ECdesigns

[bodiebill]

10 minutes ago, murphythecat87 said:

anyone have had the issue of their U192ETL simply disconnecting and not being recognized by their computer? happened to me 3 times in 5 days where I had to disconnect the usb cable and reconnect it...

 

Actually, I happened to have this problem just now...

[bodiebill]

Just now, matthias said:

IMO, the comparison should be made with the FractalDAC:

 

UPL>>FractalDAC

vs

Various "Superservers">>U192>>FractalDAC

 

True, but this would would be a comparison between

 

€333 >> €635

vs

>€10.000 >> €333 >> €635

 

so even if the latter would be as good as the first, I would not change anything in my setup.

 

and with the coax-ready DAPI, maybe I could finally try (as I cannot imagine a Taiko Extreme to be cleaner than this):

 

SDTrans384 >> Power DAC

(€550 >> €???)

 

:-)

[bodiebill]

22 minutes ago, matthias said:

BTW: Does the SPDIF output sound the same as I2S output with SDTrans?

 

They are close, but I slightly preferred I2S with a very short (20 or 30 cm) flat HDMI cable.

(Sorry for OT.)

[bodiebill]

24 minutes ago, matthias said:

Yes, the UPL and the SDTrans384 are a steal but you can not do streaming with Qobuz with them.

 

Agreed.

 

Maybe I am a bit peculiar, but I sleep much better now that I do not have to think about the complex (and expensive) chain with network connections, linear power supplies, usb cleaners etc.

 

And I like the ritual of preparing a UPL drive or SDTrans SD card. It is like making tea or putting on a vinyl record. It enhances mindful listening :-)

[bodiebill]

Many design challenges need to be overcome when building a house on a volcano (read: streaming over the network).

I now prefer building my house in a quiet hamlet (read: stand alone source).

 

Of course I understand that many prefer streaming but this may be incompatible with top-tier SQ unless a fortune is spent.

 

I now feel better omitting the whole network chain (other than for controlling the UPL96, which is another thing) and use a stand alone SD- or USB player. SQ goes up, €€ investment way down. You might say user-friendliness goes down also, but I did not experience user-friendliness when always suspecting the network should be further optimized, and always pondering over the next network tweak.

[bodiebill]

15 minutes ago, Ben75 said:

« Digital managed volume control » : that sounds really bad... digital controlling the volume has never worked as it apparently degrade the sound.

PowerDAC will be different..

 

Will the PowerDAC have an analogue volume control? Will it be based on the SVC24 shunt -only attenuator principle? 

[bodiebill]

10 minutes ago, matthias said:

"Lossless volume control is obtained by programming the supply voltage and with stepped power shunts (parallel with the speaker). Volume can be controlled with an IR remote control."

 

Thanks Matt! I was too lazy to do my homework :-|

[bodiebill]

8 minutes ago, hopkins said:

Curious to know if anyone with the DAC (and therefore one of the two ECD sources) has used it with headphones?

 

I tried directly from the DA96 with a Hifiman HE-6, known as very demanding headphones, and indeed volume was too soft and it sounded 'off'. With a Taket H2 + its own TR2 box, the SQ is great.

[bodiebill]

3 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Thanks - The Truth preamp has no remote, so unfortunately no good for me.

 

I only use the power stage of my integrated Cayin tube amp. That means I can use the Cayin's remote to operate another preamp as shown here. On the pic it is still the Lightspeed attenuator, but I am planning to do something similar with my current preamp (also The Truth, with thanks to @hopkins) after I have moved house. (With the SVC this option looks less obvious.)

 

[bodiebill]

For what it is worth, some people report great results feeding analogue signal into high-end active speakers such as Dutch and Dutch, Kii or Buchardt. These speakers obviously include ADC. These reports made me curious and I will receive Buchardt A500's for a 45-day trial period starting in February. Not sure yet how the ECD gear will fit in such a setup, but there are many possibilities and I will experiment...

