15 USB/SPDIF converters shootout

[Timothy Hoang]

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

So far i have the iUSB > iLink (Vampire BNC) > Oyaide DB-510 > Schiit Gungnir (Vampire BNC)

I replaced my iLink's RCA Output with BNC as i only had the Oyaide DB-510 at the time which was a digital BNC cable.

Mounted to the PCB directly so there is not a break in impedance. Sonically as good as the original.

 

Sadly my Schiit DAC only has BNC and Coaxial RCA as digital inputs so the AES/EBU option from the PUC2 cannot work.

I've had the EVO before which I didn't like at all.

 

Should i just be looking for what outputs the lowest jitter or is there more to it?

[Andrew_WOT]

Thanks for the comments guys.

 

So far i have the iUSB > iLink (Vampire BNC) > Oyaide DB-510 > Schiit Gungnir (Vampire BNC)

I replaced my iLink's RCA Output with BNC as i only had the Oyaide DB-510 at the time which was a digital BNC cable.

Mounted to the PCB directly so there is not a break in impedance. Sonically as good as the original.

 

Sadly my Schiit DAC only has BNC and Coaxial RCA as digital inputs so the AES/EBU option from the PUC2 cannot work.

I've had the EVO before which I didn't like at all.

 

Should i just be looking for what outputs the lowest jitter or is there more to it?

This blog covers options for conversion, either via off the shelf adapter with impedance matching or custom cable

2channelaudio: Yellowtec PUC2 Lite (USB to AES/SPDIF Converter)... Comparisons made to the Audiophilleo1 (USB to SPDIF)

[Timothy Hoang]

This blog covers options for conversion, either via off the shelf adapter with impedance matching or custom cable

2channelaudio: Yellowtec PUC2 Lite (USB to AES/SPDIF Converter)... Comparisons made to the Audiophilleo1 (USB to SPDIF)

 

Thanks for the link Andrew.

 

I'll try and pick up the Yellowtec with a power supply.

[Kelly]

Your ifi iUSB Power is the already the perfect power supply. It works perfectly with the Yellowtec. You shouldn't need anything else.

 

 

Thanks for the link Andrew.

 

I'll try and pick up the Yellowtec with a power supply.

[Termiitti]

I just ordered Berkeley Audio Alpha USB...to replace my EVO/Clock 2xTeddy stack.

Hope it arrives before christmas.

Any Berkeley owners tried power supply upgrades,battery ect..

[reverendo]

would anyone be so kind and give me an idea how the hiFace 2 stacks up against the BADA USB and EVO?

thanks a lot in advance

[Termiitti]

^I dont have straight answer,but my opinion is that EVO always needs good power supply linear,or battery.Without it i doubt its much beter than Hiface two.Cause diffrence between EVO+stock power to Hiface óne.Was some ways big but not worth all that money.Good power supply and its completely different ball game.

[reverendo]

^I dont have straight answer,but my opinion is that EVO always needs good power supply linear,or battery.Without it i doubt its much beter than Hiface two.Cause diffrence between EVO+stock power to Hiface óne.Was some ways big but not worth all that money.Good power supply and its completely different ball game.

thanks for the answer. those are some nice digital cables there, btw. pity I can't get them for a decent price around here.

[barrows]

I just ordered Berkeley Audio Alpha USB...to replace my EVO/Clock 2xTeddy stack.

Hope it arrives before christmas.

Any Berkeley owners tried power supply upgrades,battery ect..

 

I would not recommend attempting to upgrade the Alpha USB in any way. Adding extra connections to the USB cable will just damage signal integrity. The Alpha USB is well engineered as is, and has a very good onboard, low noise, linear power supply, and the best isolation in the business, this is what you paying for, adding anything except good quality cables would just harm performance.

[reverendo]

another question here: has anyone tried the EVO + PSU with the ST output? I'd love to get some input in regards to that, or even without the special PSU.

best regards

[Termiitti]

I would not recommend attempting to upgrade the Alpha USB in any way. Adding extra connections to the USB cable will just damage signal integrity. The Alpha USB is well engineered as is, and has a very good onboard, low noise, linear power supply, and the best isolation in the business, this is what you paying for, adding anything except good quality cables would just harm performance.

 

Nice to hear opinion,with good arguments,yes absolutely true that Berkeley design team has made much work with components synergy,after all its their statement for usb converters.

My point in was not to add anythink to usb route,just modify power feed for clock,chip ect.

And why iam intrested of that,cause in pictures board and connector type seems so simple.Its simple to test and if sound goes beter way,good.If not,no damage done.

I think batteries are just stable and mostly noise free way to make best possible power source.

But,yes synergy is possibly lost then.

In real world every device is compromise in a way,automatically charged double battery pack would be taken fabrication expenses about 300€ forward.In my opinion.

 

[barrows]

Nice to hear opinion,with good arguments,yes absolutely true that Berkeley design team has made much work with components synergy,after all its their statement for usb converters.

My point in was not to add anythink to usb route,just modify power feed for clock,chip ect.

And why iam intrested of that,cause in pictures board and connector type seems so simple.Its simple to test and if sound goes beter way,good.If not,no damage done.

