Mytek Stereo 192

[audiozorro]

I know I must have asked this question before but the logic eludes me.

 

"The Oppo and many other players outputs DSD over HDMI and various limited resolution PCM via the SPDIF out. There is no HDMI input on the Mytek more's the pity."

 

I expect HDMI is inferior to FW, but a Mytek with HDMI inputs for DSD should be sonically far superior to any of the A/V receivers that accept DSD input from SACD players.

 

And I don't believe that there is no demand for a HDMI DAC. Just piggybacking off a portion of the Oppo sales alone, or providing a superior DSD vehicle for those who have a SACD growing library and player and want to achieve superior sound than the analog outs from their SACD player, provides good size potential niche market.

 

Perhaps some third party vendor will offer HDMI input mods to the Mytek DSD DAC if Mytek has no interest and it's not too difficult for the modder.

 

Oops, I forgot the Mytek is a stereo DAC and many SACD enthusiasts are interested in multi-channel audio. Still there is a significant number of SACD enthusiasts who are only into stereo.

 

[ted_b]

Works for me. I noticed it was slightly noisier than fw but after latest firmware things seems fine. May be me.

 

The bass in DSD gets tighter and tighter as it breaks in, but was pretty darn good from the start for me (in DSD). DSD trounces the same in converted PCM. Native recordings in both are great, though.

 

Have you tried slight digital attenuation?

 

[ted_b]

fraught with jitter.

 

[willshaw]

Hi,Zerung, how the mytek compares with your weiss dac202 when playing PCM ? Tks.

 

[audiozorro]

When I bought my Oppo 970HD Universal Player directly from Oppo a few years ago it was only $169 for the whole player. I would be surprised if any HDMI licensing costs for the unit are more than $20.

 

The cheapest current Oppo player is now $495 with a lot of bells and whistles and Blu-ray, but I doubt the HDMI licensing costs have substantially increased.

 

"HDMI is supposedly fraught with jitter".

 

If the analog output from the Oppo BDP-95 is sonically superior to the Oppo passing DSD audio through HDMI to some future or modded Mytek DSD DAC with HDMI, then a Mytek with HDMI input is a nonstarter.

 

[ted_b]

time I looked, was like $10-15k to start. And since it is not currently considered an audiophile connection it would take quite a business plan to convince any small mfg'er to shell that out.

 

[zerung]

Ted,

The Bass is wooly. Smears and slightly crackling.. at times it is also damped. I have placed timber blocks below the unit, on tile,etc....not much bass mojo. I am sure it is a matter of time.

 

Wilshaw,

I am still carrying the 202 badge of commercial honour. I let go of my 202 a couple of month ago after falling out of love with this . To be honest the PCM via the 202 was comparable to my present MF M1 DAC being fed digital via the Audiophilleo 2 USB2 from the Mini. I would like to hold out my comments on Mytek 24/192, as I am hazarding a guess that there may be more to come from this tiny unit after the power department has got its pound of flesh.

 

[audiozorro]

with your review: take SACD and BluRay Hirez directly to your DAC!!!!

 

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=82217.0

 

That's not to say that their aren't superior audiophile connections like FW or a better solution for getting superior sonics from SACDs by ripping SACDs using a PS3.

 

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=95396.0

 

Maybe what Mytek needs is a small investor to fund that effort. Of course perhaps at this time Mytek does not want to triple or more the number of DSD DACs that they sell. They cannot handle the current demands for their existing DSD DACs as evidenced by the number of buyers who have been waiting for months.

 

Perhaps we will see a DSD DAC with HDMI inputs from Mytek or some other vendor in 2013 or 2014.

 

[Synfreak]

Playing back DSDIFF files with HQPlayer and via USB to the Mytek, I have noticed - whilst listening to Pink Floyds 'Wish You Were Here' - that the channels are inverted.

 

As I currently only have HQPlayer for this task - Foobar and Mytek aren't ready to use DSD via ASIO up to now (Firmware 1.21) - I can't comment on other software ...

 

So I'm not shure where this channel-swaaping occufrs.

Is it happening in the software (HQPlayer), or does the Mytek swap the channels?

 

Note: This only happens with native DSD playback!

Realtime DSD to PCM doesn't show this, and foobar doesn't swap channels too.

 

Anyone try to test and comment?

 

Cheers

Harald

 

[ted_b]

PCM'd audio to allow our DACS to play with SACD's is hardly the solution one would use as evidence of great audiophile sonics, let alone evidence of low jitter HDMI. As I stated in the first paragraph of that review/article, it's an inexpensive solution that to-date (at the time) had no better options for our lonely SACD's, other than modding the analog outs.

 

 

 

[ted_b]

(I was surprised no one who was listening to DSD had heard it yet!). Yes, it's a Mytek issue and fixed with the new firmware. Contact Michal and/or Jeff.

 

My short-term solution was a second set of output cables, one set swapped.