[bodiebill]

3 minutes ago, matthias said:

I meant curious how ECD gear will fit in a DSP speaker setup.😄

 

 

I understand that the combination of ECD gear and active speakers does not seem to make sense. But surprisingly some active speaker users prefer to feed these with the analogue signal coming from a great DAC -- however circuitous -- to feeding them directly with a digital source. And if ECD indeed succeeds in making the PowerDAC to be near-source-independent, then everything that comes behind it should benefit.

 

But this is all just hear-say, so I will just try for myself and play around with the different setups when the time comes, and report back of course. Actually I do not rule out parallel setups in two separate rooms (one with active, one with passive speakers).

 

As great a fan I am of the ECD sound, I prefer not to put all my eggs in one (i.e. the ECD) basket, if only for reasons of continuous comparison.

[bodiebill]

7 hours ago, hopkins said:

 

I was pulling your leg - looking forward to some feedback from you when you get them! 

😊 I got that Stephsne no problem. But you could be right in the end notwithstanding... We will see...

[bodiebill]

Not yet :-) Due to Buchardt's overwhelming success they were first postponed to last week, when I received the bad news from Mads Buchardt that mine did not pass quality control, which I am glad they take pretty seriously. The A500's are now expected end of May. Not a big problem for me as I just moved house and am still finding out where to place my gear for best SQ. Actually, I think I found it: best results so far with the speakers placed diagonally, i.e. on two sides of a room corner. So now I can refamiliarize myself with the sound for later comparison with Buchardt setup. Trial period is 45 days. I will post the results in due time. 

[bodiebill]

impulsively ordered!

:-)

[bodiebill]

In spite of my excusions into other provinces (stand-alone SD player, active speakers etc.), I am still a believer in ECdesigns... I could not not try to find out how it will influence my setup. :-)

[bodiebill]

I find the source immunity concept not straightforward.

In some way we want the DAC to reveal -- not hide -- the source.

 

I guess the source immunity we talk about here refers to (1) correction of time problems and (2) removal of electrical noise. If that is correct, I can imagine why we perceive reduced source dependence with the Power DAC. But there are other factors that we (at least I) do not know enough about that influence the sound. For instance the improvement that is still perceived (reported offline by huubster) when upgrading a power cable. If something is 'missing' in the source, don't we want the DAC to show that?

 

I am still using a Mutec reclocker (doubling as a usb-toslink converter) before my PD, but hope to be able to compare that with PD only soon.

 

 

[bodiebill]

19 hours ago, szczemirek said:

@hopkins but for me you are lover not objective listener.

 

Besides the fact that objective listeners may not exist at all, I still think this is a bold assumption from someone who has not even listened to the Power DAC. At least @hopkins has. And so far others concur with his praise.

Of course I am looking forward to some critical comments re the PD SQ, to put things in perspective...

[bodiebill]

@hopkins I assume this is as an alternative setup for (rather than replacement of) the setup with your NUC?

[bodiebill]

8 minutes ago, hopkins said:

Also it could be a simple way to test source immunity for those who currently only have their Uber-servers to play with. 

 

Great! I would think that the Android tablet is a purer source than the NUC.

[bodiebill]

10 minutes ago, hopkins said:

Following discussions here (and privately with some of you) on source immunity, I was curious to plug my UPL again and compare it to another source to check whether I had not been wrong in my initial assessment. 

 

I setup the UPL again (had not used it in over a month). I compared it to the Tablet setup described previously, connected to the U192 which has the same output level as the UPL. I used the same electroTos cable in both cases. 

 

I mostly listened to the same track, "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To" from the album "Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section". I know it well, it is, well recorded. I focused on how the individual instruments sounded, and the overall presentation. 

 

 

 

 

I first listened to a minute on the U192, then put the beginning of the song back on the UPL. I immediately told myself: "damn, this sounds better", and  thought "oh well, I'll have to go back to putting all my music in 001-999 folders...". Playing the song back again on the U192, I realized that the very beginning, before the saxophone comes in, sounds different from the rest of the song, so when you stop in the middle and start over, you always have a slightly different feeling of sound quality. Swapping again back and forth, and then listening to a few other songs confirmed that I cannot hear ANY differences between the two sources. 

