ECdesigns

[tapatrick]

10 minutes ago, hopkins said:

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... 

yep that's what I do and a great non theoretical way to describe what matches my experience.

[bodiebill]

@matthias

Hi Matt, can you please compare your current source with the Taiko Extreme (both hooked up to the ECD combo) and share your findings? Thanks in advance!

[tapatrick]

15 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

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.

If I had the money I'd buy a Taiko AND an EC DAC! (but then of course I would still be trapped in the endless discussions and minutae of tweaking the Taiko!) 

[bodiebill]

no kidding...

Although I cannot proof it, I am confident that the Taiko Extreme can never better my super simple (and much cheaper) SDTrans384 via I2S...

[tapatrick]

3 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

@matthias

Hi Matt, can you please compare your current source with the Taiko Extreme (both hooked up to the ECD combo) and share your findings? Thanks in advance!

Now that would would be worth reading about! 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

In addition, the added transparency offered by the ECD stack has to be "preserved" and not destroyed by the rest of the system (amplification and speakers). So it takes some tuning there as well. We'll see in due time what their PowerDAC brings to the table. In the meantime, I don't think it is so obvious to know whether one's system is capable or not of delivering...  How do you determine that an amplifier/speakers provide very little distortion? Maybe listening to vinyl? It is not that obvious...

[bodiebill]

The Taiko Extreme is like a house built partly under water. A lot of its quality and cost go towards protecting the house, i.e. keeping it dry and comfortable.

I would rather build a house on a dry hill.

 

Maybe it is no coincidence that a Dutch company was so succesful in this respect 🙂

[Superdad]

5 hours ago, tapatrick said:

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.

 

Thanks. (BTW, stock XMOS code goes to 384 these days.) I do have some material at 192, but really I am just trying to understand the capabilities and function of the pieces together before I make the purchase.

 

5 hours ago, tapatrick said:

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

 

Now that is interesting and brings to mind a different question: Will the U192 accept DSD64 and pass that out via Toslink to a DAC? (Sorry if this is a dumb question; I just woke up and my brain is not remembering if DSD can even be handled by Toslink in general.)

I do have a library of DSD64 albums that I would not want to be cut off from. Could see keeping a separate DAC just for DSD and swapping Toslink cable in place of ElectoTOS when needed.

[tapatrick]

48 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Now that is interesting and brings to mind a different question: Will the U192 accept DSD64 and pass that out via Toslink to a DAC? (Sorry if this is a dumb question; I just woke up and my brain is not remembering if DSD can even be handled by Toslink in general.)

I do have a library of DSD64 albums that I would not want to be cut off from. Could see keeping a separate DAC just for DSD and swapping Toslink cable in place of ElectoTOS when needed.

I have a Weather Report DSD64 album which I can play via U192/ElectroTos into my PS Audio Toslink input (needs a jumper pulled out at back of U192). The toslink input on PS DAC only goes to 96KHz and I have to play this through Roon's DSD via PCM (DOP) so not pure DSD. To be honest I can't get my head around all this either and I've had the the coffee!

 

The ElectroTos cable is an intriguing interconnect with a high definition LED at the end so I'm not sure it would allow for a lot of plugging/unplugging as it looks fragile not being the usual metal connectors.

 

The U192 does bring its own magic but the combo with the Fractal DAC is where the icing on the cake lies...

[Norton]

1 hour ago, tapatrick said:

The U192 does bring its own magic but the combo with the Fractal DAC is where the icing on the cake lies...

I suspect that the DAC is actually the cake and so far the UPL has been my preferred icing, but I’ll give the U192 flavour another  try when it comes back from upgrade.

 

Staying with the analogy, it would be good to hear more views about the cake recipe...

[tapatrick]

1 hour ago, Norton said:

I suspect that the DAC is actually the cake and so far the UPL has been my preferred icing, but I’ll give the U192 flavour another  try when it comes back from upgrade.

 

Staying with the analogy, it would be good to hear more views about the cake recipe...

Fair enough probably more accurate layering - either way round with the combo you can have your cake and eat it....   

Looking forward to another owner review.

 

[Superdad]

46 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

...either way round with the combo you can have your cake and eat it...

 

I'm trying to watch my calories you guys are talking about cake. Sheesh! 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

51 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

I'm trying to watch my calories you guys are talking about cake. Sheesh! 

 

Are there specific aspects that interest you in these products, from a design standpoint? 

[tapatrick]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

I'm trying to watch my calories you guys are talking about cake. Sheesh! 

it's vegan, sugar free and very delicious therefore guilt and calorie free...

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

As I am really liking the Pi zero, now that wifi is working, but think it can still be improved upon, I am going to order this other cheap board that seems like a good candidate for building an efficient low power streamer: https://docs.onion.io/omega2-project-book-vol1/omega2-intro.html

- designed for low power consumption, runs on 3.3v, 580 mhz

- Linux with USB audio

- build in wifi and wired ethernet

- usb

That is basically all that is needed. Will see if it can handle audio streaming. I started out in "network audio" using a 500Mhz Alix board, and it worked fine (many people used it at the time), so no reason this should not work. Should be a fun little project.

