB converters - one mounted externally, and one internally inside the DAC.

 

what is the difference of BADA vs Legato art? 

do you think it is better to use battery for BADA (input usb power) ?