Network Streamers With I2S Output?

[gstew]

On 2/12/2018 at 10:53 PM, T-Bone said:

Does anyone know what has changed from the original Mano (thank you @diecaster) and the "new" Mano Ultra?

The web site isn't terribly clear what differentiates the two products.

In the 'Technology' section at the bottom of the Mano Ultra page:

 

TECHNOLOGY

• ULTRA: Isolated and shielded clock distrubution to improve clock stability.
• ULTRA: Impoved power distrubution to Digital Audio Board / RaspberryPi
• ULTRA: ALL capcitors replaced by WIMA versions
• ULTRA: Power Supply Caps all NOVER Audio-Grade version
• ULTRA: Improved Reclocking Circuit
• ULTRA: Furutech Gold Power Inlet
• UlTRA:  Hifituning S3 Supreme Fuse

Looks like worthy upgrades to me.

 

Still, it IS just a Raspberry Pi with an S/PDIF & I2S over HDMI card on top along with a power supply in a box. It looks to be fairly well implemented with well-designed and separated supplies which is critical to SQ. And I DO like what they describe as the upgrades in the Ultra version. BUT it is not a custom-designed board like the Sonore, SOTM, & Uptone offerings in the same product space (most are Ethernet->USB or USB->USB, but the Sonore ultraDigital of course has S/PDIF & I2S over HDMI outputs).

 

Still, there aren't a lot of products in this space yet. Pity the ultraDigital is not supported to work without a Sonore uRendu (of whatever level) ahead of it.

 

Greg in Mississippi

 

P.S. Watch Patrick's effort, for my $, the solution he's putting together may be the best available (depending on what he settles on for power supplies) until someone duplicates it in a product.

 

P.P.S. I should note it looks as though Mano uses the Raspberry Pi 2B, which does not have built-in WiFi. IMHO, that is a good thing as WiFi & high-end digital audio don't mix well unless you can take heroic efforts to ensure the WiFi radiation does not effect the low-level signals. I have a number of RPi setups and I ONLY use the 2B, never the newer 3 with WiFi. 

 

[gstew]

1 hour ago, MTZ Audio said:

Hello Audiophiles,

 

As i wrote before i use an I2S Pcie card in my old computer. This card has a seperate 12V power connection with filtering.

So it is not powered by the motherboard. There is also filtering on the Pcie side.

I created an audio file with 30 seconds of silence followed by 30 seconds pink noise in adobe audition.

I played this file through Foobar with high volume on my pre-amp and there was no hiss or any noise during the 30 seconds of silence. 

The computer i use is about 10 years old and has a decent switching power supply. The sound provided by the I2S card is revealing every detail in the music.

One of these days i will try a dedicated streamer to find out if it's better than my own setup.

I already compared the output via usb against I2S on my W4S dac2 and I2S was a clear winner.

 

Mark..

 

Mark,

 

Which I2S Pcie card?

 

I did something like this with my cMP/cPlay setup. I used a super-modified Juli@ digital section that fed I2S to a closely-coupled tweaked EUVL ES9022-based DAC card, all linear supplies (3 for the Juli@, DAC card, and its clocks, 5 for the ATX P24/P4 and control voltages, 1 for the SSD, and another 3 for the controls... monitor, IR-remote keyboard, and multiple-relay board for remotely switching different functions on/off). AND the Windows XP-based cMP/cPlay OpSys/SW load was hyper-minimized down to <15Mb!

 

It sounded good, but I really wanted an I2S-output device that supported 384 so I could upsample & use those filters to replace most DAC-chips' non-optimal onboard filters. So I was already looking for alternative setups. Then I did a comprehensive set of mods to a Sony HAP Z1-ES, & it bettered the cMP/cPlay setup. Now my best RPi setups better that Sony and my SDTrans384 -> Soekris setup betters those. I've totally avoided USB-based setups, first because of the improvements heard when we removed USB functionality from that cMP/cPlay OpSys/SW load while minimizing it, then because of the improvements people heard with the various USB cleanup devices (IMHO a truly inspired set of products starting with the original Regen and uRendu, but also IMHO a well-done I2S setup will be as good or better with fewer pieces of EQ & lots less processing going on... but very few DACs can work with that well-done I2S setup, that's one of the main reasons I DIY mine!). 

 

I'd LOVE to do an upsampled setup with HQ Player or one of the other great products out there. BUT AFAIK, there is no 384-enabled I2S-output PCI/PCIE cards nor are there any motherboards that will run one of these upsampling SW products that also can output I2S. That's why I've gone to the RPi (and have some BeagleBoneBlack setups I need to finish) to use as endpoints that can at least be fed 384 via Ethernet (and that still needs some fixup, just less than USB IMHO).

 

AND I'm pretty committed to avoiding the USB world. Which is why I'm watching this and similar threads to see what becomes available in this world.

