A novel way to massively improve the SQ of computer audio streaming

[Confused]

32 minutes ago, zoltan said:

Can somebody point out what this ground connector does?? A clock signal has the 'hot' and the 'ground' both of which are already connected to the BNC plug of a Habst cable each end. This extra ground baffles me. 
 

Very well put.  I am baffled too, but maybe there is a good explanation for this?

[rickca]

49 minutes ago, zoltan said:

Can somebody point out what this ground connector does?? A clock signal has the 'hot' and the 'ground' both of which are already connected to the BNC plug of a Habst cable each end. This extra ground baffles me. 
 

I got this image from the Habst website.

[rickca]

4 hours ago, flkin said:

Will it matter to you if I keep the mod switch there?

Probably better to leave the mod switch in so we're not changing too many things at once.

[rickca]

@flkin and @Kritpoon thanks for your epic listening session.  I realize it's a lot of work to experiment with configurations and I really appreciate your valuable input.  I'm glad you enjoyed getting together and doing this.

[seeteeyou]

2 hours ago, Confused said:

This makes me wonder, how much of the improvement is due to the Habst cable itself, and how much due to the shorter length.

 

It wasn't the length, at least according to @romaz who tested his Mutec REF 10

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=147&tab=comments#comment-722848

On 9/25/2017 at 2:55 AM, romaz said:

Moreover, as I have tested identical length clock cables with my REF10 from companies like Pasternack ($40), Blue Jeans Cables (<$20), and Black Cat ($250) against the 700 Euro Habst clock cables that I purchased with my REF10, unfortunately, the differences are quite significant with respect to HF harshness and a very flat sound.  Not that the cheap cables sound horrible but when you replace them with the Habst, there's simply no wanting to go back to those cheap cables.  This is where those external clock doubters have a leg to stand on when they make their claims that external clocks don't add anything.  Cable length and cable quality DEFINITELY matters.

 

2 hours ago, Confused said:

Also, how much of an influence does the Habst ground connector make?

 

FWIW - even for analog cables, a separate ground connector seemed to result in much darker background according to multiple users of Han Sound Venom.

 

 

 

Balanced 2.5-mm connector for signal, and single-ended 3.5-mm connector for ground in this case.

[SwissBear]

2 hours ago, zoltan said:

Can somebody point out what this ground connector does?? A clock signal has the 'hot' and the 'ground' both of which are already connected to the BNC plug of a Habst cable each end. This extra ground baffles me. 
 

A few hypothesis to take with a heavy grain of salt, as I do not pretend to have competences in the electrical engineering field: 

Could it be that:

• a leakage current is finding its way between the two boxes (MC-3+ USB and Ref-10) in the absence of the Habst grounding cable through the common 'ground', which causes the timing signal (spread between the 'hot' and the 'ground') to be much less readable on the MC-3+ end ?
• in the case of installations where the grounding has been particularly well done or when the MC-3+ USB have been transformed with a LPSU, this leakage current is not flowing there ?
• in which case a simple trick à la @JohnSwenson like this one () could help solve the problem without resorting to expensive cables ?

Again, to take with reservations

[One and a half]

2 hours ago, zoltan said:

Where did you see such an option? Can you share a link? I have removed the SMPS myself but I am not aware of any other option than doing it DIY.

This info should really come from Julian. You can ask the factory for dc but you must maintain the voltage below 6.2V. If it goes higher, the mc is fried and no warranty. It’s easy for the factory to tell when it happens.

[zoltan]

1 minute ago, One and a half said:

This info should really come from Julian. You can ask the factory for dc but you must maintain the voltage below 6.2V. If it goes higher, the mc is fried and no warranty. It’s easy for the factory to tell when it happens.

I'm pretty sure Julian expressed it (although implicitly) that no such option is available for the MC3+USB. I have done very extensive research on this option before I opened mine. 

Also, DC 6.2V (I measured also 6.23) only works if it is not clocked to the Ref 10, in which case only 5.7V or so is the max. voltage, otherwise it will not synchronise, the blue light will just keep on blinking. I should really post it in the MC3 thread though.  

[One and a half]

2 minutes ago, zoltan said:

I'm pretty sure Julian expressed it (although implicitly) that no such option is available for the MC3+USB. I have done very extensive research on this option before I opened mine. 

Also, DC 6.2V (I measured also 6.23) only works if it is not clocked to the Ref 10, in which case only 5.7V or so is the max. voltage, otherwise it will not synchronise, the blue light will just keep on blinking. I should really post it in the MC3 thread though.  

I wasn’t aware of the 5.7V thanks for the tip, and please post in the mc thread.

