Berkeley Alpha USB vs Bel Canto uLink vs Audiophilleo - Random Musings

[firedog]

Ah okay. Guess it is time for another coffee.

 

It is amazing, though logical, how much impact clean PSUs and breaking the USB noise from the computer impact the listening experience. The IFI also breaks the ground connection from the computer, which is another backdoor through which common mode noise can enter. Curious how Teddy's unit handles that. I have looked at his gear a while ago, but you have piqued my interest again. Perhaps he can even do a linear PSU to power the Berkeley.

 

Cheers

 

Teddy doesn't do linear PSU's. He makes PSU's based on his "super reg", which he claims is better sounding than a linear supply. See his website for details.

[tranz]

Teddy doesn't do linear PSU's. He makes PSU's based on his "super reg", which he claims is better sounding than a linear supply. See his website for details.

 

Thanks firedog.

 

Has anyone stuck something like a noise sniffer or scope to see how much noise is thrown back into A/C with a Teddy super reg?

 

On a side note, I was reminded that the Berkeley already uses a linear PSU, so I guess the only potential benefit would be to stick it in another box to reduce EMI field impact on the clock, chips, etc.

 

Well interested in feeding the IFI USB with a 9v teddy PSU though.

[pooger]

I have generally found (despite my comments above) that digital cables have similar characteristics to other audio cables - ie silver ones sound brighter, copper sounds warmer, and the cable often conveys the same tonal characteristics it would if it is an analog audio cable, although perhaps to a lesser degree. This is counter-intuitive, since this shouldn't really apply to digital cables. As with my comments above, it is possible I may be imagining the whole thing, so take my comments with a grain of salt.

 

With the caveat that the only digital cables I've tested have been USB, this is my finding too, and one that also annoyed me. To the extent of setting it up as DB testing. I'd say the differences were parallel, but more subtle than in analog. Yet the two testers (so far, and my son, who just got back from college, will be a willing third subject in this) have been able to match the cables to the playback sound changes around 80%, so I just have to accept it.

[Paul R]

With the caveat that the only digital cables I've tested have been USB, this is my finding too, and one that also annoyed me. To the extent of setting it up as DB testing. I'd say the differences were parallel, but more subtle than in analog. Yet the two testers (so far, and my son, who just got back from college, will be a willing third subject in this) have been able to match the cables to the playback sound changes around 80%, so I just have to accept it.

 

My experience with USB is about the same as you guys, with the caveat that no matter the cable composition or geometry, shorter USB cables seem to always sound better.

 

Paul

[kbkaran]

Believe, me this little experiment has pushed my credit card to the max and this stuff hurts my wallet as much as anyone!On the digital cables and AP direct connect, I'm not sure I can add much more. I generally don't hear much difference between digital cables, and most of my cables are generic Belden or Canare digital cables I get from ebay, apart from the DH Labs cable. I can't honestly say that the DH Labs cable sounds better than the others, having it just gives me one less thing to obsess about. You are probably aware that Audiophilleo provide adapter plugs that are either a short BNC female-female plug or a BNC female-RCA male plug that enables you to connect the AP directly to the SPDIF input of your DAC without using a cable. They call this "direct connection". Some people seem to prefer using a cable with the Audiophilleo anyway, and think it sounds better.I have generally found (despite my comments above) that digital cables have similar characteristics to other audio cables - ie silver ones sound brighter, copper sounds warmer, and the cable often conveys the same tonal characteristics it would if it is an analog audio cable, although perhaps to a lesser degree. This is counter-intuitive, since this shouldn't really apply to digital cables. As with my comments above, it is possible I may be imagining the whole thing, so take my comments with a grain of salt. The DH Labs cable is, I believe, made of silver coated copper strands, which in my experience has tended to sound slightly bright and metallic compared with pure copper (although less so than pure silver). The same appears to have been true of the DH Labs cable, which sounds brighter than the direct connection plug. Whether this is just the old copper vs silver debate, or that the shorter connection sounds better, I don't know. At some point I might compare my Belden cable against the DH Labs and see if this changes the results.

 

Ross, thanks for the reply. I have tried many electrical and optical digital cables - analysis plus, zu ash and black cat veloce. I have settled on Zu Ash as the most transparent. It is interesting I also prefer the Zu Wax speaker cables (even though they are aging and I think re-terminating them might improve the sound). So more than the material I kind of believe the configuration/topology/design contributes to the sound. Even though glass toslink cables were very good, I tended to think the electrical cables tended to squeeze out the very last bit of performance. I am now looking for a optical cable with ST fiber and toslink ends (to use with my uLink). I think USB cables are also contributing to jitter somehow whether Async USB or not (there is no other explanation for digital audio sans errors/retries).

