Confused Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 @Summit - Good luck with your Audio-GD DI-20HE. I shall be very interested to read your comparison. I was very interested in the Gustard U16 because it (in theory) offered DSD output and 10Mhz clock input, which is what I am after. However, after a little research I found that there are firmware issues with the U16, and basically it is not fully compatible with the sMS-200Ultra, which is want I want to use it with. That said, I did read many subjective listening reports for the U16, and on this basis alone it seemed to be exactly what I am looking for, hence I will be very interested in how you think the DI-20HE compares. I can offer you one early observation, the DI-20HE is a little larger than the U16, I am not sure if you had noticed this? Being serious for the moment, it is huge! It makes the Gustard look like a toy. Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
Summit Posted August 7, 2020 Share Posted August 7, 2020 17 hours ago, Confused said: @Summit - Good luck with your Audio-GD DI-20HE. I shall be very interested to read your comparison. I was very interested in the Gustard U16 because it (in theory) offered DSD output and 10Mhz clock input, which is what I am after. However, after a little research I found that there are firmware issues with the U16, and basically it is not fully compatible with the sMS-200Ultra, which is want I want to use it with. That said, I did read many subjective listening reports for the U16, and on this basis alone it seemed to be exactly what I am looking for, hence I will be very interested in how you think the DI-20HE compares. I can offer you one early observation, the DI-20HE is a little larger than the U16, I am not sure if you had noticed this? Being serious for the moment, it is huge! It makes the Gustard look like a toy. Gustard sound like a toy in comparison 🤩 motberg 1 Link to comment
Popular Post zerung Posted August 9, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted August 9, 2020 I wanted to report. The DI20HE is AMAZING....just that and more. It took a lot to of burning and burning. It was just amazing to hear what it did. With the outer master clock, it went one runk above. So, what can be better? I got the Auralic Aries 2i (The sonore UR was useless). But the 2i will take time - it needs to burn in. But I already see that the lower bit is very promising. But DI20 is amazing! Albrecht and Summit 2 Qnap NAS (LPS) >UA ETHER REGEN (BG7TBL Master Clock) > Grimm MU1 > Mola Mola Tambaqui /Meridian 808.3> Wavac EC300B >Tannoy Canterbury SE HP Rig ++ >Woo WES/ > Stax SR-009, Audeze LCD2 Link to comment
Albrecht Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 5 hours ago, zerung said: I wanted to report. The DI20HE is AMAZING....just that and more. It took a lot to of burning and burning. It was just amazing to hear what it did. With the outer master clock, it went one runk above. So, what can be better? I got the Auralic Aries 2i (The sonore UR was useless). But the 2i will take time - it needs to burn in. But I already see that the lower bit is very promising. But DI20 is amazing! Hi, Thank you for your reporting. Really grateful for your updates! I got a quote on one from AudioGD, - but it's just a little bit of a bridge too far with the fact that I need an amp repair right now. I am running an ultra-Rendu with a Gustard U16. Jumping from the Gustard Audio-GD is a significant bump in cost, - for one who just runs SPDIF 24/192 into the DAC. Do you notice a big bump in SQ from running non-hiRez material? Thanks again for your reports on this.... Link to comment
zerung Posted August 10, 2020 Share Posted August 10, 2020 @Albrecht When the audio gd is fully burnt in, you will not need the UR as the sound of UR is immaterial; meaning you can sell this to fund the 20HE. Yes I also use SPDIF... in fact that was the only reason to go for the 20HE. The sound out of this DI is perfectly perfect and putting this into your DAC takes the signal from the USB interface.....ensuring a better sound overall. Also the 20HE has another output called the ACSS, which has a better coaxial output ....which is what I am using. Lastly you can also do I2S over HDMI. Qnap NAS (LPS) >UA ETHER REGEN (BG7TBL Master Clock) > Grimm MU1 > Mola Mola Tambaqui /Meridian 808.3> Wavac EC300B >Tannoy Canterbury SE HP Rig ++ >Woo WES/ > Stax SR-009, Audeze LCD2 Link to comment