I think batteries are just stable and mostly noise free way to make best possible power source.

But,yes synergy is possibly lost then.

In real world every device is compromise in a way,automatically charged double battery pack would be taken fabrication expenses about 300€ forward.In my opinion.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9188[/ATTACH]

 

You would be wasting your time to make such modifications. The engineers at Berkeley Audio know what they are doing, you are not going to randomly be able to improve on the oscillator power supply, unless you are a highly experienced digital engineer with a lot of experience in ultra low noise power supply design. Batteries are not noise free in any way, really good linear based power supplies with good regulation and precise decoupling offer lower noise than just attempting to attach a battery via jumper wires. Traces inductances and impedances must be carefully measured and considered, and the only way you will be able to accurately evaluate the performance of any mods would be via spectrum analysis and subsequent jitter measurement at the output of the Alpha USB.

[asindc]

^I dont have straight answer,but my opinion is that EVO always needs good power supply linear,or battery.Without it i doubt its much beter than Hiface two.Cause diffrence between EVO+stock power to Hiface óne.Was some ways big but not worth all that money.Good power supply and its completely different ball game.

 

I would not recommend attempting to upgrade the Alpha USB in any way. Adding extra connections to the USB cable will just damage signal integrity. The Alpha USB is well engineered as is, and has a very good onboard, low noise, linear power supply, and the best isolation in the business, this is what you paying for, adding anything except good quality cables would just harm performance.

 

Nice to hear opinion,with good arguments,yes absolutely true that Berkeley design team has made much work with components synergy,after all its their statement for usb converters.

My point in was not to add anythink to usb route,just modify power feed for clock,chip ect.

And why iam intrested of that,cause in pictures board and connector type seems so simple.Its simple to test and if sound goes beter way,good.If not,no damage done.

I think batteries are just stable and mostly noise free way to make best possible power source.

But,yes synergy is possibly lost then.

In real world every device is compromise in a way,automatically charged double battery pack would be taken fabrication expenses about 300€ forward.In my opinion.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]9188[/ATTACH]

 

You would be wasting your time to make such modifications. The engineers at Berkeley Audio know what they are doing, you are not going to randomly be able to improve on the oscillator power supply, unless you are a highly experienced digital engineer with a lot of experience in ultra low noise power supply design. Batteries are not noise free in any way, really good linear based power supplies with good regulation and precise decoupling offer lower noise than just attempting to attach a battery via jumper wires. Traces inductances and impedances must be carefully measured and considered, and the only way you will be able to accurately evaluate the performance of any mods would be via spectrum analysis and subsequent jitter measurement at the output of the Alpha USB.

 

This is an interesting discussion to me, as I have been thinking of buying Red Wine's Black Lightning power supply unit for my Mac Mini and maybe the BADA USB as well. The Black Lightning can be configured to supply power to two separate components.

[tubesound]

Just recently read somewhere that the Total D1 digital reclocker beats Berkeley Alpha and Legato II: d1-digital but it costs 3630 euros. However this is a single claim I read by a gentleman on a forum like here.

[4est]

If Termiitti is going to apply different power at the high lighted plug, I see it as viable experiment. It appears to be a simple 3 terminal regulator. I cannot say as to what the out come might be, but it would be easy to surpass the stock input. It is no different than using a TP/Salas shunt (or battery) in front of a Twisted Pear Trident as opposed to their 3 terminal options.

You would be wasting your time to make such modifications. The engineers at Berkeley Audio know what they are doing, you are not going to randomly be able to improve on the oscillator power supply, unless you are a highly experienced digital engineer with a lot of experience in ultra low noise power supply design. Batteries are not noise free in any way, really good linear based power supplies with good regulation and precise decoupling offer lower noise than just attempting to attach a battery via jumper wires. Traces inductances and impedances must be carefully measured and considered, and the only way you will be able to accurately evaluate the performance of any mods would be via spectrum analysis and subsequent jitter measurement at the output of the Alpha USB.

[barrows]

This is an interesting discussion to me, as I have been thinking of buying Red Wine's Black Lightning power supply unit for my Mac Mini and maybe the BADA USB as well. The Black Lightning can be configured to supply power to two separate components.

 

That is a terrible idea. Powering both the Alpha USB and the computer from the same battery supply would defeat the isolation in the Alpha USB, as you would now be sharing the ground between the computer supply and the Alpha USB. BADA goes to great lengths to isolate the oscillators and output circuitry of the Alpha USB from the USB processor and the computer, powering both from the same supply would defeat all of their careful engineering.

[asindc]

That is a terrible idea. Powering both the Alpha USB and the computer from the same battery supply would defeat the isolation in the Alpha USB, as you would now be sharing the ground between the computer supply and the Alpha USB. BADA goes to great lengths to isolate the oscillators and output circuitry of the Alpha USB from the USB processor and the computer, powering both from the same supply would defeat all of their careful engineering.

 

How does that differ from having them plugged into the same power conditioner or receptacle?

[Ben-M]

I read elsewhere the the OP should have been getting an Audiobyte Hydra-X convertor in for testing, but that it should have arrived back in September.