 

Don't think an android tablet playing local files was ever competitive with the UPL. I had tried many times before and it never was. 

 

Perhaps the UPL is not the best source there is, after all? That can obviously not be ruled out. 

 

Maybe my system is limited, or I have hearing problems.

 

Looking forward to those listening reports! 

 

Interesting report Stephane.

Yesterday I tried something similar, with my SDTrans384 (stand alone SD transport). This was not yet possible with the DA96 but now is possible with the PD as follows:

SDTrans => BNC => Mutec reclocker/converter => TosLink => PD

It took me 5 seconds to realize te improvement over my streaming setup with the SOtM sMS-200 Ultra Neo. More warmth, spaciousness and especially involvement.

This surprised me a little as since the arrival of the Mutec my streaming quality has improved so much that I only listened to streaming since then. By the way, by streaming I mean sending files from my own collection from a Windows 10 PC using UpPlay or Audirvana Studio as a control point to the SOtM/eunhasu renderer.

I hope you will be able to come and have a listen yourself some time :-)

[bodiebill]

Thanks Stephane, once again interesting stuff.

 

Now you are trying to save the source (upstream) immunity phenomenon by blaming downstream components?  🙃A case of cognitive dissonance reduction? 😊

 

Just joking... The setups compared (as you partly know) are:

 

(1) SOtM setup
UPPlay or Audirvana Studio control point (Windows 10 PC) => CAT8/fiber/CAT6 => SOtM (powered by PH SR4 15V) => USB => Mutec => Toslink

=> Power DAC-R (powered by LPSU 6.7V + LT3045 5V) RCA => The Truth preamp => RCA-XLR adapter => DIY 3m XLR cables => Buchardt A500 analogue input

 

(2) SD setup

SDTrans384 (powered by PH SRT4 5V) => BNC => Mutec => Toslink

=> Power DAC-R etc. same as above

 

If you say about the active Buchardts that "this introduces some additional variables" these would be the same for both setups as these are downstream and the setups have downstream part (from the PD) in common. Therefore the processing of the Buchardt (which I must say is very transparant and does justice to the external DACs) is the same in both cases.

 

But if you mean that there is some subtle difference in intereaction between up- and downstream components, this becomes a bit too elusive for me. Then it would become impossible to pinpoint the culprit of certain changes within a chain as everything should be approached holistically. Actually I think this may actually be the case: at the end of the day we do not know.

 

Although less inclined to do so due to the great results with the actives, I promised myself to again hook up my previous amp and (passive) speakers (see my profile) next week now that I am more familiar with the broken in Buchardts. And of course I will report back then.  

[bodiebill]

7 minutes ago, hopkins said:

This is what I mean, and it does make things complicated - that is why I often go back to plugging headphones directly into the PowerDAC (even though I find listening to speakers ultimately more enjoyable). 

 

Yes, that seems like a good way to simplify the test. It is a pity that both my serious headphones (TakeT and Hifiman) are way too demanding for the PD :-)

 

I feel another post coming up...

[bodiebill]

I tried my Hifiman HE-6 headphones directly on the Power DAC, however the volume is much too low -- which could have been be expected with their 83.5 dB sensitivity and 50 Ohms nominal impedance.

My TakeT I should forget about as they really need speaker outputs and a powerful amp. 

 

ECD's website states that the PD's "... low output impedance and 1.4V rms max. output amplitude make it also suitable to directly drive most headphones with impedance between 32 Ohms and up (tested / verified)."

 

What would be suitable sensitivity/impedance combinations?

[bodiebill]

I do not quite understand "between 32 Ohms and up".

[bodiebill]

Thanks @realDHT for the useful link and explanation. I will look for a possible headphone candidate for the PD...