fmzip Posted February 4, 2021 Share Posted February 4, 2021 On 8/10/2020 at 4:41 AM, zerung said: @Albrecht When the audio gd is fully burnt in, you will not need the UR as the sound of UR is immaterial; meaning you can sell this to fund the 20HE. Yes I also use SPDIF... in fact that was the only reason to go for the 20HE. The sound out of this DI is perfectly perfect and putting this into your DAC takes the signal from the USB interface.....ensuring a better sound overall. Also the 20HE has another output called the ACSS, which has a better coaxial output ....which is what I am using. Lastly you can also do I2S over HDMI. Are you now using i2s? I have been using an UltraRendu>UltraDigital> i2s LKS DAC MH-DA004. Sounds like I would get rid of both Sonore devices with this unit? Are you using it with Roon? Link to comment
Popular Post GoldenOne Posted July 22, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted July 22, 2021 I've posted some measurements of the Jitter and noise from the DI-20HE. This thing is seriously impressive and is the best DDC I've seen thus far. https://goldensound.audio/2021/07/22/audio-gd-di20he-measurements/ Confused and fas42 2 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Confused Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 @GoldenOne - Excellent review and measurements, great information and waffle free text. I have to say that I have seen some rather disappointing measurements for some other Audio GD products, so I had somewhat dismissed the DI-20-HE. So it is great to see some measurements for the product itself that show that is actually performs very nicely. As someone who currently uses a Mutec MC3+USB, I was interested to compare the Audio GD measurements with those performed by Hifi News for the MC3+USB. To be honest, I am struggling a little correlating the two. See link: https://www.mutec-net.com/downloads/manuals/MUTEC_MC-3plusUSB_-_HFN.pdf Is it possible to correlate the HFN Mutec measurements to yours for the Audio GD DI-20-HE? Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 5 hours ago, Confused said: @GoldenOne - Excellent review and measurements, great information and waffle free text. I have to say that I have seen some rather disappointing measurements for some other Audio GD products, so I had somewhat dismissed the DI-20-HE. So it is great to see some measurements for the product itself that show that is actually performs very nicely. As someone who currently uses a Mutec MC3+USB, I was interested to compare the Audio GD measurements with those performed by Hifi News for the MC3+USB. To be honest, I am struggling a little correlating the two. See link: https://www.mutec-net.com/downloads/manuals/MUTEC_MC-3plusUSB_-_HFN.pdf Is it possible to correlate the HFN Mutec measurements to yours for the Audio GD DI-20-HE? Yeah I was.... Well let's just say not expecting much given some of the performance of agd's other products. But this is sublime. With the mutec they don't have any actual direct jitter measurements there, just a j-test of it feeding a dac. Which can't be directly equated as the dac itself will affect things. You can compare two sources using the same dac for j-testing but can't really use two different ones. If I manage to get my hands on the mutec at any point I'll post some measurements of it though. Confused 1 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Confused Posted August 27, 2021 Share Posted August 27, 2021 On 7/22/2021 at 10:33 PM, GoldenOne said: I've posted some measurements of the Jitter and noise from the DI-20HE. This thing is seriously impressive and is the best DDC I've seen thus far. https://goldensound.audio/2021/07/22/audio-gd-di20he-measurements/ I was looking at this yesterday, and later reading a review of the Auralic Altair G2.1 in Hifi News and Record Review. For the Auralic, HFN's "lab report" measurements quote jitter at 14psec at 48kHz and 14psec at 96 kHz. Looking at the Goldensound measurements of the Audio GD, at 48kHz there is the level / frequency graph, which shows a reading of about 3p level (s) downwards from 20Hz, and below the graph figures (RMS) of 78.74ps and (peak) 229.2ps. I am almost certainly demonstrating my own lack of knowledge here, but whilst I can easily compare one HFN measurement to another, and one Goldensound measurement to another, I cannot fathom how to compare a Goldensound measurement to a HFN measurement. I presume the measurements from something like the Auralic and the Audio GD to be broadly similar, but how should the Auralic's 14psec number be compared to the Audio GD's 3p level (s), 78.74ps / 229.2ps numbers? My simple brain tells me that 3p level s is a lot lower than 14 psec, but 229.2 ps is much higher, so I am at a bit of loss as to how compare these different measurements. Can anyone clarify this? I am slightly puzzled! Gavin1977 1 Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
