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Best Audiophile USB Card ?


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6 minutes ago, John Hughes said:

I'm building a hackintosh for music.  Are there any USB cards that work with MacOS?

 

The new JCAT USB XE and this one from Sonnet for example:

 

https://www.sonnettech.com/product/allegro-usbc-pcie.html

 

Both use the ASM3142 chip which seems to be the best sounding one.

 

Matt

"I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe)

 

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6 hours ago, John Hughes said:

 

I have done some digging about this chipset and found some of your other posts. I need USB A on the card for my DAC (the Sonnet version seems overkill and expensive). Has anybody compared the Sonnet to the Startech?  Startech now has a good combo USB C and USB A card that uses the new ASM chipset.  

 

https://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/USB-3.0/Cards/~PEXUSB311AC3

 

Also I see on other posts that using USB C to ethernet on a Startech improves sound too.  So maybe this combo is a good one?

 

Yes, go for the Startech and please share your impressions 🙂

 

Matt

"I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe)

 

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  • 9 months later...
1 hour ago, Topk said:

Taiko chose a different chipset for their USB card, they rejected ASM3142

 

Also the Sonnet card doesn’t accept LPS and is unclear what the clock is. So on paper it can’t compete with others like Jcat or PF

 

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

"I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe)

 

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8 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi Matthias

 

I’ve went through this thread & cannot find any comparisons with any other card. Are you aware of they’re any? 
 

I would expect Taiko to be top class as usual but we do need comparisons before we can label Taiko as best usb card. 
 

Thanks

 

I understand your POV.

Emile from TA mentioned that the JCAT USB XE for example was different to the original USB output of the Extreme but more a side-step than an improvement. 

The Taiko USB card is certainly voiced and optimised for the Extreme so I can not imagine that another USB card will be superior in an Extreme environment. However, as the Taiko card is only available for the Extreme, comparisons in a set-up outside the Extreme are nearly impossible.

 

Matt

"I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe)

 

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1 minute ago, ASRMichael said:

It will be a matter of time when it’s sold to anyone. I appreciate makes sense to have them available to existing extreme users first. However in my opinion it would not make business sense to keep it that way. Reminds me of Steve jobs with the iPod, wanted it for Apple users only...we know what eventually happened there! As a result Apple skyrocketed 

 

According to @Nenon neither TAS nor the Taiko card will be available outside the Extreme.

Whether this makes sense from a business POV is open to debate. I understand that Emile wants to keep Extreme with these developments ahead of the competition.

 

Matt

"I want to know why the musicians are on stage, not where". (John Farlowe)

 

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