ECdesigns

[matthias]

38 minutes ago, hopkins said:

The rest of the session showed that a "top notch" USB source sounded better than my RaspberryPi 4

 

Would you mind disclosing the USB source?

Thanks

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, matthias said:

 

Would you mind disclosing the USB source?

Thanks

 

Matt

 

From what I recall - SOTM newest model, with SOTM power supply, a seperate clock, an EtherRegen supplied by a Paul Hynes PS, curious USB cable. 

 

Does it really matter to know exactly all there is ? No. I don't believe half of this is necessary to get good sound with the U192, but that could not be demonstrated in that particular listening session, and clearly the Pi4 as we used it was not optimal. 

 

Without the U192 (so just through the Terminator's UDB input) all this has improved my friend's system, that is undeniable (I have listened to his system many times over the past few years), but you can't take it all apart to see what is sufficient with the U192... This would take a very long time to test. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

18 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

Yes, exactly. But do it at your own risk  

Power consumption of the U192 is very low - forgot what John stated, but it is less than 100mA.

 

FWIW, John replied and confirmed "The U192ETL draws approx. 80mA and requires at least 3.5V input voltage".

 

Also, vis a vis lead times, he confirmed they recieved a new batch of parts... 

[matthias]

47 minutes ago, hopkins said:

FWIW, John replied and confirmed "The U192ETL draws approx. 80mA and requires at least 3.5V input voltage".

 

Thanks for sharing.

IMO, with these specs it should be possible to provide an excellent voltage regulation with USB Vbus only so that additional PSs like Paul Hynes are not necessary for better SQ.

I have got the impression from the recent posts that the PSs of ECD devices might be their weakest point.

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

41 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Thanks for sharing.

IMO, with this specs it should be possible to provide an excellent voltage regulation with USB Vbus only so that additional PSs like Paul Hynes are not necessary for better SQ.

 

Matt

 

Well, at least we know it is possible to experiment with a wider range of supplies. 

 

From the start, and due to this bandwidth limiting, my feeling is that what is known to work  in a traditional setup may work differently with the U192. We have to go into this with an open mind

 

Let's take an example.  With a traditional USB source, one could prefer a supply with high noise below 20Mhz but very low noise above 20Mhz... Whereas with the U192, that same supply would give poor results. In a way, I think that is what is going on with wired vs. Wifi. Could be wrong...

 

But I would like to stress that this tweaking may not be necessary at all. In my case, I had been using the UPL16 exclusively for two years to listen to music. I did not have anything else than a Raspberrypi to stream music, and it always gave bad results ("digital" sound) before. It was much better with the U192, but I did not stop there. Moreover, I am convinced that my electrical supply (grid) is really poor.

[matthias]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

Well, at least we know it is possible to experiment with a wider range of supplies. 

 

From the start, and due to this bandwidth limiting, my feeling is that what is known to work  in a traditional setup may work differently with the U192. We have to go into this with an open mind

 

Let's take an example.  With a traditional USB source, one could prefer a supply with high noise below 20Mhz but very low noise above 20Mhz... Whereas with the U192, that same supply would give poor results. In a way, I think that is what is going on with wired vs. Wifi. Could be wrong...

 

But I would like to stress that this tweaking may not be necessary at all. In my case, I had been using the UPL16 exclusively for two years to listen to music. I did not have anything else than a Raspberrypi to stream music, and it always gave bad results ("digital" sound) before. It was much better with the U192, but I did not stop there. Moreover, I am convinced that my electrical supply (grid) is really poor.

 

An USB powered device must be quite immune against the power supply of the source since the manufacturer want to provide a certain SQ that must not be dependent on the source power.

 

A nice example is the Khadas Tone Board. A cheap as it is it seems not to be very dependent on the quality of the USB Vbus.

 

I respect the ECD designers highly. If you read their comments on diyaudio you get the imprsssion they have a profound understanding of electronics and are very creative in their DAC design.

 

It just appears to me that they regard power supplies not as important as their electronic developments.

 

Matt

[roberto2]

4 hours ago, matthias said:

 

Would you mind disclosing the USB source?

Thanks

 

Matt

 

Hi,

this is my set up (just for information):

 

Roon server running ROCK on a i7 miniPC powered by a Zerozone PS

Uptone EtherRegen with 80€ external 10Mhz clock powered by a PH SR4

SOtM sMS-200 Ultra Neo with SOtM tx-USBHUBEX reclocked by the sms-200 Ultra, powered by SOtM sms-500

[tapatrick]

5 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

So then what is the point of the making it the U192–if the DAC it is designed to feed only accepts rates to 96KHz? 