 

I hope your high-end music enjoyment spurs your creativity and innovativeness at your profession and the credit card bills look like a pittance !!! (For me music, photography and cooking are real stress relievers from work)

[rossb]

I am now looking for a optical cable with ST fiber and toslink ends (to use with my uLink). I think USB cables are also contributing to jitter somehow whether Async USB or not (there is no other explanation for digital audio sans errors/retries).

 

I tried the ST Fibre cable with the Reflink and DAC 3.5. Although it was very quiet, it sounded a little too soft and rounded for my tastes. Some people may prefer this. I prefer hard edges and fast dynamics so preferred the coax cable.

 

I hope your high-end music enjoyment spurs your creativity and innovativeness at your profession and the credit card bills look like a pittance !!! (For me music, photography and cooking are real stress relievers from work)

 

Music, books and arguing with my wife are my main hobbies. Not all of them are great at relieving stress.

[Chodi]

Hello Rossb,

 

I have a friend name Ross who seems to be very lucky at sniffing out the best audio equipment at the best price. He might have zero experience with a certain type of gear and his first choice will be better than my 3rd iteration. His most recent acquisition was an XMOS usb interface. I don't want to promote this product in search engines so I'll just the brand is a concatenation of "Gus" and "tard" and it's on ebay.

 

Long story short, another friend has been loving the AP2+iFi for about a week. Fully in love with his AP2+iFi, the two friends compared their gear and within hours the AP2 was boxed up and ready to go back. That's like getting divorced during the honey moon. The only down side to this XMOS chi-fi product is that it's wasapi/ks supports is completely ordinary -- probably not doing anything. But the ASIO support is to die for.

 

Unfortunately the price increased from $155 shipped to $180 shipped. Also the included driver disc should be placed in the garbage. It will come with a link to a chinese website (translate with google chrome) that has v1.61 drivers from Thesycon (oem I believe). Those drivers give you the ASIO support that will blow away the AP2. Tomorrow my AP1 comes in the mail and I expect it to be bested by the XMOS -- I'll post those results by the end of the week.

 

I bought that device off Ebay from Valab and it is every bit as good as you say. In fact, it is worlds better than the Hiface 2 it replaced. I do not understand your comment about the driver disc as it contains the official xmos 2.19 driver package which works perfectly for me. I agree that the asio driver is probably the best sounding of the lot with JRiver. The 1.61 driver you refer to is just an older version of the same thing as far as I know. Thescyon does add a control panel in their driver version but I am not aware of any other improvements. Anyway, driver issue aside I wanted to agree with you that the device is a steal at the price. Since I am using JRiver I can set the asio buffer size inside JRiver so it is not necessary to have the Thesycon driver version. I suppose without JRiver you might not be able to set the buffer size unless you have the Thesycon version. If you can provide any reason for the difference I would be happy to install the Thesycon driver to replace 2.19?

[Chodi]

Not being one to ignore suggestions I just uninstalled my xmos 2.19 driver and installed the Thesycon 1.61 driver. I discovered that Thesycon has their own asio driver in the package which allows for latency settings and it is better than the standard asio driver provided in the xmos oem package supplied with the Gu...d usb device. So...I stand corrected the Thesycon driver is better. The 1.61 is a very old version of the Thesycon driver so when I can get around to it I will update the 2.15 Thesycon driver I have laying around with all the necessary changes so that it also works with this device. I can't see any reason to use the older version. I'm sure Thesycon made improvements in the 2.15 version.

[drez]

i suppose its possible that different dacs respond differently to the performance of the various converters reviewed here. iirc chord have async spdif input?. in my aystem I recall Reflink had better timing and nuance than AP2/pp but this was a while ago. also tested in a freinds system with similar results. this was a while go now though and my system has moved ahead quite a bit since then.

 

i will probably do Reflink/bada comparison within a few weeks as well. should be interesting. btw did op try reflink and dac3.5 with the st fibre connection? I2S where compatible is also meant to sound pretty good, but good results seem to take quite a bit of work.

[rossb]

btw did op try reflink and dac3.5 with the st fibre connection? I2S where compatible is also meant to sound pretty good, but good results seem to take quite a bit of work.

 

I did try the ST fibre connection between Reflink and DAC 3.5, and while I found it to be very quiet, with very black backgrounds, it also made everything sound softer and more rounded (like inserting a tube buffer stage). I prefered the faster sound and sharper edges of coax cable, but this was a matter of preference, and I can see some people preferring ST fibre.

 

I will be interested in the results of your Reflink/BADA comparison.

 

I would be curious to try this new Gustard converter, but I already have too many converters and don't really want to invest more in another one, particularly as the differences between them are (IMO) quite small.