[Kritpoon]

6 hours ago, flkin said:

Ok, that's an interesting test, I'll have a look. Will it matter to you if I keep the mod switch there? I'm not sure if I can remove the mod switch easily as the cabling is rather tight and short and SOtM's stiff cables are a real bi*ch to deal with 

 

1. Antipodes > mod switch > tX-USBultra > DAC
2. Antipodes > mod switch > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ via USB > DAC
3.           Mac > mod switch > modded sMS-200 > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ via USB > DAC

 

1. May or may not be possible since Antipodes doesn't recognise the DAC2.0. Not sure if the tX-USBultra can help.
2. Should be doable 
3. Should be doable

 

@flkin lets set up for the 2nd round of test! LOL....

[zoltan]

@SwissBear Thank you for trying to clarify. I think grounding/earthing a SMPS is a slightly different story but I may be wrong. Anyhow, I must admit that this earth and ground and ground loops and grounding boxes and floating ground and all this stuff is not very clear to me at least.
Most people, however, don't realize that the 'negative' (i.e. ground) of all their cables - interconnects, digital, clock, etc are all common and all connected to earth too, as long as your system is connected to earth. It is easy to test just by touching the ground pin on a wall socket and any ground terminal of any of your connections with a multimeter. That is why I prefer balanced as that is different but it is not always an option.    

[auricgoldfinger]

27 minutes ago, SwissBear said:

A few hypothesis to take with a heavy grain of salt, as I do not pretend to have competences in the electrical engineering field: 

Could it be that:

• a leakage current is finding its way between the two boxes (MC-3+ USB and Ref-10) in the absence of the Habst grounding cable through the common 'ground', which causes the timing signal (spread between the 'hot' and the 'ground') to be much less readable on the MC-3+ end ?
• in the case of installations where the grounding has been particularly well done or when the MC-3+ USB have been transformed with a LPSU, this leakage current is not flowing there ?
• in which case a simple trick à la @JohnSwenson like this one () could help solve the problem without resorting to expensive cables ?

Again, to take with reservations

 

Interesting hypothesis, especially considering an SMPS is powering the MC-3+.

[Kritpoon]

2 hours ago, Confused said:

Very well put.  I am baffled too, but maybe there is a good explanation for this?

 

1 hour ago, rickca said:

2 hours ago, zoltan said:

 

I got this image from the Habst website.

 

27 minutes ago, SwissBear said:

A few hypothesis to take with a heavy grain of salt, as I do not pretend to have competences in the electrical engineering field: 

Could it be that:

• a leakage current is finding its way between the two boxes (MC-3+ USB and Ref-10) in the absence of the Habst grounding cable through the common 'ground', which causes the timing signal (spread between the 'hot' and the 'ground') to be much less readable on the MC-3+ end ?
• in the case of installations where the grounding has been particularly well done or when the MC-3+ USB have been transformed with a LPSU, this leakage current is not flowing there ?
• in which case a simple trick à la @JohnSwenson like this one () could help solve the problem without resorting to expensive cables ?

Again, to take with reservations

 

The second ground connection is also a mystery to me and @flkin, but we have experimented in 2 ways: 1) hot unplug the ground cable from the REF10 2) Turn off the output of REF10 that's connect to the ground plug. In both experiments, we found that without the ground plug connection, the degradation of sound was very apparent and easily heard. As for the SQ impact @flkin might have to chime in, since I was the one unplugging and turn-on/off the output with @flkin in the listening position. But from where, I am standing (in front of the equipments rack) the sound is easily distinguishable for connect/ not connected of the ground cable.

[Kritpoon]

5 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

 

Interesting hypothesis, especially considering an SMPS is powering the MC-3+.

 

@SwissBear @auricgoldfinger In out test, the MC-3+ was powering by the UpTone LPS-1.

[Kritpoon]

16 hours ago, austinpop said:

Also, @flkin and @Kritpoon - as I read your write up, the other scenario I would ask you to try is to use the Antipodes with a partial SOtM stack like Eric & I did as indicated below. In all cases, with the Ref 10 clocking the tX and the MC-3+.

 

- Antipodes > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ > DAC.

 

How does this compare to:

 

- Antipodes > modded sMS-200 > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ > DAC

 

and

 

- Mac Mini > modded sMS-200 > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ > DAC?

 

In other words, does removing the modded sMS-200 from the chain improve or hurt the SQ?

 

This is your follow up homework!  

 

Hi Rajiv,

 

That's a very interesting test to do, I will discuss with @flkin of when and how we can do this. I also wanted to find out how much contribution is the modded SMS-200 is to the whole chain. Another interesting thing to test that I have been thinking is that since Antipodes DX is not REF clock optimized, it will be interesting to compare the Antipodes DX with the Trifecta (Stable) without REF clock input, meaning all equipment in its native clock form.