 

Here's my current setup - looks scary, will be improved upon

[tapatrick]

16 minutes ago, hopkins said:

Should be a fun little project.

Interesting little device, looking forward to your findings.

[tapatrick]

With all the discussion on powering the Fractal DAC today I did some more listening to determine the difference between PH SR4 v EC supplied PSU. The supplied PSU is good however the SR4 adds a silkier sound. It's not a big difference but now I am sure.

 

The second thing I tried was powering the U192 5V USB input with the supplied DAC PSU but I need to test this a bit more as I found it harder to tell the difference between this and the SR4.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Has anyone else experimented with wifi versus wired network connection? If so, could you detail the configuration ?

 

I suspect my wired network carries with it a lot of garbage (noise), but wireless does seem to offer really good sound quality, provided the connection is robust, and that may be a direct consequence of this "bandwidth limiting". So I am curious to find out if that is the case for others. 

[tapatrick]

@hopkins I pulled out Ian Canada's LifePo4 power supply with Ultacap modification which I used to use to power my SD Card transport with 2x 3.3V outputs. I used the 5V output of course which unfortunately does not utilise the batteries and ultracaps (needs to be an output in multiples of the batteries 3.3v to do that). But you can see from diagram that it goes through 2 regulators after the charging PSU. I didn't expect that much but the sound was surprisingly good which reminded me to read up on the specs for the U192.

 

 

"Power supply filters inside the (U192) translator clean up the USB bus power supply to obtain clean supply voltages for the translator circuits. .....ElectroTos completely insulates the PC / streamer from the DAC, eliminating ground loop noise and wired LAN related sound quality degradation."

 

This confirms to me that the effort EC designs has put into cleaning up the input voltage has paid off and why I have found it difficult to tell the difference between 5V inputs (once they are decent enough that is). It may not bring any more benefit due to how well EC have isolated the 5V USB but I may experiment later this month with adding Ian Canadas UcConditioner 5V to the above which is basically an UltraCap add on that conditions the output of any 5V PSU.

 

 

 

 

I have found Ultracaps to bring significant improvement when used. Ian also produces a Conditioner Pi module. This is an UltraCap Pi add on specifically designed to condition the 5V power input to the Pi. Let me know if you would like to know more or you can find info here :

https://github.com/iancanada/DocumentDownload/blob/master/UltraCapacitorPowerSupply/ConditionerPi/ConditionerPi.pdf

 

 

 

 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Thanks. I looked at that battery module. Its a little expensive, and am not sure it is worth going there as opposed to simply using a 3.7v lithium battery. Also, 3.3v is insufficient for the U192 (3.5v min.)

 

Since I am going to build a lower power source with its own battery supply, powering the U192 seperately is better, The batteries I will be using should last more than 10 hours, so that should be plenty. 

 

The board I will be using has a "power dock" that handles recharging, so that should be very convenient: 

https://onion.io/store/power-dock-2/

 

 

 

 

 

[tapatrick]

1 hour ago, hopkins said:

Thanks. I looked at that battery module. Its a little expensive, and am not sure it is worth going there as opposed to simply using a 3.7v lithium battery. Also, 3.3v is insufficient for the U192 (3.5v min.)

 

Since I am going to build a lower power source with its own battery supply, powering the U192 seperately is better, The batteries I will be using should last more than 10 hours, so that should be plenty. 

 

The board I will be using has a "power dock" that handles recharging, so that should be very convenient: 

https://onion.io/store/power-dock-2/

Yes I think the 5V into the U192 is what matters. I spent a long time trying & researching batteries and the Ultracaps are the pinnacle.. Enjoy the journey!

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

45 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

Yes I think the 5V into the U192 is what matters. I spent a long time trying & researching batteries and the Ultracaps are the pinnacle.. Enjoy the journey!

 

Will report back

[bodiebill]

@Huubster kindly lent me his UPL96ETL!

Anyone here running the UPL_remote app on Linux that I can PM with a question? 

[Norton]

On 8/17/2020 at 6:52 PM, hopkins said:

Do you know when you will receive your revised U192 ? You could be in for a nice suprise...

Revised U192 back in my system and yes I am very pleasantly surprised by how much better the combo now sounds (from memory).  With Qobuz and NAS playback from my Bryston BDP, already seems preferable to my Resonessence Mirus on detail, naturalness of tone for individual instruments and overall listenability, if perhaps not quite as good  at conveying orchestral scale.
 

Haven’t compared yet with the (AFAIK) also revised UPL which is the real test.

[bodiebill]

6 hours ago, bodiebill said:

@Huubster kindly lent me his UPL96ETL!

Anyone here running the UPL_remote app on Linux that I can PM with a question? 

 

Update: got it to work thanks to help from Gordon Brown and @hopkins 🙂