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Best Audiophile USB Card ?


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1 hour ago, matthias said:

 

Yes, Taiko do not use the ASM.

Very often there is no relation between specs and musicality so there is no way than to do a listening comparison.

 

Matt

Hi Matt,

do you know which type of chipset is preferred by Emile? I didn’t find it.

thanks,

Viktor

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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6 minutes ago, OAudio said:

Renasus UPD720202 from the package and circuit's pin out.

 

The -711 variant is the -40 deg C temp range otherwise not sure what would attract the "industrial" commet if not this, there are only two variants.

 

 

Yes, we are using the same.

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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1 hour ago, Nenon said:

No DDCs between my server and DAC in my system anymore. 

 

 

 

@wittao  - those are nice looking cards. I am interested to test one and write about it if you want to send me one. 

 

Now that we know the Taiko USB card would not be available to DIY, my alternatives for the new DIY server recipe I am working on are the JCAT XE and PinkFaun with ultraOCXO. Your reference card is worth considering as well.

 

One thing that I can't get manufacturers to do is to give an option to separately power the clock than the card. Something for you to consider.

Hi Nenon,

 

first of all thank you for your kindly words.

Of course we can discuss about the test card, the details we can fix in pm.

 

About the USB cards and the design of our cards:

I got a lot of question why planned that card with XO + OCXO PLL? Maybe it will be easier (and better?) to use 24 MHz OCXO on our cards than XO+OCXO?

 We have some year experience (our development teammates 15-30 years/person) HQ oscillator module development. At Core Audio we are using MasterClock panels (mono clocks, biclocks, triclocks with 1-2-3pcs XOs and 1pc OCXO) to make a great and most accurate PLL as it possible in our music servers, USB/SPDIF reclockers and DACs. We planned to transfer that technlogy into our new USB cards too.

The XOs starting time is 1us, the USB controller chip's 500us. So 500 times faster is the XO as the Renesas chip. There is enough time for the XO to build up their accurate 24 MHz clock freq. The OCXO? It is much more slower, sometimes more than 1ms. But the card need enough time to start and the OCXO need enough time to heat up and fix the PLL (1-2 minutes). In our solution the XO, controller IC and OCXO have enough time with separately start, PSU line. It is some kind of "soft start" of the clock system and the clocks not push/pull the voltages on the card. The clocks are calm and works with lower distortions, freq movements. The noise floor is also important , our XOs can working on -105dB@10Hz phase noise and -120dB@10Hz with OCXO (an extra feature : when our card is connected to our music server's and reclocker's master clock PLL, the card can use across the MMCX clock IN port the better reference OCXO with -137dB@10Hz ... that is the reason for external miniXLR clock IN option on our cards on the normal profile bracket. In our new ULTIMATE Series we will use for all of our equipment and equipment's main part -147dB@10Hz phase noise reference clock, for example the P20 USB card will run with -141dB@10Hz phase noise clock signal). 

 

We didn't want to add a different PSU for the controller IC and the clock module. The separation of clock side (5V) and controller side (1.05V + 3.3V) is solved. We haven't any reason to add different PSU input to the card. BUT: Your question is absolute normally we will try to regulate the 5VDC/GND line to 1.05V and 3.3V for controller, the 12VDC/GND line to 5V for OCXO and XO. It will be a new development, i don't know if it will be finished this year (new P20 USB Card, new Reference Serie... lot of work :) ). Of course we need to listen both card and compare them, the different main voltages helps or not to increase the SQ.

 

I am added a picture to this post. That is our basic 8 circuit PSU (120.000uF audiograde capacitors built in a Streacom FC10 case). There are normal ATX standard molex sockets + extra 3pcs 4pin molex socket:  1 x 5VDC-GND ,  2 x 5VDC-GND-GND-12VDC. That 3pcs sockets are an extra separated PSU circuits from the music servers other circuits and can run with ultra low noise (under 20 uV on 5V rail with 2A load). Our customers can use easier and cheaper the USB-cards with a 4pin molex connectors. Not necessary to connect external PSU for USB card or ethernet card.

(one of our customer solve that situation with our new card: he dismantled the clock IN miniXLR socket from the normal profile bracket and pulled the DC wires across the small hole... maybe in the near future we will make an own version, not easy to build it with good outfit and correct technical implementation.

