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6 minutes ago, hopkins said:

@bodiebill and @Huubster I suggest next time, if you get a chance, you try the UPL with an external power supply. I think it improves things over a direct connection from a PC/laptop. I use a large 5v battery pack from Goal Zero (https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Zero-SHERPA-100-PD/dp/B07VFY3DWX?ref_=ast_sto_dp). A quality linear PS should provide sonic benefits as well. 

 

Happy to try. Actually (as I believe I reported somewhere earlier in this thread) with the U192 I compared a Ghent Y cable with external clean linear power (6VDC linear converted by LR3045 to 5VDC) to a Lush USB cable without separate PS. Surprisingly, the latter easily won. However, I assume the USB cable topology is less important for the UPL (as in that case it does not carry audio data but just occasional control signals) so I should definitely try the same again but with the UPL. A bit short on time these days, but I will report back once done...

 

audio system

 

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16 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

Happy to try. Actually (as I believe I reported somewhere earlier in this thread) with the U192 I compared a Ghent Y cable with external clean linear power (6VDC linear converted by LR3045 to 5VDC) to a Lush USB cable without separate PS. Surprisingly, the latter easily won. However, I assume the USB cable topology is less important for the UPL (as in that case it does not carry audio data but just occasional control signals) so I should definitely try the same again but with the UPL. A bit short on time these days, but I will report back once done...

If you have the possibility to raise the input voltage to 7VDC or similar, the LR3045 will improve in performance so could perhaps make an audible improvement.  

  

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2 minutes ago, realDHT said:

If you have the possibility to raise the input voltage to 7VDC or similar, the LR3045 will improve in performance so could perhaps make an audible improvement.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Indeed ripple will be lower when the delta is larger. And I believe that the LPS's output voltage can be adjusted with an internal screw, I estimate somewhere between 5.5 and 7VDC. So I wil try that. 

 

audio system

 

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8 minutes ago, hykbooks said:

reading so much bout power supply for ecdesign dac threw me off, man if that is the case one should install solar power supply and have all run by solar energy to make things sound great

 

Please don't, out of the box it sounds just plain awesome, something you will not find easily, if at all, anywhere else. Some of us are only trying to get the last drop of sound quality out of it.

 

And regarding myself,  I'm experimenting with power supplies of my streamer, that is where the real differences are for me. The power supply of my streamer effects indirect the power supply and sound of the U192, not that of the DAC, which has it's own LPS. I use the original power supply of the DAC, that thing is great as it is.

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17 minutes ago, hykbooks said:

reading so much bout power supply for ecdesign dac threw me off, man if that is the case one should install solar power supply and have all run by solar energy to make things sound great

 

Maybe start by listening to the units first? You will have a better idea about the way it sounds in comparison to other DACs... 

 

Ditto with Huubster's reply which I saw after. 

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3 minutes ago, Huubster said:

 

Please don't, out of the box it sounds just plain awesome, something you will not find easily, if at all, anywhere else. Some of us are only trying to get the last drop of sound quality out of it.

 

And regarding myself,  I'm experimenting with power supplies of my streamer, that is where the real differences are for me. The power supply of my streamer effects indirect the power supply and sound of the U192, not that of the DAC, which has it's own LPS. I use the original power supply of the DAC, that thing is great as it is.

thanks as to be honest I got bit overwhelmed reading so much into the power supply that I started to think without buying one the dac sounds not good

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21 minutes ago, seeteeyou said:

Hmm, UPL96ETL → DA96ETF → QA390 versus QA390 as a standalone unit would be a mighty interesting comparison.

Well - since the QA390 is battery operated and looks like the filter in done it in the right way - it sound VERY good and close to the UPL/USB - ONLY and ONLY when play WAV files in the wav SF (!!) , once you connect to USB - you will need Intona to Isolate and a good USB cable.
Still  - the UPL is beter sounding  - i just cant even pinpoint or find something bad to say. But QA is close!
5 days a go we had a 3 hours sesion at my friend (speakers) and we were like extatic and glowing from the great sound .

