USB audio cracked... finally!

[manisandher]

2 hours ago, genjamon said:

Can anyone point me to a post# with reference to USPCB comparison?

 

Here's the comparison in this thread:

 

On 7/16/2017 at 4:40 AM, hols said:

It so happens that I just received my Lush USB cable 3 days ago and I happen to have both Phasure NOS1a and also several other DACs including Holo Spring that I have also been testing the SOtM tx-USB Ultra (powered by JS-2)and the isoREGEN(powered by LPS1) with USPCB(burned in for the past 2 weeks). After reading through this hot thread I can't resist to plug in the Lush to replace the USPCB (see photo) in my Holo Spring line and my impression is as follows.

 

First my impression of use or not use the iosREGEN with USPCB before the SOtM tx-USB Ultra stays the same as my initial impression reported 2 weeks ago in another thread. Yes it gives a more full bodied sound and is more warm and analogue on first listening but on listening a bit longer the strings are too full bodied and lacks the transparency that is present when not using the isoREGEN. The layering that was present before is weakened. The focus of instruments are a little overblown. The orchestra cannot fly as vividly as before. (I used to test with Richter playing Brahms second piano concerto). And that is perhaps the price to pay for getting a very round and appealing sound. I think as a whole there is a bit too much mid range.

 

I then changed to the Lush cable(not really burned in yet) and I must say that this is the one. It just gives you the analogue feel together with details. The violins are silky and yet you can still hear them conveying to you the feelings. No excessive full bodied sound. And listen to the gentle decay of the sound at decrescendos and sound slowly dying away. The microdynamics are all there and most important with feeling. And when the solo piano comes in the percussive notes is both authoritative and musical. Very difficult to achieve. And the musical sound and transparency and details are always there and never gives you fatigue. I must say that this is definitely my preferred sound.

 

I think the sound can only be bettered by the Phasure NOS1a upgraded G3 which I agree is the best digital sound I have ever heard. Dynamic and yet comes with detail and feelings.( It is a PCM system and yet the musicality wins  the DSD in my other system). The only digital system that can be compared to my $30k LP system.

I have no commercial association with all the gears I have mentioned. Just an enduser reporting the end result in his own system. And I must admit too I don't have the knowledge base to understand or comment on the underlying technologies behind all these products.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

There will likely be no more posts from @mmerrill99 in this, and perhaps any other, thread. He's the manufacturer of USB audio devices, and goes by the username 'jkeny' on other sites. Chris has previously banned jkeny from CA.

 

With this context, have a look at these posts from him:

 

On 8/2/2017 at 1:55 AM, mmerrill99 said:

I just read on the Phasure forum that the LUSH cable needs the 5V USB supply which to me means that there are some active device(s) within the cable.

 

On 8/2/2017 at 2:32 AM, mmerrill99 said:

Yea the 5V wire in the cable will have an impact on the cable impedance but he mentions the 5V must be LIVE - being live or not does not affect impedance - only the presence of the wire affects impedance!!

 

I'm wondering if this means that the LUSH cable can only be optimal with USB audio devices which use & draw power from the 5V USB wire in the cable?

 

On 8/2/2017 at 6:52 AM, mmerrill99 said:

Having read the posts a number of times I'm still no wiser - how can a 5v wire be LIVE without current flowing?

 

If no current is being drawn from it what is it connected to in the DAC - please talk about any DAC, not the NOS as we don't know the internals of the NOS.

 

if the cable is only for NOS use then please state this or if it's only optimal with the NOS then again, please state this.

 

At this point I feel some straight answers are needed as some people are buying this cable for their DACs which are not NOS DACs

 

On 8/2/2017 at 7:19 AM, mmerrill99 said:

This is what I asked!!!!!

 

Look there are people buying your cable & they should be told if it's only for the NOS DAC & if not what way the 5V should be connected inside their DAC.

 

It's a very simple question

 

On 8/2/2017 at 7:53 AM, mmerrill99 said:

Jeez, you're hard to get a straight answer from.

 

I have recommended two people to buy your cable, guess I'll tell them to cancel their orders as I'm unsure if they're wasting their money

 

I feel that it was incredibly disingenuous of him to submit these sorts of posts without making it clear in his signature that he was the manufacturer of USB products. Other than that, I personally had no issue with him or his posts.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 hours ago, feelingears said:

+1 for first-hand experience here in Seattle. LUSH in my lowly office system all of three short hours... WOW.  Sonic happiness.

 

Great! DAC added to list in OP.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

7 hours ago, fas42 said:

I have just learned that, in his words, "BTW, the Ciunas customer that bought the Lush cable, loves it & the second Ciunas customer will be ordering one, now, I'm sure" - so, right on topic ...