[drez]

I did try the ST fibre connection between Reflink and DAC 3.5, and while I found it to be very quiet, with very black backgrounds, it also made everything sound softer and more rounded (like inserting a tube buffer stage). I prefered the faster sound and sharper edges of coax cable, but this was a matter of preference, and I can see some people preferring ST fibre.

 

I will be interested in the results of your Reflink/BADA comparison.

 

I would be curious to try this new Gustard converter, but I already have too many converters and don't really want to invest more in another one, particularly as the differences between them are (IMO) quite small.

 

Very interesting regarding st fibre. Only other impressions I've read have been extremely vague so its good to have a more reliable comparison! If Hugo doesnt show much differences between transports I probably wouldnt bother trying too many either. Chord make some excellent DACs, I heard qute the other day and it was phenomenal with dsd. I might have to save for their balanced DAC rather than wasting money on more D/D converters.

[Chodi]

So my AP1 (on stock wall wart) has a slightly smaller sound stage than my JK-MK3

The JK-MK3 is sounding better, but it's unfair to compare these until I get some form of PSU for the AP1

 

But why should I bother tweaking the AP1 when ebay has chi-fi for $150 that is miles ahead of both of these units.

The AP1 if full of focus that has me pinpointing the speakers. The GTard made my speakers disappear like never before. They are 10ft apart and there was no observable sound gap between these budget monitors.

 

I would not be surprised if I found out the new XMOS is doing some kind of DSP or binaural trickery.

 

No the Gustard is not doing any dsp it is using the newer U series xmos processor and the power supply and clocks are very well done. Frankly, I couldn't believe a device in this price range could completely dump my Hiface 2 but it does. Don't tell anyone else or this thing will go up to $500. Let's just keep this between us.

[mraulino]

So my AP1 (on stock wall wart) has a slightly smaller sound stage than my JK-MK3

The JK-MK3 is sounding better, but it's unfair to compare these until I get some form of PSU for the AP1

 

But why should I bother tweaking the AP1 when ebay has chi-fi for $150 that is miles ahead of both of these units.

The AP1 if full of focus that has me pinpointing the speakers. The GTard made my speakers disappear like never before. They are 10ft apart and there was no observable sound gap between these budget monitors.

 

I would not be surprised if I found out the new XMOS is doing some kind of DSP or binaural trickery.

 

Better than the AP, really? But you didn't compare with the AP+PP combo, right?

And does the Gustard also support DSD over DoP?

 

thanks,

Mario

[Chodi]

Better than the AP, really? But you didn't compare with the AP+PP combo, right?

And does the Gustard also support DSD over DoP?

 

thanks,

Mario

 

The Gustard support 32bit 384k. I do not think it is designed for DSD. There is so little DSD software I don't consider that an issue for me. Yes, I know that if you have a DSD dac you can do psydo-dsd using JRiver to upsample your Redbook files but the value of that is highly questionable. Many people think it is only adding distortion.

 

I have not compared mine to anything except the Hiface 2 that I own. It completely dumped the Hiface 2 in every respect. No contest. Considering the modest price I am very happy as it was much much more than a subtle upgrade from my Hiface 2. I actually think part of their secret is that it is designed to be always on which keeps the clocks stable. It can take hours for the clocks in a usb device to become completely stable.

[ted_b]

The Gustard support 32bit 384k. I do not think it is designed for DSD. There is so little DSD software I don't consider that an issue for me. Yes, I know that if you have a DSD dac you can do psydo-dsd using JRiver to upsample your Redbook files but the value of that is highly questionable. Many people think it is only adding distortion.

 

I have not compared mine to anything except the Hiface 2 that I own. It completely dumped the Hiface 2 in every respect. No contest. Considering the modest price I am very happy as it was much much more than a subtle upgrade from my Hiface 2. I actually think part of their secret is that it is designed to be always on which keeps the clocks stable. It can take hours for the clocks in a usb device to become completely stable.

 

Why are you assuming it does NOT support DoP? Heck, at 384k it should support DoP for DSD128? No reason it shouldn't. And unlike DSD-to-PCM conversion (or vice-versa) DoP is not pseudo anything, it's true DSD playback (recording provenance notwithstanding, of course). The bigger issue is whether one's DSD-capable DAC accepts DoP via digital inputs (like so many now do, the Chord Qutes, the Chord Hugo, the Mytek, etc etc).

[Chodi]

Why are you assuming it does NOT support DoP? Heck, at 384k it should support DoP for DSD128? No reason it shouldn't. And unlike DSD-to-PCM conversion (or vice-versa) DoP is not pseudo anything, it's true DSD playback (recording provenance notwithstanding, of course). The bigger issue is whether one's DSD-capable DAC accepts DoP via digital inputs (like so many now do, the Chord Qutes, the Chord Hugo, the Mytek, etc etc).

