T+A DAC 200

[Andrew Allen Ballew]

On 10/30/2022 at 11:15 PM, Miska said:

 

Intona USB isolator is useful. But to begin with such thing as "USB reclocker" is useless, because USB clock is not related to audio clocks. And only place where audio clock should be is few mm away from the D/A conversion stage.

 

 

Agree.

 

Whatever actual measurements may be, whatever may or may not be audibly evident, I can say without a doubt the Intona Isolator is a great product and can be worth the money.  

 

[Andrew Allen Ballew]

On 10/27/2022 at 10:12 AM, jrsub said:

I purchased the T+A DAC 200 and should get it in a few weeks.    Does anyone know if using a USB reclocker such as the Wyred 4 Sound Recovery makes any sense to use with the DAC 200?  I currently use one on my Wyred DAC ,but not sure it is needed with the DAC200.

 

exactly why I concur with Miska.  

I had a Wyred4Sound USB DAC that has the Amanero USB interface and its specified galvanic isolator pre I2S.  (This is internal hardware as not to confuse.  W4S says the USB interface it is made by Amanero but is a special version that makes it 'not an Amanero' lol)

Anyway,  I was getting very very poor SNR via USB.  At average to normal listening levels, no problem.  But the noise could be heard with the volume control above where you might typically wish to listen.  Also the midrange was to my ears hard and harsh.  (Headphones was the listening medium.)  

A test (dangerous so don't try at home yada yada) with the volume at 100 percent and no signal with USB, exposed the input produced a significant amount of noise.  Way Way more in my opinion than an ESS based DAC design should.  Also note this was NOT 60 HZ ground noise/ground loop.  It was more like a white noise.  

Insert the Intona USB Galvanic Isolator between my source and the Wyred4Sound, and voila!!  Even at FULL VOLUME, it was practically DEAD SILENT.  (The harshness I perceived also appeared to be gone)

No Audio Precision unit needed here to detect any resulting differences haha. 

It just worked.  Perhaps I could have spend more time fiddling with my source, cables, the DAC locations, power conditioning, etc etc.  

But the bottom line is there is no doubt that excess noise was coming into the DAC via the USB INPUT and passing through the analog audio output.   In spite of what ever kind of galvanic isolation was in the W4S DAC. 

 

The Intona when inserted just did the job as promised.  Never before and never since have I experienced such a dramatic difference from one single, simple change.  

So I will always keep an Intona USB Galvanic Isolator around lest I have need again .  I hope to never need again like that, because that was unacceptable performance for that class of DAC.