 

My thought is, if the sound is about equal between both set up, perhaps s-clkex board with REF clock input to replace  the Antipodes DX clocks. In this case, we could compare Mac Server+SMS-200(REF)+tx-USBUltra(Ref) with Antipodes DX (s-clkEX with REF). I will be a very interesting comparison, I think.

 

Perhaps SOTM will be willing to mod the Antipodes DX for me? LOL...

[zoltan]

19 minutes ago, Kritpoon said:

 

 

 

The second ground connection is also a mystery to me and @flkin, but we have experimented in 2 ways: 1) hot unplug the ground cable from the REF10 2) Turn off the output of REF10 that's connect to the ground plug. In both experiments, we found that without the ground plug connection, the degradation of sound was very apparent and easily heard. As for the SQ impact @flkin might have to chime in, since I was the one unplugging and turn-on/off the output with @flkin in the listening position. But from where, I am standing (in front of the equipments rack) the sound is easily distinguishable for connect/ not connected of the ground cable.

A take that the ground connection is also a BNC plug then although in the photo shared by @rickca seems different.
I also assume the ground plug didn't have a central pin of any kind. 
It is even stranger that switching the clock output on and off made any difference. Luckily Munich is close and we may be able to clarify these with the Mutec engineers.  

[austinpop]

18 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

9 rails (started of with 5 but you know how it is)

 

Most humans on this planet would consider you insane.  

 

But on this thread, people go.. yeah, sure, makes sense.

[rickca]

@Kritpoon is that picture I posted from the Habst website the cable you are using?

[SwissBear]

1 hour ago, zoltan said:

I'm pretty sure Julian expressed it (although implicitly) that no such option is available for the MC3+USB. I have done very extensive research on this option before I opened mine. 

Also, DC 6.2V (I measured also 6.23) only works if it is not clocked to the Ref 10, in which case only 5.7V or so is the max. voltage, otherwise it will not synchronise, the blue light will just keep on blinking. I should really post it in the MC3 thread though.  

Mine is working A-Ok with a tension of 6.0V, in connexion with a Ref-10 as the maximum advised by Mutec is 6.2V.

[SwissBear]

1 hour ago, Kritpoon said:

 

@SwissBear @auricgoldfinger In out test, the MC-3+ was powering by the UpTone LPS-1.

Thank you. Can I ask what was the 'Energizer' used to power the LPS-1 ?

[austinpop]

7 hours ago, flkin said:

We were having trouble getting the Antipodes to connect to the VR DAC2.0 and in order to proceed we had to pass the signal through the MC3+ for the connection. This made it necessary to follow the same route to continue the comparisons.

 

I had the same type of issue with USB handshaking between the Zenith SE and my Codex DAC. It sounds like both Innuos and Antipodes are wanting to use flaky onboard USB controllers in the interest of low-noise. Innuos had suggested - and I even tried - using the iFi iPurifier2 to remediate the problem. It does work, but did strange things to SQ, and in any case, made no architectural sense in the clocking hierarchy.

 

7 hours ago, flkin said:

Perhaps I should revisit this and see if I can get the MC3+ connected to the DAC2.0 via USB and listen again.

 

Actually, I wasn't thinking of MC-3+ to the DAC via USB. Is that even possible? I thought the MC-3+ USB only output via synchronous modes like coax, toslink, and AES/EBU.

 

7 hours ago, flkin said:

Look forward to reading your findings about the Ref10 vs OP14. For us it was a clear step up from what was already a good place. But at double the price it's as it should be.

 

Yes indeed.

 

7 hours ago, flkin said:

I did try using the Habst 75ohm cable from Ref10@75ohm to the tx-USBultra and guess what, it works fine! Didn't connect the ground connector and only used the signal one. And sounded fine too, better than the standard Cybershaft black cable. More refined and clearer placements of instruments and a touch more width to the stage. I wonder if one can hear that much difference between 50 and 75ohm cables? But for sure there is a large difference between the Habst (0.5m) and the Pasternack RG216 (36 inches). Unfortunate but true.

 

Are you saying you tried the Habst 75 Ω cable between a 75 Ω port on your Ref-10 and the tX-USBultra, which is configured (i.e. terminated) at 50 Ω? Interesting. Such a configuration will technically have reflections on the link due to the impedance mismatch.