 

 

 

USB to internal PSU_1.jpg

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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5 hours ago, Dev said:

 

 

Hi Victor,

 

Fascinating development and the boards do look excellent. Very clean layout as well. I am currently using JCAT USB XE and would be interested in the USB P24 OCXO version. I agree with Nenon now that the Taiko USB card is out of DIY market, this would be a viable option given that you are using the same Renesas chipset.

 

However, I am curious why didn't you choose to add an external input power connector in the PCI bracket to power it from externally power supply instead of only having a 4-pin molex internal connector ? The JCAT card actually has both - an internal molex as well as an external 5.5/2.1mm DC input so that it could be powered in both ways (and off-coarse from the PCIe if none of them are connected).

 

 

Hi Dev,

thanks for your comment.

We are looking for a solution how to upgrade a card with external DC across the bracket (maybe our users can choose an option: external DC or external clock IN)

The onboard dc socket wasn’t an option, it makes a degradation in SQ. 
 

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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  • 1 month later...
  • 5 months later...

Thank you for that great comparison and long test, and also congratulation for JCAT for their great card!

 

We are ready now with the newest version of USB P24 OCXO rev1.

The differences : 

- 1pcs USB port 3.0
1pc molex 4pin PSU (internal) connection … 5V@1A (our advise: 1.5A is safely better but works absolutely fine with 1A).
   1pc DC 2.1-5.5mm external DC input (jumper selected between internal or external)
   3pcs extra capacitor on DC output stage

If the user dosn't need 2pcs USB ports, our advise is this version.

 

Also can be order the new USB P20 OCXO card:

   ASMedia host controller IC
   1pcs USB port 3.0
1pc molex 4pin PSU (internal) connection … 5V@1A (our advise: 1.5A is safely better but works absolutely fine with 1A).
   1pc DC 2.1-5.5mm external DC input (jumper selected between internal or external)
   4pcs extra capacitor on DC output stage
   10 MHz in and 10 MHz out Clock connectors on the card (can connect to ETH25 OCXO ethernet card and use the same clock signal for both cards… it gives better result in stream solutions)

 

Hope you will make more interesting tests and comparisons.

Regards,

Viktor

 

 

 

 

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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  • 1 year later...
9 hours ago, Superdad said:

It does take care. But not as much money as you state. You just need one of these: https://www.microsemi.com/product-directory/phase-noise-and-allan-deviation-testers/5565-53100a#overview. Plus a couple of good external OCXOs to connect for cross-correlation.

It is an industry standard which has been built and sold under several names (TimePod, Symmetricom 5120A, Jackson Labs PhaseStation) for many years. 

Measures down to about -140dBc/Hz at 1Hz, and -178dBc/Hz at 1KHz

About $23K.  It is what we use.

 

 

No, unfortunately that equipments aren't enough to measure the exact phase noise datas. 

We are using to measure our masterclocks and cards Rohde&Schwarz FSUP and R&S FSWP analyzers. Totaly different level. Of course the price range too...

 

In addition about Crystec's 957 series oscillators: the theoretical parameters are ok and gives to the engineers important informations. Earlier (5-6 years ago) we used that Crystec oscillators in our USB/SPDIF converters 24 - 24.576 - 22.5792 MHz freqs and works well but unfortunately in the PCB the oscillators working different then alone connected to the measurement equipment...  -90dB@10Hz is a typical phase noise at that oscillators. We dropped them finally and started to develop our own oscillators. That is true, the newst Crystec modells has better parameters but in audio industry the better parameters not equal always with better SQ.

 

 

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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5 minutes ago, MarcelNL said:

PF shows phase noise as <-130dBc/Hz at 10Hz, the jump in SQ between the regular OCXO and the ultra is considerable....not being able to measure phase noise there is no way to correlate one to the other.

 

Yes, i tried the PF USB card without OCXO and normal OCXO, then Ultra OCXO. The final sound quality jumped high and high. 

 

Manufacturer of Core Audio equipments

                www.coreaudio.eu

Source: Core Audio DAIDO ULTIMATE + CA KARUNA ULTIMATE USB/SPDIF Bridge + CA DENPO ULTIMATE DAC

Amplifiers: MBL 6010D preamp + MBL 9008A monoblocks

Loudspeakers: MBL 101emkII, YG Hailey 2.2

Cables: TARALABS USB, Muse Digit, Muse IC + ZERO Evolution, Muse SP

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