 

It's good to know that @mmerrill99/jkeny went ahead and recommended the Lush to the couple of people he mentioned (actually a couple of his customers). And that they're experiencing positive benefits , just like other Lush users.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, fas42 said:

John says "The Lush cables will also feature (at a room at RMAF in October, with Mola Mola and ISO-DAC gear) , I'm sure, as that ISO-DAC buyer is raving about it & she is one of his customers" ...

 

[Highlight mine.]

 

The 'it' being the Lush cable? In which case, it'd be nice to know more about the 'raving'.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

1 hour ago, elcorso said:

Are there any others members involved in the discussion because someone did not like a Schiit DAC and is taking revenge?

 

Well it'd be difficult to take 'revenge' against me as I'm not affiliated with Phasure in any way, shape or form (and have always paid the full retail price for every Phasure product I've ever bought, and will continue to do so because everything Peter produces is SOTA and ridiculously good value for money).

 

In any event, it's probably not worth even pursuing this. Everyone can read this thread and speculate on people's motives for themselves...

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

9 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

I am incredibly dubious in regards to "Lush" USB cable because how it tweaks the sender/receiver should be implementation specific. One size fits all makes zero sense.

 

[Highlight mine.]

 

Here's the hard data so far: known DACs that various users around the world are using with the Lush USB audio cable, with positive sonic benefits:

 

- Phasure NOS1 G3

- Holo Audio Spring

- Aries Cerat Kassandra

- Pacific Microsonics Model Two (with Playback Designs USB-XIII USB-AES converter)

- Schiit Yggdrasil (pre Gen 5 board)

- exaSound e32

- iFi nano iDSD

- iFi micro iDSD

- dCS Debussy

- Benchmark DAC2-D

- Chord DAVE

- Pink Faun DAC 2.32 (with Wavelength Wavelink USB --> BNC converter)

- NAD M12

- Lampizator B7

- Ayre Codex

- Halide DAC HD

 

And Roch has mentioned that the Lush is beneficial on all 7 of his DACs (not sure exactly which models they are though).

 

The data suggests that the sonic benefits of the Lush are pretty universal across different DACs. And listening impressions are surprisingly consistent, with themes like 'more analogue' and 'more musical' coming up again and again.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 hours ago, bibo01 said:

@PeterSt, does your cable have some similarity with AntiCable? i am thinking of the dielectric and the "air" you talked about...

 

I use Anticables throughout my office system (ICs and speaker) - I prefer them to the mega-bucks cables I have sitting gathering dust in my basement. To my ears, most other cables sound 'smeared' in comparison.

 

I think the Phasure 'Blaxius' ICs in my main system are better still. But they require hardware modifications to the DAC and amps that I can't be bothered with in my office system.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 minutes ago, Speed Racer said:

 

As far as I can tell that is a list of products owned by people that think any cable Peter will sell them is the best thing they have ever heard.....

 

You obviously can't tell much then - for many of these people, it's their first ever purchase of any Phasure gear. In any event, it's clear you're not up for trying the Lush, for whatever reason. No problem.

 

Interestingly, the Yggy owner seems very happy with the improvement the Lush has brought to the Yggy:

 

"What is really remarkable about the sound of the Lush is that it is both smoother sounding and, at the same time, everything, instruments and voices, are more solid sounding. Everything has more "presence", thus everything sounds more natural."

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

13 minutes ago, Jud said:

So a couple of things are true: (1) Your earlier remark about the power of suggestion is fair.  Since just the name is sufficient to suggest to people what they ought to be hearing, it's really impossible to say power of suggestion can play no part...

 

I agree with everything you said Jud. Just a comment on this though. The name 'Lush' actually put me off from trying it immediately. When it was released, I was using my brand new pair of 300B SET monos, and an even 'lusher' sound was the last thing I felt I needed.

 

I'm not denying that the power of suggestion is a valid concern, but I really don't think it's a massive factor for me nowadays. If it were, I don't think all the 'expensive' gear I've bought over the years would be sitting stored away in boxes. The latest example are my new $13k SET monos - they look gorgeous, have a massive pride-of-ownership factor, and yet they're stored in their boxes because I prefer the sound of my old, modest-looking bridged-parallel gainclone monos.

 

Looking at the list of DACs that people are using with the Lush, I suspect, like me, many of them have been around the block quite a few times and can identify 'good sound' quite easily nowadays.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

'Starlite' all over again (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlite) 

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

30 minutes ago, Albrecht said:

There's a lot of mid-end on that list....Stuff that could likely be mated with associated gear that a listener may not not be able to discern a difference.

 

The most lowly DAC on the list is probably the iFi nano iDSD, which I added because I have one knocking around here. Even with a mediocre pair of headphones attached to the iFi, the Lush improves the sound considerably compared to the other USB cables I've tried with it.