(And I hope nobody suggests it is so that the U192 can be used as a USB>TOSlink converted with other DACs at 192KHz. )

One for John Brown

The XMOS module in the U192 probably handles up to 192KHz by default. Honestly this hasn't bothered me as the SQ is so satisfying but if you have a library of higher res music then that would be a party stopper.

 

PS the U192 using toslink into my PS Audio DAC sounds superb...  

 

[matthias]

15 minutes ago, roberto2 said:

Hi,

this is my set up (just for information):

 

Roon server running ROCK on a i7 miniPC powered by a Zerozone PS

Uptone EtherRegen with 80€ external 10Mhz clock powered by a PH SR4

SOtM sMS-200 Ultra Neo with SOtM tx-USBHUBEX reclocked by the sms-200 Ultra, powered by SOtM sms-500

 

Thanks for chiming in.

 

Would you mind commenting on:

 

1.) USB > Terminator

vs

2.) USB > U192 toslink > Terminator

vs

3.) USB > U192 > Fractal DAC

 

Thank you 🙂

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

11 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

An USB powered device must be quite immune against the power supply of the source since the manufacturer want to provide a certain SQ that must not be dependent on the source power.

 

A nice example is the Khadas Tone Board. A cheap as it is it seems not to be very dependent on the quality of the USB Vbus.

 

I respect the ECD designers highly. If you read their comments on diyaudio you get the imprsssion they have a profound understanding of electronics and are very creative in their DAC design.

 

It just appears to me that they regard power supplies not as important as their electronic developments.

 

Matt

 

I own a Khadas, and however much I like it, and in spite of the glowing feedback and measurements you can read about, it is not the most transparent DAC out there. It has a well balanced and pleasing sound, but the fact that it may not be sensitive to upstream components may only mean that it is limited in some way.

 

Concerning the power supply, ECD did mention that the power supply to the U192 could be improved upon (as opposed to powering it from the source).

 

For the DAC, I have no idea, and don't intend on trying alternatives, as I don't see that as a priority, but others have and reported an improvement. 

 

I believe ECD does take into account customer feedback, and as we well know are always striving to improve their products. So if there are opportunities for improvement I can only encourage people to have that discussion with them.

[Tzougie]

5 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

I own a Khadas, and however much I like it, and in spite of the glowing feedback and measurements you can read about, it is not the most transparent DAC out there. It has a well balanced and pleasing sound, but the fact that it may not be sensitive to upstream components may only mean that it is limited in some way.

 

Concerning the power supply, ECD did mention that the power supply to the U192 could be improved upon (as opposed to powering it from the source).

 

For the DAC, I have no idea, and don't intend on trying alternatives, as I don't see that as a priority, but others have and reported an improvement. 

 

I believe ECD does take into account customer feedback, and as we well know are always striving to improve their products. So if there are opportunities for improvement I can only encourage people to have that discussion with them.

Put the Fractal DAC on a Tentlabs 5 V shunt supply, it's a huge differance, the original PS dilivered with the Fractal DAC is just a rectified PS with filtering and no stabilization what so ever, they keep on doing this with there products for years saying it doesn't make a difference......but it does.

[matthias]

7 minutes ago, hopkins said:

I believe ECD does take into account customer feedback, and as we well know are always striving to improve their products. So if there are opportunities for improvement I can only encourage people to have that discussion with them.

 

I think they are too busy to participate in this thread, but I hope they are monitoring it.

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

10 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Thanks for chiming in.

 

Would you mind commenting on:

 

1.) USB > Terminator

vs

2.) USB > U192 toslink > Terminator

vs

3.) USB > U192 > Fractal DAC

 

Thank you 🙂

 

Matt

 

I gave some comments on this already which I think reflected the participant's point of view, but Roberto will feel free to contradict me

 

Regardless, you have to keep in mind the context of these tests. You show up at someone's house with a bag of equipment, eager to test it out, and it is not always that simple. The last test I did (at Ben75's) we had similar "warm up" problems, and it was not entirely satisfactory. Here, the I think there may have been several issues that slightly diminished the performance - I certainly did not have the "wow" effect that the UPL brings. Roberto's system is very good, but in spite of this I still came out of it thinking that we could have done things a little differently. So let's keep that in mind.

[tapatrick]

2 hours ago, matthias said:

I have got the impression from the recent posts that the PSs of ECD devices might be their weakest point.

It's semantics but I think that is an overstatement  because the supplied PSU for the DAC I have found to be very good and the USB 5V is dependent on the source.

[matthias]

1 minute ago, tapatrick said:

USB 5V is dependent on the source.

 

That is exactly my point of concern.

