ECdesigns

[mevdinc]

14 hours ago, hopkins said:

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 :)  

I am eagerly waiting for the PowerDAC, but becoming a bit frustrated as there's no news available on its eventual availability. :) 

I had shortlisted Mola Mola Tambaqui, dCS Bartok and Terminator Plus amongst others as my next DAC candidates until I came across ECdesings and this great topic.
Thanks for generously sharing your experiences.

Stay safe and enjoy listening.
 

[realDHT]

6 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

so far DA96ETF didn't seem to be too sensitive to its source of power 

 

I do not agree with this however. In my system there was quite a big improvement when I exchanged the stock DAC supply to a very good one. A friend of mine experienced the same in his system. There has also been some other earlier in the thread that experienced the same.

 

 

[seeteeyou]

2 hours ago, Huubster said:

Plugging the signal side in my laptop and swapping the B-side from U192 to UPL should do the trick right? :)

 

Please check with John and find out if there were any potential issues just in case, in theory that's supposed to be feasible but we don't wanna damage anything while the warranty might be voided.

 

If John were giving the green light to do so, it's fine as long as your Y-cable looks similar to this one

 

 

Another one wouldn't work so well since we'll need an adapter, though I'm pretty sure that you're already powering your U192ETL with something that's closer to the picture as shown above

Since we're talking about 4 USB ports here, theoretically your USB flash drives could benefit from even cleaner power by inserting iFi Audio iDefender+ between the drive and UPL96ETL.

1. SR4 → USB bus power from Innuos → USB bus power from UPL96ETL → USB flash drive
2. SR4 → USB bus power from Innuos → USB flash drive

Not sure if going from 1. to 2. were making a significant difference or otherwise, though it also depends on the quality of that USB type-C to USB type-A cable inserted between Innuos and iDefender+ IMHO. Obviously that's exactly where we could "go nuts" with a reasonably short Mundorf Silver Gold (power-only) USB cable.

 

 

OTOH, HDDs and SSDs might not be safest choices if they're actually drawing too much power from the USB port(s) of Innuos

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Type-C-USB-C-Power-Cable-Laptop/dp/B07VPNSMN8

 

---

  

41 minutes ago, realDHT said:

I do not agree with this however. In my system there was quite a big improvement when I exchanged the stock DAC supply to a very good one. A friend of mine experienced the same in his system. There has also been some other earlier in the thread that experienced the same.

 

I was simply trying not to "scare" any potential buyers of DA96ETF by paraphrasing what @Huubster posted before, though we could predict what's gonna happen after his SR4T is delivered in November

  

On 10/17/2020 at 2:58 AM, Huubster said:

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.

 

Realistically speaking, most of us wouldn't expect WAY too much from the bundled PSU of a DAC for €635.25 while John already tried his best to keep his products affordable enough for many customers.

 

Let's put it this way, a single rail of DC4 from Dr. Sean Jacobs would cost £3,000 and that could be powering something affordable like Allo USBridge Signature. Adding the costs of both U192ETL and DA96ETF to the sum of that decent streamer and ToTL PSU, we could still keep that package under €5,000. Its "clean" USB port is connected to U192ETL while the USB port of DA96ETF is connected to another USB port respectively.

 

The power cable for DC4 doesn't have to be THAT expensive if we're able to build this ourselves or pay someone else to get that done instead, just go through the entire thread since the feedback looked mighty interesting

 

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/duelund-conversion-to-diy-helix-geometry-cabling/post?postid=2035467#2035467

 

Once we're powering DA96ETF with the "legendary" DC4, good luck with finding another similarly priced package that could compete with what I just listed above

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/60673-is-there-any-high-end-dac-that-can-sound-as-good-as-turntable-10000-budget-for-each/?tab=comments#comment-1083842

[realDHT]

I for sure agree with that the ECD combo sounds great already with stock power supplys. And sadly some may be scared off by reading that so many are doing changes in power supplys etc, thinking there must be something wrong in the first place.. I remember seeing a discussion about the Taiko Extreme music server where someone doubted the qualities of the Extreme since so many seemed to start tweaking their system even more after buying it :)   

[Ben75]

According to what @hopkins  (Stéphane) said, it was a great moment to evaluate the level of performance the UPL96 + Fractal DAC has reached.