 

[Synfreak]

Thanks Ted.

 

I almost thought I've gone bananas ...

 

Will contact Mytek too.

 

What firmware are you on, btw. ?

 

Cheers

Harald

 

[Miska]

cannot output DSD over SPDIF. Nothing does.

 

"Nothing" is a bit too strong. Don't tell that to my system. Yes, it works. Anything that can carry 176.4/24 PCM works.

 

That's why I also invented that FourCC packing method a year ago and now there's also the simpler dCS packing scheme.

 

 

- DSD-over-Toslink

 

 

[ted_b]

native DSD over USB right now (switched from fw a few min ago).

 

[barrows]

totally agreed on Pat. I must have seen him 20 times over the years, both PMG and Trio, and as a "sideman" with Joshua Redman.

My favorite: Radio City Music Hall in NYC, during the tour of the Offramp release, which became the Travels album. With Nano Vasconcelos. Fantastic. The trio, with Christian McBride and Sanchez here in Boulder was great as well.

But we cannot really compare "Jazz" guys to "Rock" guys, they are doing different things, with a different approach, and a different set of "rules" per se. Yes, their paths do intersect at times, but they have very different approaches and working habits.

 

[ted_b]

My fave was with Joni and Jaco on the Hejira/Shadows and Light tour. Amazing.

 

Hejira sounds great on the Mytek.

 

Gonna move it to the front of the room so I can re-assess direct-to-amp via XLR (my XLR's are only 1.5M; gotta get Scot Markwell to reterm my 6 meter Ref III's again).

 

[barrows]

What a shame... I only saw him once, in NYC at a tiny club, upstairs (cannot remember the name). Must have been shortly before his death... It was sad, he could play still, but seemed lost and aimless. A total waste of an incredible talent.

 

[pacwin]

 

 

It maybe that the jumpers that connect the backplane connectors are out of order. When I first received mine the +voltage was going to the RCA casing and not the center pin. Rotating the jumper cured this.

 

Ted and Miska, the Oppo does not output DSD over SPDIF, SPDIF is not USB, PCM does not look like dCs protocol and the Oppo doesnt grok dCs bit packing in or out. Miska should perhaps spend more time improving his software, like a repositionable splitter bar between his folder view and the playlist rather than being pedantic here.

 

As for the output voltage this is indeed healthy, and some consumer devices may overload, but not most audiophile gear, does the volume trim function help?

 

[ted_b]

that the Oppo will only ouput hirez PCM over spdif cuz they somehow got around DVD_audio protection with the mediatek chip. SACD...only analog or HDMI.

 

The USB I was referring to was not Oppo, sorry for the confusion. I saw Miska's quoted "SPDIF" and thought USB. My bad.

 

The swapped DSD channels are not pin related per se. I won't go into it here czu I'm not technical enough; Mytek DSD users need to call support (Jeff/Michal). Michal is back Tuesday.

 

[Miska]

Ted and Miska, the Oppo does not output DSD over SPDIF, SPDIF is not USB, PCM does not look like dCs protocol and the Oppo doesnt grok dCs bit packing in or out.

 

Maybe Oppo doesn't output DSD over S/PDIF at the moment. HQPlayer does output DSD over S/PDIF (or AES/EBU) with either my FourCC or dCS' method and it works fine, in real world, that was my point.

 

Miska should perhaps spend more time improving his software, like a repositionable splitter bar between his folder view and the playlist rather than being pedantic here.

 

I've spent last two weeks to deal nicely with the three different cases where there's click/pop between DSD tracks.

 

And yeah that's sensible request and I can add that to my TODO-list.

 

I'm only being pedantic while waiting a build to complete, if I'd have faster machine I'd have less time being pedantic...

 

 

[orgel]

Heard from Vintage King about my order of a Mytek Stereo192 yesterday evening:

 

"We are happy to let you know that your order is in progress, but the item you ordered is recently out of stock. The estimated lead time is at least four weeks."

 

Can't say I'm surprised. All things come to those who wait.

 

--David

 

[pacwin]

>>Maybe Oppo doesn't output DSD over S/PDIF at the moment.

 

Lets say for argument sake that an Oppo can pass dCs bit packed format over SPDIF to a Mytek DAC. Will the SPDIF receivers struggle if you try and send DSD 5.6Mhz packed? 358/24 over SPDIF?.

 

I think we need to have a better means to consult about how best to implement the transport of DSD to a DSD capable DAC.

 

There are four things that are frustrating at the moment:

 

1.dCS packing method for double and higher rate DSD is unspecified.

 

2.Messing with Phillips specification to patch in Id3v2 tags when DSF already explicitly supports it and should already work with m3u and cue files if the player understands these file elements. I'm worried this is a distraction. I'm surprised anyone would have DSDIFF files in any quantity?