 

7 hours ago, flkin said:

As for how a Paul Hynes would affect the Trifecta - and I'm of the opinion it will drastically, well I can answer that in about 6-8 months if I'm lucky...   queue #29

 

We will have it sooner, as Eric @limniscate is #10 on the queue. Looking forward to it!

 

7 hours ago, flkin said:

 

Ok, that's an interesting test, I'll have a look. Will it matter to you if I keep the mod switch there? I'm not sure if I can remove the mod switch easily as the cabling is rather tight and short and SOtM's stiff cables are a real bi*ch to deal with 

 

1. Antipodes > mod switch > tX-USBultra > DAC
2. Antipodes > mod switch > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ via USB > DAC
3. Mac > mod switch > modded sMS-200 > tX-USBultra > MC-3+ via USB > DAC

 

I'm not sure why you show the modded switch in that position between the Antipodes and the tX-USBultra? This link: "Antipodes > tX-USBultra" is a USB link.

 

But yes, as others have suggested - keep the modded switch in place. Also, I highly recommend using local files - either on the Mac or Antipodes, based on the test. For all of the comparisons below, I assume:

• your modded switch is connected to your router, or a bridge on your Mac
• tX-USBultra and MC-3+ are clocked with Ref 10

Compare:

1. Baseline: Mac > (Ethernet) mod switch > (Ethernet) > modded sMS-200 > (USB) > tX-USBultra > (USB) > DAC
2. Replace Mac with Antipodes: Antipodes > (Ethernet) mod switch > (Ethernet) > modded sMS-200 > (USB) > tX-USBultra > (USB) > DAC
3. Remove sMS: mod switch > (Ethernet) > Antipodes > (USB) > tX-USBultra > (USB) > DAC
4. Replace tX with MC-3+ USB: mod switch > (Ethernet) > Antipodes > (USB) > MC-3+ USB > (S/PDIF) > DAC
5. Both tX and MC-3+ USB: mod switch > (Ethernet) > Antipodes > (USB) > tX-USBultra > (USB) > MC-3+ USB > (S/PDIF) > DAC

If you substitute "Zenith SE" for "Antipodes," and "dX-USB HD Ultra" for "MC-3+ USB," these are the same experiments Eric and I have tried in the past. Please do give it a shot if you could.

 

1 hour ago, Kritpoon said:

 

@flkin lets set up for the 2nd round of test! LOL....

 

That's the spirit! Addictive, isn't it?  

 

41 minutes ago, Kritpoon said:

That's a very interesting test to do, I will discuss with @flkin of when and how we can do this. I also wanted to find out how much contribution is the modded SMS-200 is to the whole chain. Another interesting thing to test that I have been thinking is that since Antipodes DX is not REF clock optimized, it will be interesting to compare the Antipodes DX with the Trifecta (Stable) without REF clock input, meaning all equipment in its native clock form.

 

My thought is, if the sound is about equal between both set up, perhaps s-clkex board with REF clock input to replace  the Antipodes DX clocks. In this case, we could compare Mac Server+SMS-200(REF)+tx-USBUltra(Ref) with Antipodes DX (s-clkEX with REF). I will be a very interesting comparison, I think.

 

Basically, what we discovered - all empirical, of course - is that the SE optimizes on one dimension, and the reference clocking in another. In an ideal world, the SE would/could be reference clocked, but it can't. What we discovered was that what we "lost" by removing one reference clocked element in the chain - i.e. the sMS-200ultra - we could (almost) recover by having the tX-USBultra and the modded switch still in place. Additionally, we gained the other aspects of goodness that the SE added due to its superior PSUs and overall HW optimizations. So the sum of SE+switch+tX+ref clock was still greater than the original sMS based trifecta. This is the whole rationale for my current system, and why I only sold my modded sMS-200.

 

41 minutes ago, Kritpoon said:

Perhaps SOTM will be willing to mod the Antipodes DX for me? LOL...

 

Great idea. See what they say!

[lmitche]

24 minutes ago, austinpop said:

In an ideal world, the SE would/could be reference clocked, but it can't.

I guess you just have to build your own!

[RickyV]

16 hours ago, LTG2010 said:

There's a 24 pin atx connector and a 4pin 12v atx connector, this (4 pin) supplies the processor when in atx mode, this is what I understood when discussing it with Supermicro's tech help.

 

Hi LTG2010,

what do you mean by “atx mode”? Is that bios setting? 

 Very interesting posts btw.  Very curious how it sounds with the new power supply

[RickyV]

Btw i noticed the zenith se uses a 20 pin atx connector and not a 24 pin.

[rickca]

4 hours ago, Kritpoon said:

In out test, the MC-3+ was powering by the UpTone LPS-1.

So you have modified the MC-3+ USB to use an external linear PS?