GoldenOne Posted August 27, 2021 Share Posted August 27, 2021 3 hours ago, Confused said: I was looking at this yesterday, and later reading a review of the Auralic Altair G2.1 in Hifi News and Record Review. For the Auralic, HFN's "lab report" measurements quote jitter at 14psec at 48kHz and 14psec at 96 kHz. Looking at the Goldensound measurements of the Audio GD, at 48kHz there is the level / frequency graph, which shows a reading of about 3p level (s) downwards from 20Hz, and below the graph figures (RMS) of 78.74ps and (peak) 229.2ps. I am almost certainly demonstrating my own lack of knowledge here, but whilst I can easily compare one HFN measurement to another, and one Goldensound measurement to another, I cannot fathom how to compare a Goldensound measurement to a HFN measurement. I presume the measurements from something like the Auralic and the Audio GD to be broadly similar, but how should the Auralic's 14psec number be compared to the Audio GD's 3p level (s), 78.74ps / 229.2ps numbers? My simple brain tells me that 3p level s is a lot lower than 14 psec, but 229.2 ps is much higher, so I am at a bit of loss as to how compare these different measurements. Can anyone clarify this? I am slightly puzzled! Could you link this post? The HFN lab report I found doesn't seem to have the information you mentioned https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Confused Posted August 27, 2021 Share Posted August 27, 2021 27 minutes ago, GoldenOne said: Could you link this post? The HFN lab report I found doesn't seem to have the information you mentioned Ha! No I cannot. The HFN article I read was in an actual magazine made of old school paper. Here is a snip of the lab report: And the relevant part of the lab report words: Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
Popular Post GoldenOne Posted August 27, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted August 27, 2021 6 minutes ago, Confused said: Ha! No I cannot. The HFN article I read was in an actual magazine made of old school paper. Here is a snip of the lab report: And the relevant part of the lab report words: Ahh ok, this cannot be directly equated/compared to my measurements. The ones in the article are 'inferred jitter', measures using a J-Test through a DAC. My test is measurement of the jitter directly from the digital source. (With FFT spectrum of jitter) I may start including J-Tests in future as well (particularly cause I can't measure I2S directly so it'd be useful to have some info on that in case it differs from coax performance significantly), but the problem is that even with the same digital source, the dac used will affect the measurement as different DACs have different approaches to PLLs, resampling etc. Actually the most ideal DAC for the task would be a NOS, no-PLL R2R dac, such that there is no further digital processing or reclocking. The Holo May actually suits this very well given as you can disable the PLL so I'll look into that. BUT, it still can't be directly compared to the HFN measurements as they're using a different DAC. Summit and Confused 1 1 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
Confused Posted August 30, 2021 Share Posted August 30, 2021 On 8/27/2021 at 12:05 PM, GoldenOne said: Ahh ok, this cannot be directly equated/compared to my measurements. The ones in the article are 'inferred jitter', measures using a J-Test through a DAC. My test is measurement of the jitter directly from the digital source. (With FFT spectrum of jitter) I may start including J-Tests in future as well (particularly cause I can't measure I2S directly so it'd be useful to have some info on that in case it differs from coax performance significantly), but the problem is that even with the same digital source, the dac used will affect the measurement as different DACs have different approaches to PLLs, resampling etc. Actually the most ideal DAC for the task would be a NOS, no-PLL R2R dac, such that there is no further digital processing or reclocking. The Holo May actually suits this very well given as you can disable the PLL so I'll look into that. BUT, it still can't be directly compared to the HFN measurements as they're using a different DAC. Many thanks for the response, which is clear. So ignoring the HFN numbers and just looking at you own measurements, these is one other thing that puzzles me a little. Taking as an example your 48kHz jitter measurements for the Audio GD D120HE, the graphical representation indicates Level (s) from about 2ps / 3ps down to below 1e-13 ps at very high frequencies. What I am struggling to fathom is how this relates to the RMS level s and Peak level s readings, which are 78.74 ps and 229.2 ps respectively. In other words, 78.74ps is way higher than anything indicated graphically. I am sure that I am missing something fundamental here? Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
