Singxer SDA-6

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

1 hour ago, SwissBear said:

 

Hi Alex,

 

Thanks for sharing your investigations and suppositions.

What I always find more interesting than suppositions, is measurements and listening experience.

 

In this post: 

I shared measurements made  by l7audiolab which clearly show that even a middle class 10 MHz clock (Gustard C-18) had a positive effect on the measurement of jitter at the output of a DAC which was driven by a SU-2.

 

I have had an SU-2 in my setup for some time now, driven by a Mutec REF-10, and I can assure you that this 10 MHz clock leads to better results than the oscillators of the SU-2 alone.

 

Both measurements and listening experience show that the implementation made by Singxer of the 10 MHz clock input is performing well, whatever clever suppositions tend to infer.

 

Just y 2c.

 

A lab measurement of a single tone is one thing, but we all know it does not help explain everything, otherwise there would be absolutely no need for Audiophile forums. I think you already know that well.

 

If you are eager to get technical explanations to back up the improvements that you are hearing (as you seem to suggest on the "French forum"), I doubt you will find an engineer who will support the idea that using an external clock is going to systematically and substantially improve sound quality. 

 

The fact that some vendors offer the option is not in any way meaningful.

 

So where does that leave you ? Hoping others will try it out (and spend 4000$ on a Mutec REF-10) to confirm what you hear ? Or doing a balancing act picking and choosing which technical "expert" best supports your measurements/impressions ?

[SwissBear]

36 minutes ago, hopkins said:

So where does that leave you ? Hoping others will try it out (and spend 4000$ on a Mutec REF-10) to confirm what you hear ? Or doing a balancing act picking and choosing which technical "expert" best supports your measurements/impressions ?

 

Not sure what your intention is with this post. I personally have no agenda. I am sharing what I hear and I do not need any backup or explanation. And I am certainly not trying to convince anybody to buy an expensive clock if this is not what they are willing to.

 

I observe that there are a lot of places in this forum where people explain their enjoyment of adding high precision clocks to their setups and especially in connexion with the EtherRegen. I have not observed that you tried to dissuade them to make such kind of stupid decisions if this is you mission. You might want to extend your croisade to these place too :-)

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

29 minutes ago, SwissBear said:

 

Not sure what your intention is with this post. I personally have no agenda. I am sharing what I hear and I do not need any backup or explanation. And I am certainly not trying to convince anybody to buy an expensive clock if this is not what they are willing to.

 

I observe that there are a lot of places in this forum where people explain their enjoyment of adding high precision clocks to their setups and especially in connexion with the EtherRegen. I have not observed that you tried to dissuade them to make such kind of stupid decisions if this is you mission. You might want to extend your croisade to these place too :-)

 

My intention was to clarify yours. I happen to read the "french forum" as well, and you seem to express views there that are not completely consistent with what you say here. I'm sorry to have pointed that out.

 

As far as my agenda is concerned - I'll be perfectly honest with you:

- I was interested to understand what the hype was about Diretta on the "french forum", and read with interest PDA0's comments, which I reposted here as I think it useful for people to have various points of view

- I was disappointed by the reaction, and curious to see what the "french mob" here in your thread had to say.

 

If people want to share their excitement about something, that is great, but lets try to do it with honesty and not pick our facts or our experts depending on what you want to hear them say.

 

Take care.

 

 

[Superdad]

4 hours ago, fmzip said:

Hi Alex, you and I spoke on the phone a few months back, I am the guy in CT that works at a contract manufacturer.

I do indeed remember our conversation--even if your name does not immediately roll off my tongue! 

 

4 hours ago, fmzip said:

The photo is of a Kitsune SU-2. A gentleman on headfi named b0bb who is the resident expert engineer on modding referred to the other two as "slave clocks".

Voltage controlled XO, the control voltage is derived from the difference in the reference frequency and the current output frequency of the slave
Reference is either from the onboard SU2 reference crystals or the 10MHz external reference.

 

Those are the interesting bits.  I'll run the above by @JohnSwenson to see if he can make sense of it. Perhaps it is some novel way to use a 10MHz clock to derive the audio rate clocks, though I really think there has to be some PLL in their somewhere. Again, perhaps that's what they are using the FPGA for. But there sure are easier--and cheaper--ways to derive various clock frequencies. The modern synths, chosen and implemented carefully are very high performance, though they are differential output and thus require  other converter chips to drive single-ended clock circuits.  Would be nice to see DAC and DDC makers move to all differential clock distribution on their boards. That's what we have throughput the EtherREGEN...  

 

2 hours ago, SwissBear said:

Thanks for sharing your investigations and suppositions.

What I always find more interesting than suppositions, is measurements and listening experience.

 

I surely agree! 

