Just received: M2Tech Hiface USB interface

[The Computer Audiophile]

Great to hear guys :~)

 

[Snoozer]

Hi Kamil,

 

could you please elaborate a bit about the mods your hiface has been done ?

 

best

Pepe

 

[jkeny]

Thanks for asking but I'm not sure that I'm allowed to do so here? Maybe Chris can say? If you go to my website in my signature you will see the detail of the mods.

 

Thanks roob & DanH & michigoon for the kind words of appreciation.

 

[audionaut]

Hi!

 

I have a very frequent problem with skipping (like when someone is bumping into a turntable playing vinyl records) - sometimes like 10 times per track, sometimes less often.

 

I have (I think)eliminated all hardware issues (different cables, different USB outputs, hubs, without hubs etc - used two different computers (vista and win 7) both Intel processors).

 

I use iTunes and spotify - same thing. Latest driver from M2Tech. Also tried earlier drivers - skipping occurs then as well.

 

Anyone have a clue?

 

 

[regal]

I'll admit I wasn't to impressed with this unit. But I took it apart and powered the clocks with a $3 LiFePO4 battery and added a USB female-male extension.

 

Best digital I've ever heard, I have digital transfers of RTR SBDs from the 70's, this little unit takes me back to listening to these RTR master tapes 30 years ago. Its as close to listening to an analog master I've ever heard. Good vinyl transfers sound just like vinyl.

 

The mod is easy but unfortunately essential. The stock Hiface just was mediocre IMO at best. Its like the designed an incredible unit but forgot the #1 rule in audio - powersuplly is everything.

 

Anyone with average soldering experience can do the mod.

 

[Purite Audio]

Compact size and portability was a major design criteria of the 'hiface', the power supply issues have been dealt with in the unconstrained new 'EVO'.

Keith.

 

[jonmarsh]

Thanks for the post and the picture. It seems I'm doing more and more "micro-surgery" on electronics these days (considering current projects at work and modifying Pioneer SACD players), what's one more- especially when you roadmap it so nicely. Good thing I've got this nice 14" focal length magnifying head piece at home, and a stereo microscope at work.

 

I call this microsurgery because it's so different from the point to point wiring and KT88's I cut my electronics teeth on back in the very early 70's. I imagine another 40 years from now any kind of consumer DIY will be pretty much impossible.

 

Will have to try this out when some spare time frees up later this summer, though being the EE that I am, and familiar with low noise regulator design, I might have to try a different approach.

 

Thanks again for the post.

 

[jkeny]

Being an e'ee you will realise that in theory the ground point should be as close to the supply point for lowest noise so I would say this ground connection point is not optimal. You will find that the cap that the pos supply is connected to is a decoupling cap & therefore the best place for your clock ground connection is this de-coupling point. Just a pointer, but I'm sure you would have picked this up when you went to do this at a later date.

 

[jonmarsh]

the first thing I look at in any system I have to "fix" or "upgrade" is the grounding arrangements, as you can well imagine. I've seen as many mistakes there as in any other design category, maybe more.

 

The sad thing is that I've had a BNC equipped Hiface for months, but with my current project for a different business group, which is just getting into the home stretch (I hope), my work life has dominated everything else. I had a bit of a "go to Jesus" talk with my normal manager about getting something like this dumped on me; just because I'm likely the only person that COULD handle it, doesn't mean that a group with no resources and bad planning to boot should be bailed out. Then, to cap it off, there is the support tech drafted from yet another group who french fried the first article test PCB in a reflow oven this last Wednesday, just before he left for six weeks vacation. Is there something wrong this this picture? ;^)

 

All rants aside, this should be fun, and since other than an LT1763 regulator IC I have most of what I need in my NOS parts bins at home, even high CMRR split bobbin AC power transformers with the right output voltage range. This could be a relaxing fun bit of work, though I fear my hobbies look far too much like my day job.