 

I DO agree with people like @Superdad who point out that the PS Audio I2S over HDMI standard is compromised due to feeding the master clock from the source rather than having the master clock next to the DAC and feeding it to the source. It works as well as it does in most of the setups that use it due to reclocking of some sort or another at the DAC end, often ESS DAC chips using ASRC, but also things like the PS Audio Directstream with the FPGA-based upsampling. AND it appears that the ASRC built into the latest ESS PRO DAC chips have closed the gap A LOT between synchronous and asynchronous clocking. So my next references may be DACs with those chips (my current top setups use Soekris R2R DIY'd DAC boards).

 

Good discussion here! I'm still looking for that mythical motherboard-connected 384 PCM/512 DSD-able PCI/PCIE card or a HQ Player-able motherboard with I2S outputs and a decent on-board power network. HOPEFULLY someone will discover or create one and we'll hear about it here!

 

Greg in Mississippi 

[gstew]

7 hours ago, diecaster said:

 

The DirectStream DAC, when using any of its inputs including the I2S inputs, ignores the clock of the upstream device.

Agreed. Also any of the DACs using an ESS chip with the ASRC enabled (that is most of them) also ignore the clock of the upstream device.

 

OTOH, in my experience, the lower the jitter & noise is on the data lines EVEN in these setups, the better the sound.

 

That can be handled by using an asynchronous reclocker like the one available from poster Ian Canada on DIYAudio in the DAC before the DAC chip. That is what I'm doing in my direct I2S-fed (not I2S over HDMI) DIY implementations of the Twisted Pear Buffalo-IIIPro DAC cards  AND what TAPatrick is doing in his Allo.com Sparky to AudioGD I2S to HDMI output card setup whch will feed his PS Audio DS DAC.

 

Greg in Mississippi

[gstew]

15 minutes ago, diecaster said:

 

That would depend on the DAC, would it not? For example, with the DirectStream, the designer says I2S "would be the easiest to get sounding the best" and "USB can easily be the worst".

 

This is an I2S output streamer thread. You don't currently sell a streamer that supports I2S. Is that why you are poo-pooing the idea of streamers with I2S outputs?

Doesn't the Sonore UltraDigital offer a PS Audio  format I2S over HDMI output? Or am I missing something here?

Greg in Mississippi

[gstew]

42 minutes ago, diecaster said:

 

Sure. But Jesus says all it will do is add jitter so why would you use it over straight USB which he says is a better solution?

This is just my personal opinion and understanding, so take it with a grain of salt...

USB to I2S REQUIRES audio-frequency clocks to generate the I2S signal. If done right, it will reclock the output I2S at the end of the process and can produce a very good input to the DAC. Of course, we all know it generally isn't done right.

The basic conversion from I2S over HDMI to straight I2S is generally done with a single chip with multiple channels. If this is all that is used, the output I2S will have the jitter added by the conversion process to I2S over HDMI at the output of the source device, the  jitter added by the transmission, and the jitter added by the conversion back to straight I2S at the output. AND there is no reclocking available in that processing stream. So UNLESS you ADD an asynchronous reclocker afterwards (like Ian's as I mentioned in a previous post) or the DAC includes some other reclocking mechanism (like those in the PS Audio DS DACs or the ones built into the chips from ESS), you have at least a moderately jittered I2S signal making your music signal. 

 

As you and others have reported the DS DAC works very well with an I2S over HDMI input. So their reclocking mechanisms do work effectively with that input.

 

All of this has to be considered on a situational basis... what works well in some situations won't in others... or may not even be available in others. Does the DAC do the USB to I2S conversion well? Does it do reclocking after all of the inputs. How effective is this reclocking? How jitter resistant are the DAC's internal mechanisms and processing? The PS Audio DS DACs anecdotally work well with an I2S over HDMI input due to how they are setup. Others have reported the newest version of their Ethernet Bridge to be even better.  And I've seen many who have reported using the Singxer I2S over HDMI converter to be the best sounding with the Holo Spring DAC (so much that there is a veritable mod-fest going on as documented in one of the Holo Spring-related threads here).

 

Personally, I'd like to see more I2S input DACs, especially if they would use a modified version of the PS Audio setup with the clock generated in the DAC and fed to the source. BUT there aren't any like this available currently and darned few using the standard PS Audio I2S over HDMI configuration. USB has not only won in the marketplace, but is now done fairly cheaply for a good setup, though great ones still cost more. Part of why is that EVERY computer has a USB port which can be used to feed music out of the computer, so it is easy for people to use them, they have gained market acceptance, and have become the default standard. I personally think there are some sonic advantages to not using USB, but recent developments have diminished those advantages. AND Sonore has been on the forefront of those advantages. AND Sonore has also been in the forefront of promoting I2S over HDMI in the past and recently started offering a device to do that again.

 

Given this, I'd say Sonore has a better perspective than most to offer an opinion on this.

 

MAYBE more I2S solutions will become available. I am heartened by the ones highlighted so far in this thread. AND while I wouldn't personally agree that straight USB is the better solution, I can see why some would say that.

 

Greg in Mississippi