USB improvement gadgets - a survey

[mansr]

1 hour ago, elcorso said:

Are you Henry David Thoreau descendent?

 

"Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify"  HDT

"Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein (allegedly)

[mansr]

1 hour ago, semente said:

The poll is for users and their preferences in regards to the available gizmos, which is why I didn't add a "none of the above" option, but thanks for your participation.

Where's the "I make my own gizmos" option?

[mansr]

1 minute ago, Superdad said:

Not so sure of that—considering that between original USB REGEN and ISO REGEN UpTone has about 6,000 pieces in the field. Add in our competitors worldwide and the numbers are not small.

If you look at all of home/personal audio sales, that's hardly even measurable.

[mansr]

3 minutes ago, davide256 said:

many ideas languish for years as niche products before gaining mass market acceptance.

6000 units sold is still a drop in the ocean today. Semente is right in saying that most people do not use any of these devices. Of course, most people don't have any USB based audio devices in the first place. The interesting metric here is what fraction of those who use USB for audio have any improvement widgets. I don't have any figures, but I think it's safe to say it's still a minority. As for the future, there are several ways things might turn out. One is that DAC manufacturers start incorporating these ideas directly, which would make external boxes largely obsolete.

[mansr]

24 minutes ago, adamdea said:

I doubt you can make external boxes obsolete. Their main function is to allow people who like buying things to have things to buy.

True, there is always that.

 

24 minutes ago, adamdea said:

Aside I’m not sure what the ideas are? Galvanic isolation is popular on feature lists. But I’m slightly baffled as to what a perfect usb stream would be, bearing in mind that it’s transmitted in bursts anyway and can’t match the tick tock of the conversion clock. I was under the impression that the heavy footfall of the elections had to be outside the box so that it can’t disturb the thingy with its whatsit. I may have missed some of the technical details. 

The (main) issues with USB are 8 kHz packet noise and transmission of other noise through the power or data lines. The latter can be mitigated with an isolation device, which also helps prevent ground loops. The packet noise is harder to do anything about with an external box, but some arrangements can reduce it, at least in some situations. Internally to the DAC, there are more, and more efficient, options available.

[mansr]

12 minutes ago, adamdea said:

Assuming my device can take a (say) 1kHz signal input  and output 1 kHz plus some noise and negligible distortion, with

in particular no 8 kHz tone or sidebands, can I assume I don’t need a gizmo for the packet noise?

If there is no 8 kHz packet noise in the output, you do indeed not need a gizmo for that reason. A DAC with good internal power distribution and minimal capacitive or inductive coupling between the USB section and the rest shouldn't have packet noise in the output. If a DAC does exhibit packet noise, there is no guarantee an external widget will do anything to reduce it.

[mansr]

2 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

what did they do to it for the extra $200 ??

Raise the price.