 

2 hours ago, SwissBear said:

I have had an SU-2 in my setup for some time now, driven by a Mutec REF-10, and I can assure you that this 10 MHz clock leads to better results than the oscillators of the SU-2 alone.

 

Both measurements and listening experience show that the implementation made by Singxer of the 10 MHz clock input is performing well, whatever clever suppositions tend to infer.

 

I believe it. And I did not intend any disrespect or to cast shade on the SU-2. The fellow at Singxer is quite capable.  I am just rather curious as to how they are utilizing a 10MHz input to derive the audio rate clocks without any obvious clock synth.

 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

[SwissBear]

27 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

My intention was to clarify yours. I happen to read the "french forum" as well, and you seem to express views there that are not completely consistent with what you say here. I'm sorry to have pointed that out.

 

I already have a guardian angel and I do not need a second one. Thanks for trying to use your skills in French to guarantee the alignment of my positions of both fora. I am not sure there is a need for that !

 

27 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

As far as my agenda is concerned - I'll be perfectly honest with you:

- I was interested to understand what the hype was about Diretta on the "french forum", and read with interest PDA0's comments, which I reposted here as I think it useful for people to have various points of view

- I was disappointed by the reaction, and curious to see what the "french mob" here in your thread had to say.

 

If people want to share their excitement about something, that is great, but lets try to do it with honesty and not pick our facts or our experts depending on what you want to hear them say.

 

Take care.

 

I have a difficulty when someone has no experience and not ever listened to a product or technology and is busy trying to discourage the other ones to make their own experience with this product or technology.

 

When you argued against Diretta saying that this product was just a way to correct for unreliable implementations of USB at DACs ()your own word are "Fix the DAC", just because one user, pda0, had expressed the idea that he didn't need it, this was very disrespectful of the opinion of the majority of Diretta users who adopted this technology and are very happy of it. 

 

When you try to convince people that using a good external clock does not affect listening experience, this is very disrespectful of the opinion of people who are expressing the improvements they had in implementing this technology in their system. Including people that have done it with their EtherRegen as I mentioned before.

 

I also have a feeling of disrespect reading the words "french mob". 

 

This forum is a place of free expression. It does not need a political police. Everybody is autonomous enough to form his or her own judgement.

 

Just my 2 c

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

35 minutes ago, SwissBear said:

 

I already have a guardian angel and I do not need a second one. Thanks for trying to use your skills in French to guarantee the alignment of my positions of both fora. I am not sure there is a need for that !

 

 

I have a difficulty when someone has no experience and not ever listened to a product or technology and is busy trying to discourage the other ones to make their own experience with this product or technology.

 

When you argued against Diretta saying that this product was just a way to correct for unreliable implementations of USB at DACs ()your own word are "Fix the DAC", just because one user, pda0, had expressed the idea that he didn't need it, this was very disrespectful of the opinion of the majority of Diretta users who adopted this technology and are very happy of it. 

 

When you try to convince people that using a good external clock does not affect listening experience, this is very disrespectful of the opinion of people who are expressing the improvements they had in implementing this technology in their system. Including people that have done it with their EtherRegen as I mentioned before.

 

I also have a feeling of disrespect reading the words "french mob". 

 

This forum is a place of free expression. It does not need a political police. Everybody is autonomous enough to form his or her own judgement.

 

Just my 2 c

 

 

I did not appreciate the comments that were made towards me in that thread. I don't appreciate you twisting my words here either and mis-representing what I said.  And "pour info", I am French.

 

In case you did not understand from my previous post, I was simply trying to "gage" here who I was dealing with. I have the answer ! I am sure you do too. I can assure you I won't interfere in your threads again.

 

[SwissBear]

11 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

 

I did not appreciate the comments that were made towards me in that thread. I don't appreciate you twisting my words here either. And "pour info", I am French.

 

In case you did not understand from my previous post, I was simply trying to "gage" here who I was dealing with. I have the answer ! I am sure you do too. I can assure you I won't interfere in your threads again.

 

I do not appreciate your ad hominem attack. This is very disrespectful again.
I celebrate your decision not to intervene here anymore. Thank you for that.

[Qhwoeprktiyns]

Just now, SwissBear said:

I do not appreciate your ad hominem attack. This is very disrespectful again.
I celebrate your decision not to intervene here anymore. Thank you for that.

 

So be it. I find your mis-representation of my comments disrepectful as well. We both dislike each other - at least that can be agreed upon !

[SwissBear]

10 minutes ago, hopkins said:

 

So be it. I find your mis-representation of my comments disrepectful as well. We both dislike each other - at least that can be agreed upon !

I understood you had decided not to intervene anymore. I am surprised to see your further comment.

 

Your behavior deserves more compassion that anything else.

 

For the purpose of record I do not dislike you. I do not appreciate the way you judge people and things, which is very different.