 

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I have the Mosaic UV as well and I really liked that DAC a lot as well, but I never had a very good USB source to use it with. In spite of this it sounded quite good. 

 

In some ways, the Mosaic UV may have been better than the MOS16 (which came just before their current DAC) but with the MOS16 also came the UPL... 

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31 minutes ago, hopkins said:

I have the Mosaic UV as well and I really liked that DAC a lot as well, but I never had a very good USB source to use it with. In spite of this it sounded quite good. 

 

In some ways, the Mosaic UV may have been better than the MOS16 (which came just before their current DAC) but with the MOS16 also came the UPL... 

With the MOSAIC it is important to have bit perfect as also with the new U192- without it, it just sounds like everything else.
So no software voume and no convertion and in Tidal i chose "let Tidal take over... sound" so the volume is also fixed - the only volume is on the PC that controls the Mosaic internal volume swhitching. So the U192 connected to external amp and i control the volume on the amp.

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This afternoon I took the UPL+Fractal  for another comparison against a Terminator DAC + SOTM streamer (with reclocking and EtherRegen). Everyone present (4 other seasoned audiophiles) agreed the UPL+Fractal was superb!

 

I was eager to have a chance to do this comparison again, as I had been a little  underwhelmed the first time (I mentioned this here a couple months ago). What has changed since? 

 

- revised UPL board including the 20Mhz bandwidth limiter, same as the U192. Bodiebill and Norton have that model, and anyone who has purchased the UPL since a month or so. 

 

- use of a proper 5v battery supply instead of a direct connection to PC, though we did not compare without the battery supply.

 

Comparison of the various configurations, including using the UPL with the Terminator, showed the magic lies in the combination of the UPL+Fractal (my personal conclusion). 

 

I am eager now to see what ECD will accomplish next, in 2021 if I understand correctly, with the PowerDAC that they have mentionned on DiyAudio :)  

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With SOtM streamer + Terminator, where you streaming over the network? Or was the SOtM stand-alone with an attached USB drive? Whatever the case, your findings are similar to mine. However, do not underestimate the Terminator. When paired with the SDTrans384 SD transport -- a stand-alone source in principle comparable to the UPL -- it still performs at least as good as (or better than?) the UPL + Fractal DAC combination.

 

audio system

 

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"- use of a proper 5v battery supply instead of a direct connection to PC, though we did not compare without the battery supply."

 

Why do you think u need this for the UPL? Does it matter if i connect it to my laptop and it works on battery?

What cable do i need to test it also so it will be connected to PC for control and external power?

 

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32 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

With SOtM streamer + Terminator, where you streaming over the network? Or was the SOtM stand-alone with an attached USB drive? Whatever the case, your findings are similar to mine. However, do not underestimate the Terminator. When paired with the SDTrans384 SD transport -- a stand-alone source in principle comparable to the UPL -- it still performs at least as good as (or better than?) the UPL + Fractal DAC combination.

 

SOTM was running Roon with local files (so not an attached USB drive). 

 

I would say the main conclusion, agreed upon, is that the UPL+Fractal sound exceptionally good, and certainly better than the Terminator with SOTM, which is already no small accomplishment given the large price differential between the two (all included, you can multiply by 6?).

 

To be a little more diplomatic: the comparison with the Terminator + UPL  would have to be done over a more extended period of time, though to my ears it was fairly clear, and it might be a matter of preference. As for the Terminator with other sources, it is clear that  may change things significantly, but we did not have the opportunity to check that :)

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15 minutes ago, Jacob said:

"- use of a proper 5v battery supply instead of a direct connection to PC, though we did not compare without the battery supply."

 

Why do you think u need this for the UPL? Does it matter if i connect it to my laptop and it works on battery?

What cable do i need to test it also so it will be connected to PC for control and external power?

 

 

To be honest - I would not guarantee that it makes much of a difference. I have done some comparisons at home (with external battery power vs. power from the NUC which has a cheap SMPS), and prefer the battery power but I have not compared with a laptop on battery power. I was using this cable, which is quite cheap, if you want to try it yourself:

 

https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/adaptateurs-divers/cable-adaptateur-usb-b-pour-alimentation-jack-55-21mm-femelle-p-8332.html

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As I mentioned before, I was curious to do this test as I was really disappointed with the results the last time. You can argue about the significance of sound differences, but this time I think it was clear that the quality was really very good and obviously so.