 

[jkeny]

If you already have a BNC Hiface, here's something you can try which will almost definitely improve the sound from it & you don't need to open up or do any mods to the Hiface. Get a RF attenuator plug from here: http://www.minicircuits.com/products/attenuators_coax_fixed.html

 

These are only $12 & a huge bang for the buck upgrade!!

 

My hope would be that using these attenuator(s) on a cable would allow lesser quality cables to sound nearly as good as very tightly specified, high priced cables!

 

Being an ee you will probably know about these devices as they have been used for years in RF but their use in SPDIF is not that common, I don't think. I came across them a long time ago on a thread on DiyHiFi.org that was discussing building a homebrew TDR using one of these in-line. I forgot about it but recently saw it again in a thread about output measurements of the Hiface.

 

I have tried some of these on the Hiface & can say that in my test set-up they took any edge off the sound & reduced sibilance as well as sharpening the placement of instruments. Admittedly this was using a BNC to RCA adapter in the path - but it showed me that it works

 

[jonmarsh]

Thanks for the post and the pointer!

 

I'll check that out.

 

[jkeny]

Just to help you find the devices:

 

 

Here is the cheapest place I have found on the internet for these attenuators at $12 each - there are other places that will charge you >$30 for eactly the same thing - I've even seen them for >€100 in RS which I thought must be a mistake! I believe this is cheap enough to allow experimenting with the range of values available. http://www.minicircuits.com/products/attenuators_coax_fixed.html

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the page - it's the BNC 75ohm variety that you want. They come in 3, 6, 10, 15, 20dB versions - the 3 & 20dB ones could probably be ruled out as too low & maybe too high an attenuation. What we want to aim for is enough attenuation to suppress signal reflections BUT not too much to reduce the signal voltage to too low. You will know if you have done this as the DAC will not lock to the SPDIF signal.

 

Why buy expensive digital cables when these simple & cheap devices can be used to achieve a better solution. It's better solution because of the fact that a good digital cable if well made (expensive!) will have controlled impedance from end to end & will be a close match to the desired 75ohm. Outside of the cable at the DAC end or the transport end the cable cannot ameliorate any impedance anomalies that are encountered by the digital signal so these will give rise to reflections travelling down the cable. The attenuators, attenuate these signals!

 

Have a look at DiyHiFi.org to see TDR plots of the effect of these attenuators on a digital cable connected to a Hiface - thanks to Joseph K

 

 

[jkeny]

If you can't find the Diyhifi thread let me give you directions: http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2062 (PC Audio Jitter - Have a Laugh!)

 

While there look in on the thread where I'm being abused & accused of Trolling & trying to make money out of this - I'm the schmuck & Troll referred to in this thread: http://www.diyhifi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2062 (special BNC adaptors)

 

Perhaps I own minicircuits? I'm sure they'll drum up some other accusation to satisfy whatever their need is!!

 

[regal]

unconstrained? Please show us the

[regal]

Also being an engineer but an old one with shaky hands sometimes easier is 99.9% as good as book theory

 

 

Either way we have a less than optimal ground since its continuous with the computer PS, but of course curiosity will have me try connecting it the hard way.

 

Note to self need to train my daughter how to solder.

 

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

"Perhaps I own minicircuits? I'm sure they'll drum up some other accusation to satisfy whatever their need is!!"

 

You really are working hard at winding up the site owner aren't you!

 

[sq225917]

That guy from DIy.org is a bit of a P_ick, no wonder the site gets less traffic that Diyaudio.com, I assume he's barred from there.

 

[Snoozer]

Hi Regal,

 

I just happened to follow your instructions on the Hiface mod about changing the power supply with a battery and the listening experience is absolutely fantastic. Thank you for sharing !!

 

Do you know how to connect a second battery to power the clock that feeds the FPGA chip ??. This is one the mods that JKenny does, but I have no idea where to solder the + and - of the new battery.

 

Thank you,

Pepe

 

[jkeny]

I hope I'm not accused of just posting this to try to sell something (as in the past accusations) & at the risk of "winding-up the site owner" of this forum (as some here would accuse me of) here's the annotated pictures & text guide to the Hiface mods I do - Regals's may be different?