 

I will only state that (which doesn't reduce the qualities of the Denafrips Terminator) : UPL96ETL + Fractal DAC was so much better (in terms of qualitative jump/new paradigm) than the Terminator + SOTM. With the UPL96 + Fractal DAC we had the impression of a natural sound, effortless, non-fatiguing, ample sounding, life-like tonality, deep silence soundstage etc... Like vinyl record usually apparently do (in others opinions).

 

I would suspect the SOTM SMS 200 ultra and all the tweakes affiliated to be very poor compared to the UPL96ETL. @bodiebill : We should certainly borrow your SDTrans384 SD transport to get a good idea of the fabulous potential of the Denafrips Terminator - even though this DAC will always appear too much expensive for a lot of people.

 

Wan't wait to the launch of the PowerDAC...

 

 

I wish you a good dsunday!

Benoît

 

Ps : The Fractal DAC + UPL96 combo forces us to be humble and to revisit what is efficiently the so-called "High End Hifi"... I am confident that EC Designs is going in the right direction and has achieved a truely revolutionnary solution with this combo.

 

[Ben75]

1 hour ago, mevdinc said:

I am eagerly waiting for the PowerDAC, but becoming a bit frustrated as there's no news available on its eventual availability. :) 

I had shortlisted Mola Mola Tambaqui, dCS Bartok and Terminator Plus amongst others as my next DAC candidates until I came across ECdesings and this great topic.
Thanks for generously sharing your experiences.

Stay safe and enjoy listening.
 

@mevdinc : You are perfectly right I would say.. EC Designs Power DAC will be a no brainer : far less expensive than a Terminator or a Tambaqui and potentially better (because it will solve issues coming from complex analogic chain (preamp, amp, etc.).. Wait and see - but you are on the right thread if you want to get a guenuine Hifi experience IMO! :-)

[matthias]

1 hour ago, Ben75 said:

EC Designs Power DAC will be a no brainer : far less expensive than a Terminator...

 

How do you know, just asking?

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

19 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

How do you know, just asking?

 

Matt

 

You are right, he does not know (Benoit will certainly agree with me). This is just an extrapolation on the fact that the current products are "affordable", but it seems the PowerDAC may be an entirely different beast. 

 

For the time being, there are still some questions on the SQ of the UPL vs U192, and how to best use all this. 

 

[Huubster]

4 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

This is exactly what I have. It makes sense to be able to use it like I described, as long as a regular USB type 5v is delivered it can't do any harm I would think. And my Innuos is most probably a better source for 5v then my shabby laptop, which I barely use because of being so shabby :)

 

4 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

I was simply trying not to "scare" any potential buyers of DA96ETF by paraphrasing what @Huubster posted before, though we could predict what's gonna happen after his SR4T is delivered in November

 

I sincerely hope I didn't scare people by that statement, not my intention at all! In the end, the Innuos does sound so darn good because of the ECDesigns stuff! 😁 

 

And above that, I've been comparing an Innuos streamer with dedicated LPS well over 2K in total (including fancy USB and power cables) with the UPL player costing a whopping 363 euro's, fed by a shabby laptop... 🙃

[Jacob]

6 hours ago, realDHT said:

I do not agree with this however. In my system there was quite a big improvement when I exchanged the stock DAC supply to a very good one. A friend of mine experienced the same in his system. There has also been some other earlier in the thread that experienced the same.

 

 

I think this is totaly not defenetive - every one has a different quality power lines , so what good for some does not has to be the same for others.

[realDHT]

20 minutes ago, Jacob said:

I think this is totaly not defenetive - every one has a different quality power lines , so what good for some does not has to be the same for others.

Agreed, like with all other listening impressions, there are many variables involved.

[nattflax]

This thread is extremely useful. I have learned so much about digital audio lurking this thread, being a vinyl guy for the most part -- apologies for the heresy. 

 

I want to share my workflow converting .flac to .wav. I own the ~ 2 year old "legacy" products MOS16 and UPL16 and they only accept files with 16 bits bit depth. 

 

Hsopefully my workflow will be useful for user of the newer models as I have found that .wav-dowloads from for instance Bandcamp can be a little bit iffy. Usually I download the .flac-file and scrub the metadata and then convert it to .wav. 