 

3. The foobar SACD decoder is very clever/impressive but it relies on ASIO to get DSD to the DAC. Either they employ dCS packing method as an option or Mytek delivers a working ASIO 2.1 driver (this is really broken try it with Reaper) sooner rather than later other wise it's (sacddecoder) attraction to a DSD DAC owner using the Windoes platform is zilch. The Mytek really exposes the sonic degradation of DSD->PCM transcoding in either laser disc players or software.

 

4. The absence of decent ID3v2 tagging tools for either DSDIFF or DSF files.

 

From a global perspective dCs packing method is effectively cross platform and means more efficient software development and would free up energy otherwise going into ASIO driver development. However my specific problem is that JRiver Media Centre which I think stands head and shoulders above any CA software has not implemented dCS method and relies on ASIO (which makes sense since its a Windows platform and they can't be faulted for this) for native DSD. But the same argument applies to them as it does to sacddecoder: without a functioning ASIO driver the Mytek is unusable with Jriver. Thats currently the only real gotcha with this DAC. Hopefully it will be rectified soon.

 

There are other options. I presume its possible to write a dCS plugin for Jriver and also a ID3v2 tagger/writer for DSF/DSDIFF for Jriver. HQplayer chould for example consider extending its abilities to do what sacddecoder does but exporting dCS protocol. The code is in the public domain is it not?

 

We should also consider/weigh up whether its useful to create a new file format to match dCS proposal(with ID3v2 support) so that DSD files are physically stored this way although the data repetition is hardly efficient that way either. That should allow usage on less powerful CPU's.

 

 

 

[ted_b]

I am quite involved in the Mr Wicked SACD ripping project, and everything that I've seen points to DSDIFF files as the "default" DSD output. Even the bat files have been created for DSDIFF output. DSF is available as an output option, but until now seldom discussed.

 

This project is in its infancy, and I would be very open to disseminating information that says maybe we ought to be archiving our SACD collections in DSF rather than DIFF. No skin, really, as the heavy lifting has been mainly the ISO rips and wear and tear on the difficult-to-find PS3's. That doesn't change. But if folks like you are saying we ought to be creating a catalog of DSF (stereo and/or multichannel) rather than DIFF, so be it (Note: the SACD-extractor program can extract to either, although as I've stated that up till now the default has been DIFF, and the latest feature added is one-file DSDIFF edit master w/ cue file...there is no DSF counterpart in the program).

 

I don't even know if the MAC-based programs like Pure Music and Audirvana even care, as long as it's DSD (I'm reconverting an album right now and will report back).

 

Net/net, what are the upsides and downsides to DSDIFF (Philips) vs DSF (Sony)?

 

EDIT: I'm gonna post this on the SACD ripping thread, too, as it is more relevant there...but your update was posted here.

 

[Miska]

This is a bit unrelated to the Mytek DAC, but...

 

Lets say for argument sake that an Oppo can pass dCs bit packed format over SPDIF to a Mytek DAC. Will the SPDIF receivers struggle if you try and send DSD 5.6Mhz packed? 358/24 over SPDIF?.

 

I guess Oppo doesn't anyway support DSD128, only the SACD's DSD64 variant that goes fine through 176.4/24.

 

I have software support up to 12.288 MHz if there would be such a piece of hardware (other than my funny lab protos).

 

1.dCS packing method for double and higher rate DSD is unspecified.

 

Works fine from the software point of view, as long as the USB/FW interface can do 352.8/24. Dual-wire S/PDIF or AES/EBU would also do.

 

2.Messing with Phillips specification to patch in Id3v2 tags when DSF already explicitly supports it and should already work with m3u and cue files if the player understands these file elements.

 

I'm fine with either format. Both have their own good sides. My files are pretty much 50/50 DSF and DSDIFF.

 

a working ASIO 2.1 driver

 

That would be really nice.

 

other wise it's (sacddecoder) attraction to a DSD DAC owner using the Windoes platform is zilch.

 

Ehh, why? SACD-type DSD data works just fine with the currently existing hardware and software. No problems.

 

HQplayer chould for example consider extending its abilities to do what sacddecoder does but exporting dCS protocol.

 

Reading from ISOs or what does this mean? I kind of fail to see the point of such.

 

We should also consider/weigh up whether its useful to create a new file format to match dCS proposal(with ID3v2 support) so that DSD files are physically stored this way although the data repetition is hardly efficient that way either. That should allow usage on less powerful CPU's.

 

I don't see how the file format would be related to the output format. CPU load is not a problem with direct data path. Playback over USB to Mytek DAC takes less than 1% CPU time on my i3 laptop. I could probably optimize it to be at least couple of times faster still.

 

 

[ted_b]

I tested the same with Pure Music. Oh, and they load into A+ with better metadata (track numbers, album name, etc) Yeah!

 

They, of course, do not play over on Foobar, as that decoder (foo_input_SACD) is looking for DFF.