Berkeley Alpha USB still relevant?

[romaz]

I think this is very much DAC and server dependent.  

 

With my Chord DAVE, it incorporates a floating USB design with excellent galvanic isolation.  Its SPDIF BNC and AES inputs, on the other hand, are not.  DAVE's USB is synchronously tied to its clock whereas SPDIF and AES go through DPLL.

 

I had a RedNet 3 in house for testing for nearly 4 weeks and pitted against my best USB source at the time, a stock SOtM sMS-200 powered by my Paul Hynes SR7, USB sounded considerably better.  With my new sMS-200 Ultra, the gap has widened further.  

 

I have also compared straight USB against a variety of USB-to-SPDIF converters including the Berkeley Alpha USB as well as a modified Audiophilleo 1 powered by an LPS-1 and USB still sounded better with my DAC.  Not that SPDIF or AES sounded poorly, only that USB was noticeably better.

 

Regarding servers, some sound better via AES or SPDIF while some sound better via USB.  John Mingo of Baetis will tell you AES is king and USB is crap.  Mark Jenkins of Antipodes, however, will tell you the opposite with his servers.  Obviously, it has more to do with the quality of the implementation than the actual format because inherently, they both have flaws that have to be overcome.

 

Regarding AOIP, yes, this is legit and has some advantages over "straight USB."  Since Ethernet incorporates an error-correcting protocol, you are assured a bit-perfect stream and because it is transformer-coupled, it inherently incorporates some degree of galvanic isolation but with proper care and attention, USB can be made to sound just as good.  People seem to also assume that AOIP means only "ethernet in" and "SPDIF or AES out" (i.e. RedNet) when devices like the microRendu and sMS-200 are just as much AOIP devices and can sound just as good if not better in some systems.  

 

Bottom line, USB is not always bad and is sometimes superior.  I would suggest you use your ears to decide what sounds best in your system. 

[romaz]

7 hours ago, navrsale said:

I believe that impartial blind tests with a bunch of experts would be the only way to resolve this once for all. The last expert discussion re blind tests was in Stereophile I believe in 2005. If one carefully reads it, he will see that with blind tests all assertions become relative. And JA found an expert way to get out these (unpleasant) discussions. And more than a decade after that still nobody is trying to do blind tests, the only feasible way to find out the real truth. Without blind tests, everything is futile (and costly!)

 

 

What's to resolve?  This isn't a contest and those who suggest it is are misguided.  This has nothing to do with which format is more inherently flawed than the other but rather how one manufacturer has perhaps addressed such flaws to provide a product that sounds good in your system.  To have a panel of experts do blind testing won't conclude anything since these things, as always, are system and listener dependent.  There are very few absolutes in audio, only personal preference and those that march to the beat of another drummer are doomed to the personal preferences of that drummer.

 

I will reiterate the last sentence of my post:  "I would suggest you use your ears to decide what sounds best in your system."  By all means, don't let any panel of experts tell you what sounds best.

[romaz]

35 minutes ago, navrsale said:

If what is at stake is, for example, a Starbucks coffee (smallest one) I would agree. But what we have here at stake are 1000s and 1000s of dollars. Almost a down payment for a house! Thus we better have some blind tests, sooner the better. So, if we have 20 experts in the same room, same everything, but two tests: one with USB, and the other XYZ. And ~ half of experts say that USB is better (and/or they thought in their mind it was USB, but actually it was XYZ, and vice versa), and the other half says XYZ is better (i.e. two questions for each listener: 1. which one was better and 2. what was it, USB or XYZ), then we would have the real truth. That would help us to determine what we should buy, objectively

 

 

If you need John Atkinson to decide for you what sounds good and how to spend your money because you can't decide for yourself, that's totally cool.  More power to you.  Last I checked, the enjoyment of audio has nothing to do with objective measurements but rather how it makes you feel.

[romaz]

18 hours ago, amir57bs said:

Romaz

you should pay 10000$ to me.

i have bought CAD GC3 ground control and ordered paul hynes SR7 upon your recommendation.

CAD GC3 sounds worse and paul hynes not refund my money after 8 month.

i think you should pay those lost money to me.

 

 

Hi Amir,

 

I believe you are probably a nice guy and so I will try and respond to you as a gentleman.

 

As I have indicated here on CA and other forums before, I am not a professional reviewer or tester.  I have no professional or financial affiliation with any forum, publication, audio company, or audio individual.  I have no blogs like you do and I make zero income from my online presence.  I have no sophisticated testing equipment.  Like you, what I post here on CA and other sites represent my observations and opinions based on my ears, my preferences and in my system.  As is commonly said in this hobby, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

 

To be clear, we have never spoken privately and so I have never given you any personal advice to buy any product.  If you have made purchases based on my public posts, I would like to think you are wise enough to understand that what works well in my system or what sounds good to my ears may not be applicable to you and your tastes.  Your claim that I should pay you "10000$" is quite absurd and doesn't deserve a response, however, as you've blamed me several times now, I felt I should respond to implore you to stop your nonsense.  If I told you I bought a pair of TAD speakers based on your recommendation and found that they made my system sound worse compared to my previous speakers, should I then demand money from you?  

 

Regarding the CAD GC3, I am a believer in signal grounding (which is different from chassis grounding) and so CAD's grounding box falls into this category but I have never owned CAD's GC3 nor have I even heard it and so, therefore, I have never specifically endorsed this product.  If this product didn't work well for you, my understanding is that CAD offers a 30-day return policy on all of their products and so why didn't you return it and request a refund?  I have personally tried (and even own) grounding products from Entreq, Synergistic Research, and Taiko Audio and they can and do work but their impact will vary from one component to another and some components are better grounded via one connector over another (i.e. RCA, XLR, BNC, USB, RJ45, spade).  For example, in my own setup, my Mac Mini grounds very poorly via USB (almost no effect) but grounds very well via the 3.5mm optical port.  Surprisingly, the Innuos Zenith SE server grounds very well via USB.  Also, with my TotalDAC, grounding made a very positive difference but with my Chord DAVE DAC, the difference has been quite small.  This is the challenge with signal grounding, great results aren't guaranteed and so you have to try it for yourself with each of your components and see what you get but I am not the only one making positive claims about signal grounding.  There's a reason why these devices are so popular.

 

Regarding your long wait for your SR7, I can empathize with you.  I have waited even longer than you have for each of my SR7s and while I don't like waiting so long, I have had no choice because I have yet to hear a power supply as good as the SR7.  What surprises me is that you knew Paul works slowly and is prone to delays.  Amir, here is your own post from last September:

 

I have ordered Custom SR7 to Paul and i guess delivery time is more than 4 month .

I think some guys are worry about the long delivery time but i think we should thanks Paul for accepting custom orders.

I am really happy because Paul build my order exactly upon my custom order.

4 month or 5 month or 6 month, delivery time is not important to me and i just like to get a good sound .

 

guys , please be patient and let Paul to be relax .

 

excuse me for off-topic.

 

Regards,

 

Amir

 

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/30376-a-novel-way-to-massively-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/?page=143&tab=comments#comment-721043

 

You couldn't have said it any better, Amir.  

 

Lastly, why would you post something so off-topic on this thread?  Never mind, don't bother answering my post because I won't answer you back.  Good luck.