 

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/498151/m2tech-hiface-mods-and-discussions#post_6724876

 

[kamil]

For those following this thread...just posted a short EVO under a new thread heading on this forum.

 

[DMark1]

Guys, I am a noob at this hi-rez computer audio thing. I have read thru all 7 pages about the HiFace, but I haven't seen an answer to my question, so I'll post it now.

 

Will the HiFace allow my laptop computer to play back hi resolution (24/96 or 24/192) Multi-Channel (5.1 or 7.1 surround) files over the s/pdif cable when used with an appropriately equipped, 24/192 AV surround pre/pro?

 

There are some hi rez surround recordings out there now (like these at 24/96 5.1 surround: http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html), and I'm sure there will be more in the future. Hi-rez stereo recordings are great, but the multi-channel ones can be even better, when done right.

 

Thanks,

DMark1

 

[Littlesloth]

I just got the new EVO and there is still the same clicking between tracks. I tested the following configuration and slowly loose confidence that M2Tech will be able to solve it. They repied that it may come from some players or PC types, but I tested any configuration and still clicking:

 

Test Summary/Failure description

 

Symptom: Clicking when changing tracks (not within the track) only with KS& ASIO (not DS directsound)

 

Tested configurations:

Netbook (Windows 7 Starter, Dell Mini Inspiron 1012, Atom N450, 1.66GHz)

PC Desktop (XP Pro, Quadcore 4x3.4GHz)

Hiface / EVO (no difference in regard of clicking)

Hiface driver 1.0.3.140 & 1.0.3.141 (no big difference in regard of clicking)

Sample rates/resolution 44.1, 48, 96kHz, 16, 24, 32 bit (no difference in regard of clicking)

Mode: KS kernel streaming & ASIO (no difference in regard of clicking), DS direct sound worked fine

Foobar 1.0.2.1 & 1.0.3 , Media Monkey (no difference in regard of clicking)

Buffer length: 50ms....3000ms (no difference in regard of clicking)

DAC: Cambridge DAC Magic II & Harman Kardon AVR (no difference in regard of clicking via Hiface, direct to PC>DAC works)

 

Clicking: Netbook > Foobar > KS_Hiface > coax > DAC1

Clicking: Netbook > Foobar > ASIO_Hiface > coax > DAC1

Clicking: Netbook > Mediamonkey > ASIO_Hiface > coax > DAC1

OK: Netbook > Foobar > DS_Hiface > coax > DAC1

OK: Netbook > Foobar > KS_DACMagic direct > coax > DAC1

Clicking: Netbook > Foobar > KS_Hiface > coax > DAC2

Clicking: PC > Foobar > KS_Hiface > coax > DAC1

 

I think I tried almost any combination and replaced any component in the chain, so definitely the problem results from Hiface / EVO.

No other device (Roland Cakewalk UA 25EX, Behringer UCA 202, Cakewalk UA 1G, M-Audio Transit USB, ...) I tested till now showed that effect (all worked OK), so please try to fix that issue. In case you like me to test any configuration I did not test please let me know.

 

Littlesloth

 

[audioengr]

I have no clicking problems with M2Tech interfaces on Mac.

 

My XP laptop running Foobar2K and KS also seems to work fine.

 

Have you tried another computer or OS? Netbooks are basically cheap bare-bones laptops. The I/O system may have lots of latency in these due to slow front-side-bus and architecture.

 

Steve N.

Empirical Audio

 

[Littlesloth]

Hey Steve,

thank you for your response.

 

As you can see in my list of test configurations I already tested Windows 7 and XP aswell as a Netbook and a QuadCore PC.

 

What versions of software/driver do you use? And please note that the clicking is only when switching songs not while playing one.

 

Cheers, Littlesloth

 

 

[audioengr]

I am using the driver that I got a while back. Not sure if there is a new one. Toshiba laptop with Foobar2K and XP SP4 I think.

 

What do you mean "changing songs"? Do you mean between tracks in a playlist, or manually selecting a new song? How do you select it?

 

Steve N.