 

Matt

[bodiebill]

28 minutes ago, matthias said:

Would you mind commenting on:

 

1.) USB > Terminator

vs

2.) USB > U192 toslink > Terminator

vs

3.) USB > U192 > Fractal DAC

 

Thank you 🙂

 

For what it is worth:

 

[tapatrick]

9 minutes ago, Tzougie said:

it's a huge differance, the original PS dilivered with the Fractal DAC is just a rectified PS with filtering and no stabilization what so ever, they keep on doing this with there products for years saying it doesn't make a difference......but it does.

'Huge' ...please describe the differences in SQ as I'm curious to understand what you are hearing. There are so many variables, personal tastes and opinions with online reports that it is difficult to get objectivity. For instance I know my Amps and Speakers bring lets say (arbitrarily) 80% to the SQ - this will not be the case for anyone else unless they have the same set up...

[matthias]

6 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

For what it is worth:

 

 

Yes, I appreciate very much your comparisons.

However, I would like to know too what @roberto2 thinks (if he wants to share it) 🙂

 

Matt

[tapatrick]

15 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

That is exactly my point of concern.

 

Matt

 

[roberto2]

43 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Thanks for chiming in.

 

Would you mind commenting on:

 

1.) USB > Terminator

vs

2.) USB > U192 toslink > Terminator

vs

3.) USB > U192 > Fractal DAC

 

Thank you 🙂

 

Matt

 

I agree with Stéphane (Hopkins) comments.

I am not sure that we tested 2.) configuration as we focused more on UPL vs my setup firstly and then on U192 with Fractal DAC.

 

I found USB > Terminator very close to UPL > Terminator. Maybe UPL wins for a very little margin...? For me UPL is the reference to which a can compare my setup and who allows me to see if my setup progress. 

 

As for 3.) USB > U192 > Fractal DAC I found that it works very well but I felt that Terminator is a little richer in tone, better harmonics, for me there was more musical pleasure. But again, for the price the Fractal DAC paired with UPL or U192 with a good usb source is a very good choice. 

[matthias]

I mean Source Independence requires at least:

 

1.) Integrity of power

2.) Integrity of data

 

Both points are mandatory. 

ad 1.) The device must provide its own HQ power source or regenerate the incoming power.

ad 2.) The device must regenerate the data in the best possible way. There are expensive DACs which provide a double reclocking. Maybe there are other methods.

 

I see a long way to go for achieving Source Independence.

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

27 minutes ago, matthias said:

I mean Source Independence requires at least:

 

1.) Integrity of power

2.) Integrity of data

 

Both points are mandatory. 

ad 1.) The device must provide its own HQ power source or regenerate the incoming power.

ad 2.) The device must regenerate the data in the best possible way. There are expensive DACs which provide a double reclocking. Maybe there are other methods.

 

I see a long way to go for achieving Source Independence.

 

Matt

 

If you are trying to convince yourself to buy a Taiko Extreme, then by all means, do yourself (and us) a favor and go for it!  😁

 

I see in your future a Taiko Extreme feeding a Khadas DAC... 

[matthias]

18 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

If you are trying to convince yourself to buy a Taiko Extreme, then by all means, do yourself (and us) a favor and go for it!  😁

 

I see in your future a Taiko Extreme feeding a Khadas DAC... 

 

The ECD products are certainly great value for money devices and it makes much sense to discuss about.

The single problem is that someone claimed source independency for these.

 

Matt

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, matthias said:

The single problem is that someone claimed source independency for these.

 

I would rather a say 'a step towards source independency'...

 

Theorem: Full source independency does not exist.

Proof: Removal of the source results in absence of sound.

🙂

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

36 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

The ECD products are certainly great value for money devices and it makes much sense to discuss about.

The single problem is that someone claimed source independency for these.

 

Matt

 

While I admit in believing initially that a bullet proif solution had been found, it was made very clear after ECD explained (limited bandwidth) and after listening to the revised U192, that there was still some source sensitivity. So there is no point in continuing to debate this, and I really don't understand why you come back to this point, if not to reassure yourself that spending 25.000 € on a source is the right thing to do. 

 

Whether ECD is simply "great value for money" or truly breakthrough products, is another question. I firmly believe the latter, but proper care has to be taken to get them to sound exceptional as opposed to simply great. 

 

Last night I started up my system at 10 pm and for the first half hour things did not sound great. But I ended up staying up listening to music until 2AM... 

 

Once you hear the "magic" you understand that there is something special going on. 

 

I wish that playing the UPL/Fractal DAC at my friend's could have provided the same "wow" effect, but it clearly did not, and I think we were too hasty (and that cheap battery supply was probably not a good idea). By the time the DAC had warmed up we had switched to inferior sources with the same battery supply, wifi issues, etc... 

 

You can pick up on bits and pieces of information here and there to form and express an opinion on something you have actually never heard, but it is completely unsubstantiated and you are missing the big picture.