 

We only tested the UPL, I did not bring the U192 (USB interface). But what this confirms, in my opinion is:

- both the UPL and the Fractal DAC contribute to provide excellent results (the Fractal DAC is not a lesser DAC, the star of the show is not only the UPL)

- there is nothing really missing in the sound quality - there is no "tradeoff" between better transparency and precision, and other aspects of sound reproduction

- ECD knows what they are doing, and we can trust they can only improve on this !

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4 hours ago, Jacob said:

Why do you think u need this for the UPL? Does it matter if i connect it to my laptop and it works on battery?

 

Most likely it depends on how good (or how bad as shown below) your laptop really is, so far DA96ETF didn't seem to be too sensitive to its source of power but unfortunately UPL96ETL really suffered the poor power quality from a laptop 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/47/?tab=comments#comment-1084012

On 10/10/2020 at 4:49 PM, Huubster said:

I experienced that the real benefits for me are elsewhere, and that is on the source end of my chain. As mentioned before, the Paul Hynes SR4 LPS in combination with my Innuos Zen Mini blew the UPL out of the water really.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/47/?tab=comments#comment-1084074

On 10/11/2020 at 1:31 AM, bodiebill said:

The question remains: was there something seriously good in @Huubster's setup with the U192 + Zen Mini combination? Or was something seriously wrong with the UPL? It would be nice to get some more data points.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/24966-ecdesigns/page/47/?tab=comments#comment-1084670

On 10/14/2020 at 6:34 PM, Huubster said:

I cannot install the necessary software on the Zen Mini to control the UPL via the Zen Mini, so comparison is impossible that way. The Zen Mini feeds the U192, my laptop feeds the UPL. 


And we used different USB cables, that is something we could have done right, but we haven't done that. My Zen Mini is connected via a very nice Y-USB cable, the UPL was fed by the simple/cheap cable we got with it.

 


 

Other than those USB Y-cables, here's another alternative

 

https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/page-150#post-631854

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/page/643/?tab=comments#comment-1039386

On 3/30/2020 at 6:51 PM, romaz said:

Presently, I'm using one of my LPS-1.2s at 9V feeding a DXP-1A5S set to 5V which is then feeding my Monoprice SlimRun USB 3.0 optical extender and this combo not only provides me complete galvanic isolation between server and DAC but the addition of even the single-stage regulation power supply dramatically improves dynamics.

 

Their latest model is called "Alpha USB" and it no longer needs an additional USB cable

 

https://www.hiendy.com/hififorum/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=133100&page=1#pid2982845

https://sklep.audiocolor.pl/kategoria-produktu/marki/fibbr/fibbr-alpfa-usb/

https://hometheaterhifi.com/blogs/fibbr-alpha-usb-audio-cable-review/

https://www.l7audiolab.net/f/一个关于usb线的测量(玩票)/

https://en.yofc.com/index.php/view/2602.html

x10duQM.jpg

 

If you're more interested in keeping your existing USB cable, here's iDefender+ by iFi Audio

 

https://ifi-audio.com/products/idefender-plus/

 


 

UPL96ETL certainly became a much more attractive option since the maximum number of albums will go from 99 to 999, even FAT32-formatted SSDs @ 2TB (i.e. self-powered ones) should be good to go and finally there's no need to swap the drive so frequently.

 

Back in the days when we could only go up to 99 albums, it's hard to tell what will happen to the longevity of the USB port if USB drives were removed / inserted repeatedly. Adding USB extension cables or USB hubs wouldn't be such a good idea either, thankfully we don't have to worry about any of that now when we could simply unplug one end of the USB cable while leaving another end alone.

 

It's also fantastic to know the fact that both UPL96ETL and U192ETL would perform so much better as long as we're able to feed them with one of those top-tier power supplies.

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