Confused Posted September 15, 2021 Share Posted September 15, 2021 On 8/30/2021 at 12:33 PM, Confused said: Many thanks for the response, which is clear. So ignoring the HFN numbers and just looking at you own measurements, these is one other thing that puzzles me a little. Taking as an example your 48kHz jitter measurements for the Audio GD D120HE, the graphical representation indicates Level (s) from about 2ps / 3ps down to below 1e-13 ps at very high frequencies. What I am struggling to fathom is how this relates to the RMS level s and Peak level s readings, which are 78.74 ps and 229.2 ps respectively. In other words, 78.74ps is way higher than anything indicated graphically. I am sure that I am missing something fundamental here? I am not sure if @GoldenOne missed this one? Meanwhile, can anyone answer the above question? I remain puzzled. Windows 11 PC, Roon, HQPlayer, Focus Fidelity convolutions, iFi Zen Stream, Paul Hynes SR4, Mutec REF10, Mutec MC3+USB, Devialet 1000Pro, KEF Blade. Plus Pro-Ject Signature 12 TT for playing my 'legacy' vinyl collection. Desktop system; RME ADI-2 DAC fs, Meze Empyrean headphones. Link to comment
Popular Post GoldenOne Posted September 20, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted September 20, 2021 On 8/30/2021 at 12:33 PM, Confused said: Many thanks for the response, which is clear. So ignoring the HFN numbers and just looking at you own measurements, these is one other thing that puzzles me a little. Taking as an example your 48kHz jitter measurements for the Audio GD D120HE, the graphical representation indicates Level (s) from about 2ps / 3ps down to below 1e-13 ps at very high frequencies. What I am struggling to fathom is how this relates to the RMS level s and Peak level s readings, which are 78.74 ps and 229.2 ps respectively. In other words, 78.74ps is way higher than anything indicated graphically. I am sure that I am missing something fundamental here? It's basically due to the maths of how FFT works/what it is showing. Here is an example of an analog signal, with many different tones: Now, you can see that on the top right in the FFT, each individual tone is only up to about 200mv (0.2v). But our peak and RMS values are MUCH higher. This is because as you can see in the scope view in the top left, all these individual tones combine to create a waveform that will have a higher amplitude than just one of those tones. And so that waveform peaks at about 2.89V. The FFT is showing us a clearer view of what the signal contains, but it's showing us the level of each individual frequency/part of the signal (Bin), not the level of the signal as a whole. The exact same thing happens when looking at the spectrum/waveform of jitter. And the problem is worse because the stuff we are looking at is so close to the noise floor. For a signal where the main 1khz tone etc is going to be >100dB above noise and harmonics, then any noise/harmonics are going to be 0.0001% or so of the whole signal, and will have almost no impact on the peak/rms values. But when we are looking at stuff where there is lots of content of a similar/close value, like with the above example of lots of tones, or in the case of jitter, where there is a noise floor and some small spikes just a little tiny bit above it, then everything has a noticeable impact. Here's another analog signal example. 25uV 1khz sine, just slightly above the noise floor: Here we can see the 25uV 1khz sine, but we also have a lot of noise not too far below it. Meaning that is having a noticeable effect on the peak/RMS value. You can see on the scope how much it's impacting it. And as a result the waveform is peaking at about 76uV, with an RMS value of 26.48. And in a situation where we have no main signal and are just looking at noise: The noise floor on the FFT might look like it's at about 20nV. But all of that is combining to make a waveform that peaks at almost 9uV, wayyyy higher than the FFT shows. This is also why you should never judge the noise floor of a device based on FFT, it can be changed/altered depending on how the FFT itself is set up. TLDR: FFT shows you the level of individual parts of the signal by dividing it into different frequencies. It does not show the absolute peak value of the signal. Hope that helped! semente and Confused 2 https://youtube.com/goldensound Roon -> HQPlayer -> SMS200 Ultra/SPS500 -> Holo Audio May (Wildism Edition) -> Holo Audio Serene (Wildism Edition) -> Benchmark AHB2 -> Hifiman Susvara Link to comment
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