 

Please accept that my comments before had nothing to do with the quality of real DSD. I have a Yulong D18 which does not do DSD. I have no DSD files and have never tried doing DSD. So I would not be the person to ask about anything to do with DSD real or DSD over dop. I have no experience with that.

[ted_b]

I was simply fixing your comment of "I do not think it is designed for DSD". One simply needs their USB SPDIF converter to do 176k+, that's all. Then it's up to the DACs DSD capability as it relates to digital ins (i.e not USB)

[Chodi]

I was simply fixing your comment of "I do not think it id designed for DSD". One simply needs their USB SPDIF converter to do 176k+, that's all. Then it's up tot he DACs DSD capability as it relates to digital ins (i.e not USB)

 

My Yulong D18 uses a ESS9018 dac which is the top model Sabre dac. Does that mean I can play DSD through the Gustard and my D18? This would be news to me.

[ted_b]

My Yulong D18 uses a ESS9018 dac which is the top model Sabre dac. Does that mean I can play DSD through the Gustard and my D18? This would be news to me.

 

The ESS9018 is a leading DSD-capable chip, used in many good DACs like exaSound, Mytek, Auralic, etc. However, it does not ipsofacto mean that Yulong is DSD-capable, as it is up to the mfg'er to provide the correct analog filtering, etc for DSD playback.

[Chodi]

The ESS9018 is a leading DSD-capable chip, used in many good DACs like exaSound, Mytek, Auralic, etc. However, it does not ipsofacto mean that Yulong is DSD-capable, as it is up to the mfg'er to provide the correct analog filtering, etc for DSD playback.

 

Thanks for the information. There is so little DSD source material out there it is a non-issue for me. Maybe in the future if DSD grows in popularity and has a file base like Redbook I will invest in a DSD capable dac. For now I view it as something the manufacturers are enjoying to promote sales of newer dacs. Could be a big success over time or it might go the way of 8 track, who knows. I do read consistant reports that DSD sounds better but the general public probably could care less and they drive the market.

[Paul R]

Thanks for the information. There is so little DSD source material out there it is a non-issue for me. Maybe in the future if DSD grows in popularity and has a file base like Redbook I will invest in a DSD capable dac. For now I view it as something the manufacturers are enjoying to promote sales of newer dacs. Could be a big success over time or it might go the way of 8 track, who knows. I do read consistant reports that DSD sounds better but the general public probably could care less and they drive the market.

 

Might want to try on the fly transcoding to DSD128 sometime. It does not sound as good as native DSD (of course) but it can make some fantastic improvements to Redbook.

 

-Paul

[Chodi]

Might want to try on the fly transcoding to DSD128 sometime. It does not sound as good as native DSD (of course) but it can make some fantastic improvements to Redbook.

 

-Paul

 

I have thought about trying that but I would have to purchase a DSD capable dac just to try that. Seems like a big investment for a test.

[Paul R]

I have thought about trying that but I would have to purchase a DSD capable dac just to try that. Seems like a big investment for a test.

 

Borrow one. Works for me...

[panhead]

Hello Rossb,

 

I have a friend name Ross who seems to be very lucky at sniffing out the best audio equipment at the best price. He might have zero experience with a certain type of gear and his first choice will be better than my 3rd iteration. His most recent acquisition was an XMOS usb interface. I don't want to promote this product in search engines so I'll just the brand is a concatenation of "Gus" and "tard" and it's on ebay.

 

Long story short, another friend has been loving the AP2+iFi for about a week. Fully in love with his AP2+iFi, the two friends compared their gear and within hours the AP2 was boxed up and ready to go back. That's like getting divorced during the honey moon. The only down side to this XMOS chi-fi product is that it's wasapi/ks supports is completely ordinary -- probably not doing anything. But the ASIO support is to die for.

 

Unfortunately the price increased from $155 shipped to $180 shipped. Also the included driver disc should be placed in the garbage. It will come with a link to a chinese website (translate with google chrome) that has v1.61 drivers from Thesycon (oem I believe). Those drivers give you the ASIO support that will blow away the AP2. Tomorrow my AP1 comes in the mail and I expect it to be bested by the XMOS -- I'll post those results by the end of the week.

 

 

I appreciate the info and heads up. I ordered one from ebay. Just curious what output of this device are you using? I am hoping the I2S will talk to my PSA PW DAC. Which IC are you using between Gustard and DAC

 

Thanks again!!!!

 

 

Thanks

[One and a half]

S/PDIF has no clock master in the signal.

 

How could you expect S/PDIF to control timing errors and validate data delivery? It's also not a balanced system of transmission, so you end up with noise on the shield as a signal.

 

Why bother with S/PDIF?