 

For .flac-files I use Puddletag to scrub the meta data (ctrl-e to delete icons/art work and ctrl-r to scrub the rest of the meta data and then hit save)

 

I found this script (link below) for sox to be capable using the command line converting to different audio formats. The script works for Linux and Mac. One thing I found to be very nifty indeed is that the output is piped to parallell-application which uses all the available cores in your computer to convert the files.

 

find . -name "*.wav" -print0 \
  | parallel -0 --eta \
      "mkdir -p {//}/sox-out ; \
       mkdir -p {//}/sox-out/logs ; \
       sox --show-progress \
         --guard {} \
         -b 16 \
         -t wav \
         -C 0 \
         {//}/sox-out/{/.}.wav \
         rate -v 48k \
         dither -s \
         2>&1 \
           | tee {//}/sox-out/logs/{/.}.sox.log"

 

https://notes.maxie.xyz/audio/downsample-audio-with-sox.html#downsample-with-sox

 

Cheers!

 

Nattflax

[Jacob]

1 hour ago, nattflax said:

This thread is extremely useful. I have learned so much about digital audio lurking this thread, being a vinyl guy for the most part -- apologies for the heresy. 

 

I want to share my workflow converting .flac to .wav. I own the ~ 2 year old "legacy" products MOS16 and UPL16 and they only accept files with 16 bits bit depth. 

 

Hsopefully my workflow will be useful for user of the newer models as I have found that .wav-dowloads from for instance Bandcamp can be a little bit iffy. Usually I download the .flac-file and scrub the metadata and then convert it to .wav. 

 

For .flac-files I use Puddletag to scrub the meta data (ctrl-e to delete icons/art work and ctrl-r to scrub the rest of the meta data and then hit save)

 

I found this script (link below) for sox to be capable using the command line converting to different audio formats. The script works for Linux and Mac. One thing I found to be very nifty indeed is that the output is piped to parallell-application which uses all the available cores in your computer to convert the files.

 

find . -name "*.wav" -print0 \
  | parallel -0 --eta \
      "mkdir -p {//}/sox-out ; \
       mkdir -p {//}/sox-out/logs ; \
       sox --show-progress \
         --guard {} \
         -b 16 \
         -t wav \
         -C 0 \
         {//}/sox-out/{/.}.wav \
         rate -v 48k \
         dither -s \
         2>&1 \
           | tee {//}/sox-out/logs/{/.}.sox.log"

 

https://notes.maxie.xyz/audio/downsample-audio-with-sox.html#downsample-with-sox

 

Cheers!

 

Nattflax

:):) once you wrote "script" .. my eyes puzzled ... and i needed a smoke...😉

 

So this is how i do it - 

Tidal-GUI for direct file downloading from Tidal.

Freeac - audio converter for batch Flac to Wav.

Bulk Rename Utility - for setting the files name correctly and giving numbers.

Fixing the Folder name.

 

ye it took me some time at first , now it is easy :)

 

 

[nattflax]

1 hour ago, Jacob said:

:):) once you wrote "script" .. my eyes puzzled ... and i needed a smoke...😉

 

So this is how i do it - 

Tidal-GUI for direct file downloading from Tidal.

Freeac - audio converter for batch Flac to Wav.

Bulk Rename Utility - for setting the files name correctly and giving numbers.

Fixing the Folder name.

 

ye it took me some time at first , now it is easy :)

 

 

 

The command line is your friend and you shouldn't be afraid of it :) 

 

Thanks for sharing your workflow. The freeac application looks very promising. Thanks a lot!  I tend to convert one album at time and then re-discover my cd/digital collection.

[Huubster]

11 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

 

Please check with John and find out if there were any potential issues just in case, in theory that's supposed to be feasible but we don't wanna damage anything while the warranty might be voided.

 

If John were giving the green light to do so, it's fine as long as your Y-cable looks similar to this one

 

 

 

Tonight I tried to get the UPL working, using my laptop for the sound signal, and my Innuos Zen for the 5v, using a Y-cable as pictured above. Unfortunately this didn't work, the laptop did not recognise the UPL. After switching to a single usb cable from laptop again it did work. 

 

I haven't tried the split cable from my laptop only I now realize, something to check out as well some day..