 

I think the effect the Lush has on the sound would be easily discernible on most systems.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, acg said:

Peter is saying he can use software to influence the computer to influence the sound coming from the dac.  You are reading that (again) as "Peter can use software to do exactly what the Lush cable does" which is not what Peter is saying.  You then extrapolate that flawed thinking into (yet another) insult.  The same process repeating ad nauseum...only you cannot see it.

 

+1000

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

10 minutes ago, mansr said:

It's plausible in the same sense as the existence of a teapot orbiting Pluto.

 

So in your eyes the existence of dark matter is as plausible as a teapot orbiting Pluto?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

14 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

Love this new direction! It's no longer noise or waveform distortions, but dark matter and outer-space teapots that make Lush cables work

 

Hehe...

 

As in science, in audio I think it's extremely foolish to think we know all there is to know.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

6 minutes ago, Jud said:

The other setting I mentioned that had to do with amount of a file loaded into memory was SFS. 

 

I would try SFS=1 vs. SFS=120. Best to have memory set to 'straight contiguous' first (see http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2127.0 if necessary).

 

There is a strong consensus among XXHighEnd users on how SFS affects the sound. Hopefully, you'll hear the same... (I suspect it'd be easier if you had XXHighEnd fully optimized, which would require a licence.)

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

5 minutes ago, mansr said:

Thanks, that's the kind of suggestion I was looking for. All other settings at defaults?

 

A few screen shots...

 

Press the S button to go into Settings. Scroll down to 'Output'. Make sure the 'Device Buffer Size' reflects the correct buffer size in your DAC:

 

Scroll further down to 'Memory and Disk Utilization'. Probably best to set 'Mx' to 120, and make sure 'Max the same as SFS' is unticked. Set 'Memory Organization' to 'Straight Contiguous' for best sound.

 

Finally, go out of Settings by pressing P or L, and go down to Q. Just use these settings to start with:

 

Press the X button to close.

 

Good luck!

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Wouldn't it be possible to go elsewhere with this ?

 

 

Mani, please cut this crap. My example is a good one and this won't even work (system will be too slow and no Straight Contiguous stuff anywhere and surely also no license to solve it.

 

Take this to somewhere I won't see it. OK ?

 

 

Huh?

[manisandher]

 

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Something along the lines of "setting A at X vs Y"...

 

25 minutes ago, manisandher said:

I would try SFS=1 vs. SFS=120.

 

Peter, this thread is all yours. See ye...

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

4 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

And it is offtopic as h*ll, but alas your thread.

 

FFS, you started it!

 

11 hours ago, PeterSt said:

 

I do something that lets the CPU behave in some (erratic) way, and the sound changes. This turns out to change the sound in similar fashion for everyone, regardless the DAC. *That* it would work out the same for everyone, I could not guess in advance. But today we (all the software users) empirically found that it works out like that and someone with a newly found nice settings combination can post it, and everybody hears the same kind of thing from it.

 

Also notice that there has been a time that (for testing the users themselves) I told about a setting, told with it that I did not like it (but tempting them to try it in sneaky fashion) and next they did not agree with me and all (or many as far as I could see) started to use it.

Some times I need such tests myself or otherwise it could be me hearing things, or indeed else pushing people to hear the same (that is easy to do and NOT the way to go for).

 

My customers will also know that in about each major sound change situation and in 100% of cases, I ask my wife what she perceives for differences. It can happen that she says "none". In that case I ask as long as it takes until there is one answer (can take more than an hour). And that answer eventually always comes and is ALWAYS right.

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

3 hours ago, mansr said:

Could you give an example of two settings in your software giving distinctly different sound?

 

1 hour ago, PeterSt said:

 

OK, if you think this is going to work for you, look here :

 

 

 

1 hour ago, mansr said:

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I want two sets of values to punch into various controls that will likely result in a noticeable difference. Something along the lines of "setting A at X vs Y" or "setting A at X and B at Y vs setting A at Z and B and W." Exploring every combination would take far too long time.

 

And all I'm suggesting is that he change the SFS to determine if he can hear a difference. I really don't understand your issue with this.

 

(My mentioning the Straight Contiguous memory and the licence was simply to say that there's a lot more optimization possible in XXHighEnd.)

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

Yep!

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

Dunno. But at least any conspiracy theories of collusion between Peter and me should be out of the window now 

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

So why didn't you just say "compare 120 with 4, and not with 1 for these reasons..."?

 

Mani.

[manisandher]

10 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Don't twist matters around. Why did you come up with 1 while I came up with 4 ?

 

Peter, I didn't see your original post where you pasted the yellow screenshot. I only saw Jud's post suggesting changing SFS. I use SFS=1, so I suggested mansr try that vs. 120.

 

Right up until you explained that SFS=1 wouldn't work for mansr, I had no idea what you were going on about.

 

Mani.