 

I have a PS Audio - PWD Mkii en route and I'm really interested in trying out its I2s input with the Hyrda-X. I know it won't be an Apples to Apples comparison if the Hydra is compared on here via it's RCA output, but I also wouldn't expect it to be worlds different than its I2s one. And given how many convertors the OP has compared and how I roughly agree, I would REALLY love to hear what he thinks of the Hydra-X.

 

So, what happened there and is there a chance that review is still coming?

[Elberoth]

Ben,

 

Unfortunately, the Hydra-X never found its way to my listening room. A friend of mine, who writes for highfidelity.pl/6moons.com and who happens to have the BADA USB as well, tested the Hydra-x and found it offered good value for money, but did not beat the BADA USB.

[Ben-M]

Ben,

Unfortunately, the Hydra-X never found its way. A friend of mine tested the Hydra-x and found it offered good value for money, but did not beat the BADA USB.

 

That's too bad, Adam. You're the second person that I would really have appreciated hearing their feedback on the Hydra that hasn't gotten it. I hope it's only bad luck and not some kind of indication that AudioByte isn't a very dependable company...

 

As for your friend's view on it, yeah, it really is going to be tough to dethrone the BADA USB. I've recently read a comment on here that the INEX Photon Digital / USB cable package does better the BADA USB, but again, I'd love to hear how it stacks up in your ranking since I'm more familiar with yours. As for the BADA USB, I've seen a couple used ones going for ~$1500, which is a nice bit off retail, but is still more than double what I'd really consider paying. That's a real chunk of change and I can't bring myself to accept that it's best spent on a BADA USB and not elsewhere in that chain/listening room. Well, that is unless your DAC is a multi-kilo-buck DAC. Anyway, it's too hard to commit to for me, so I'm looking for cheaper options :-/

 

But about what he said about the actual Hydra-X and it offering good value, do you know if he used it over I2s, or was it RCA or AES? You wouldn't happen to have a link to his review, would you? I'm really having a tough time finding legit reviews on it that component that aren't just shills or quasi-ads.

 

And I want to feed my new PWD Mkii via I2s, so you wouldn't happen to know of any other USB to I2s convertors, would you? And that's besides the Off Ramp, because again, its too pricey, but it also doesn't do Integer Mode...

[reverendo]

The M2Tech EVO does I2S.

[Ben-M]

The M2Tech EVO does I2S.

 

Ha, I had actually forgotten it did I2s... I've sorta given up on the EVO, there's got to be an EVO 2 coming some time soon. Especially one that's not dependent on the damn drivers that the HiFace 1 and EVO were. Those were one of the things that really killed my experience with the HiFace...

 

Anyway, thanks for the heads up, Rev. I'll keep an eye out for an EVO 2.

[dimsal]

I tried Hydra-X and I can attest it's a great device especially for the price. And there's a lot of reviews over at head-fi.org, just do a search.

[Ben-M]

I tried Hydra-X and I can attest it's a great device especially for the price. And there's a lot of reviews over at head-fi.org, just do a search.

 

Hey Dismal, thanks for the feedback on the Hydra-X. I'm pretty sure I'll be giving it a shot when I get back home and then get my funds in order. Unfortunately that's about a year from now :-/

 

As for the other reviews, I'm also a member over at head-fi and have read all of what I could find on it. They're mostly positive, but none of them are about its I2s capability. There's also a couple comparisons between it and the Audiophilleo + PP and those people said the AP+PP is better, even a few people with the PWD Mkii like I have. I don't really think I could commit to any USB->SPDIF because the PWD Mkii's USB input is so highly touted. I'd only try I2s, I have high hopes for that format for some reason :-P

 

There's a good review at the end of a shoot-out thread between the Hydra-X, AP+PP, and iUSB. Have a read. And thanks again for your feedback on it, I'm pretty sure I'll be giving it a shot now.

[ted_b]

Sorry for resurrecting an older thread, but I thought I'd ping all you great converter folks (note: if it makes more sense to start a new thread, I will know by the lack of response here)

 

I reviewed the Chord QuteHD (24/192, DSD64) earlier this month (CA homepage) and in the review discovered what others already knew..that even a decent little USB/SPDIF converter improved the sound of this wonderful high-value DAC, and the Berkeley improved it even more . It helps that this DAC is one of a growing list (but still few) who accept DoP over SPDIF, Well, I have purchased it's updated brother (the Chord Qute-EX) which does 24/384k and DSD128. And this DAC accepts 384k via SPDIF, too. it arrives in the next 2 weeks.

 

I notice that Audiophileo is now selling an upgraded A1, called the A1SE, that has 384k/DSD128 (via DoP of course) via SPDIF, so I am hot to try the higher sample rates via a USB/SPDIF converter. I will do my best to see if Philip will let me try one. Do any of you know any other SPDIF converters that allow 384K?

 

(Note: I am doing this to not only report back on a/b against the QuteHD but also because I happen to have quite a bit of DXD and DSD128 that I like very much, and to hear it via the Chord's best signal path would be a real treat).

 

Thanks

 

Edit: Hydra-X is one I see. I will see if a trial or 30 day is available (in US).