[mevdinc]

11 hours ago, Ben75 said:

@mevdinc : You are perfectly right I would say.. EC Designs Power DAC will be a no brainer : far less expensive than a Terminator or a Tambaqui and potentially better (because it will solve issues coming from complex analogic chain (preamp, amp, etc.).. Wait and see - but you are on the right thread if you want to get a guenuine Hifi experience IMO! :-)

Well, I am in no real rush and have been waiting in anticipation.
Hopefully, we'll find out soon :)

[matthias]

9 hours ago, mevdinc said:

Well, I am in no real rush and have been waiting in anticipation.
Hopefully, we'll find out soon :)

 

Yes, but it is not about changing the DAC only. You would need suitable speakers as well.

 

Matt

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

I remember they mentioned somewhere this would be for late 2021. Plenty of time for the PowerDAC concept to be fine tuned, and discussing it is premature. 

[mevdinc]

52 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Yes, but it is not about changing the DAC only. You would need suitable speakers as well.

 

Matt

Do you imply that ECdesign DACs only work best with certain speakers or that my speakers wouldn't be a good match?
I doubt I will ever consider changing my active speakers for a DAC. If anything my speakers would reveal all the capabilities of the Powerdac even more.
 

[Huubster]

3 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

Do you imply that ECdesign DACs only work best with certain speakers or that my speakers wouldn't be a good match?
I doubt I will ever consider changing my active speakers for a DAC. If anything my speakers would reveal all the capabilities of the Powerdac even more.
 

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding you won't be able to use the PowerDAC for it's intended use. The PowerDAC is the U192 and DA96ETF in one solution, including power amplification. So you should keep it to the separate parts as currently sold. Or am I saying something very stupid here..? :)

 

Regarding the speaker requirements Matt is referring to, is that they (as in passive speakers) should be at least 90dB sensitive, otherwise the PowerDAC won't probably be powerful enough to get your loudspeakers sing.. 

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

4 minutes ago, Huubster said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding you won't be able to use the PowerDAC for it's intended use. The PowerDAC is the U192 and DA96ETF in one solution, including power amplification. So you should keep it to the separate parts as currently sold. Or am I saying something very stupid here..? :)

 

That is my understanding as well. 

[matthias]

10 minutes ago, mevdinc said:

Do you imply that ECdesign DACs only work best with certain speakers or that my speakers wouldn't be a good match?
I doubt I will ever consider changing my active speakers for a DAC. If anything my speakers would reveal all the capabilities of the Powerdac even more.

 

Yes, as @Huubstermentioned you can use passive speakers only with a sensitivity of at least 90dB.

You would have to say "good bye" to your beloved active ATCs.

 

Matt

[mevdinc]

1 minute ago, Huubster said:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but to my understanding you won't be able to use the PowerDAC for it's intended use. The PowerDAC is the U192 and DA96ETF in one solution, including power amplification. So you should keep it to the separate parts as currently sold. Or am I saying something very stupid here..? :)

 

Regarding the speaker requirements Matt is referring to, is that they (as in passive speakers) should be at least 90dB sensitive, otherwise the PowerDAC won't probably be powerful enough to get your loudspeakers sing.. 

I guess, I should have guessed from the name 'powerDAC' that it will also come with a power amp, my bad. :)))
I have an active speaker system so I won't need the amp section at all.
In that case, I can actually try their existing solution (U192 and DA96ETF) or possibly wait for their next upgrade to the existing DAC if there's such a plan.

Thanks for the clarification. Let's not derail the topic any more.
Stay safe.

[mevdinc]

2 minutes ago, matthias said:

 

Yes, as @Huubstermentioned you can use passive speakers only with a sensitivity of at least 90dB.

You would have to say "good bye" to your beloved active ATCs.

 

Matt

My bad. Thanks for the clarification Matt.

[tims]

14 hours ago, Jacob said:

:):) once you wrote "script" .. my eyes puzzled ... and i needed a smoke...😉

 

So this is how i do it - 

Tidal-GUI for direct file downloading from Tidal.

Freeac - audio converter for batch Flac to Wav.

Bulk Rename Utility - for setting the files name correctly and giving numbers.

Fixing the Folder name.

 

ye it took me some time at first , now it is easy :)

 

 

Hi Jacob

I'm using exact audio copy to rip my cd's but the UPL software sometimes doesn't recognise the ID3v2 tagging EAC generates. 

Using Freeac, do you have any problems getting the correct tagging (ID3v2) for WAV music files?  Have you got your Freeac tagging set-up as per the attached screenshot?

Thanks