 

From now on, I will use of my privilege to cancel your contributions here.

 

Thank you for your understanding.

[patatras]

I am amazed that one can criticize material that one does not have, or that one has not listened to carefully, and that one can make negative judgments about it.

Reducing the noise induced by the USB is a great thing, but that does not preclude another improvement with a high quality external clock.

In addition, it is not only the precision of the clock which is important, but also the noise phase at 1hz and at 10hz in particular.

I am in contact with audiophiles who own 10mhz external clocks and who say how much this brings to their very high level system.

A priori I therefore agree with SwissBear on this subject.

Besides, I ordered an external 10mhz clock whose specifications are close to Mutec's Ref10 and which costs much less. As soon as it is received, I will connect it to my SU-2 and SDA-6 to listen carefully to the result.

I will be able to speak about it knowingly, and not on the basis of baseless assumptions.
I will communicate these results on this forum.

 

Pierre

[R1200CL]

On 3/24/2021 at 8:02 PM, etane said:

Singxer SU2 is an indispensable upgrade to my D90 MQA.  That is all.

 

On 3/24/2021 at 8:43 PM, fmzip said:

 

I agree. There's not much talk of the SU-2. I really lucked out with my Kitsune SU-2, found it used for $350. Upsampling to DSD512 with HQPlayer/Roon never sounded so good :)

Did any of you had the SU-1 before upgrading to SU-2 ? 

[SwissBear]

13 hours ago, Superdad said:

I believe it. And I did not intend any disrespect or to cast shade on the SU-2. The fellow at Singxer is quite capable.  I am just rather curious as to how they are utilizing a 10MHz input to derive the audio rate clocks without any obvious clock synth.

 

Interesting question judging from the results.

 

The implementation in the SDA-6 is quite different, probably more in line with what you would expect (synthetizer). Difficult to judge from the layout as the clock part of the board is under a large "Femtco Clock" cover...

[R1200CL]

Let’s hope John has an idea how this works. 

[ambre]

1 hour ago, R1200CL said:

Let’s hope John has an idea how this works. 

Why do you not ask the manufacturer at first place? That seems me more appropriate.

 

[mevdinc]

Are there more SDA-6 DAC users willing to share their impressions and comments on the actual sonic performance of the DAC? Thanks.

[w1000i]

@SwissBear Dear, can you confirm what is the highest sampling rate can SDA-6 accept in PCM with NOS mode. It accepted 1024dsd higher than spec so is it possible to get 1.5mhz pcm ?

[SwissBear]

7 minutes ago, w1000i said:

@SwissBear Dear, can you confirm what is the highest sampling rate can SDA-6 accept in PCM with NOS mode. It accepted 1024dsd higher than spec so is it possible to get 1.5mhz pcm ?

Unfortunately not. The limit through USB input is 384k. Through I2S and SU-2 you can attempt 768k.

As @patatras noticed on his SDA-6 and as I noticed on the second machine I bought for a secondary setup, DSD 1024 is not guaranteed. It works on my first machine but not on the second one.

[SwissBear]

If @Superdad or @JohnSwenson want to have a look at the SDA-6 layout, here is a picture of mine :

 

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, ambre said:

Why do you not ask the manufacturer at first place? That seems me more appropriate.

 

Because Singer doesn’t answer emails. 

[R1200CL]

@SwissBear

It seems the USB input isn’t equal to SU-2. Agree ?

[SwissBear]

2 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

@SwissBear

It seems the USB input isn’t equal to SU-2. Agree ?

 

Yes you're right. In the SU-2, there does not seem any XMOS chip is involved in the process of USB. It seems all FPGA based.

In the SDA-6, an XMOS chip is in charge of the USB interface.

Results is quite different IMO.

[ambre]

22 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Because Singer doesn’t answer emails. 

Don’t buy this is the advice!!!

[SwissBear]

34 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Because Singer doesn’t answer emails. 

 

If you allow me to nuance your statement, Leter from Singxer does actually answer emails. It takes time, because it's a small company and the guy is super busy, but in case the matter is of importance, he does answer.

To illustrate this, when I received my second SDA-6, the external clock input was not working as expected. When the external clock was locked, the music stopped. This was quite unusual in terms of failure. I had to discuss this with Leter, and he kindly instructed the reseller to change the DAC without further question. 

I would like to take the opportunity of this narration to underline the good job done by https://magnahifi.com . Jos is a very nice man, and has been very helpful sorting this problem out with me.

[etane]

11 hours ago, R1200CL said:

 

Did any of you had the SU-1 before upgrading to SU-2 ? 

nope

[fmzip]

11 hours ago, R1200CL said:

 

Did any of you had the SU-1 before upgrading to SU-2 ? 

I did not. I had a Sonore UltraDigital prior to the Kitsune SU-2