Summit

I have never said that i2s travel on USB or S/PDIF, I have stated the opposite! It is you that is confusing things, please read my post again. I wrote “With my former DAC the I2S over LVDS was better sounding than: I2S over LAN, USB, S/PDIF and AES/EBU.” There is no standard for I2S over LVDS and I and many other have used a HDMI cable with HDMI connectors to pass the balanced I2S LVDS signal. It is not a HDMI protocol that is used and the same with the unbalanced I2S that is transmitted over a LAN cable.

What doesn’t exist?

Both Head-fi and SBAF have moderators that overseers the whole forum, so I think it’s possible if we have clear stated ground rules. I don’t imagine that all the people that doesn’t spend all their time on this forum would understand OP moderation and all the different rules. Also with OP moderators I predict that we would get many many threads on the very same topics, because someone doesn’t want to post in a particular thread there the OP is X and someone else doesn’t like OP Z so he/she starting a third thread. Person Z get upset because person X have post OT posts in his thread and for revenges does the same in the nemesis thread. Is that really what we want? Isn’t it better to start at the root of the problem: that we need to define clearly stated ground rules on how to behave and what’s okay and not to write?

One of the great thing (in the developed part of the world at least) is that we can chose between a lots of things. Some of our choices can have some negative external effects, while others only the person that uses the stuff will notice. Which type of digital protocol or cables someone want to use is a good example of then a personal choice is just a personal choice that won’t inflict harmfully on other people or their possibility to make their own choices. I have some experience with I2S, both as an I2S signal and as I2S over LVDS. With my former DAC the I2S over LVDS was better sounding than: I2S over LAN, USB, S/PDIF and AES/EBU. The point I like to make is that no matter which digital protocol you/we chose the implementation of the design is of very big importance for the outcome, and what’s best with one DAC is not necessarily the best with another DAC or audio system. I don’t have the possibility to choose I2S on the DAC I now use so I can’t say if it would sounding better or worse than USB or SPDIF. But even if I had the option I wouldn’t really know if it was because I2S is truly better than USB (direct) per se, or if it’s the extra filtering stage which a good DDC with its own LPS provides, that make it sound better to me. To clarify the last sentence it is maybe good to know that I now use a LAN renderer with USB out that feed a DDC with S/PDIF out to my DAC that has GI on all its inputs.

Yes it’s like then many people in the audio “business” started to get interested in headphones and started talking about Personal audio instead of just saying listen to headphones, thankfully the use of that is in decline. I can’t help it but what is audiophile style? Maybe it’s something like Gangnam style played thru a luxurious looking audiophile stereo 😃?

I see. I’m not really considering getting two more boxes and PSUs for them just to get fibre, I already have too many boxes.

“Throw away your decrapifiers, regenerators, isolators, magic boxes, and all the rest of those USB band-aids,” Mike Moffat, Schiit’s Co-Founder said. “You don’t need them with our Gen 5 USB input.” http://www.schiit.com/news/news/usb-solved-introducing-gen-5-and-eitr http://www.schiit.com/products/gen-5-usb

No of course not, but we never know before then a tread will get messed up, do we? I believe in clearly defined and well-known rules. Which is desirable anyway or we will likely get 100s of different rules set by different OPs.

Is it possible to get my ultraRenu modified to an opticalRendu for a reasonable cost, if I wanted it?

I’m against OP moderating because not everyone can and want to monitor treads they have started 24/7 or even every day. That will probably leave us only with the usual suspect that doesn’t seems to have anything else to do all days ?. To me it is the diversity of people from all around the world that share knowledge, experience and interest in computer audio and good music that is the strength of this forum. So the question is how much help does Chris really need to keep CA going successfully? The sponsor section is already monitored and the music section doesn’t need to be supervised much or at all, so we have the equipment forums that need some supervision. Among the equipment forums I would say that the general forum is the one that is toughest to moderate and the one that most people post in. Maybe we wouldn’t need more moderators if the rules was a tiny bit more clearly defined and well-known by all members? Perhaps we can even have different rules for different sections of CA, so that we can chose levels of set rules along with theme and topic?

Upstream includes all the gears there the data or the digital audio signal is passing through before the DAC. So PC, renderer, server, cables, switches and their PSUs. IMO

Yep I agree.

I don’t think it’s so much about if we need moderators as to which type of moderators we want. Many people is able to insult and mocking without ever use any offensive words or descend to direct personal attacks per se. But still we know what there intension really was, don’t we? Trolling is not to state another opinion, it’s the intentions to derail a discussion that make him or her a troll. I think that a good moderator need to be able to read between the lines of what is actually written and also to see patterns. To do that he/she would need to read a lot and “get to know” the members and their way of expressing themselves. PS. Nice to see back at CA @ Audiophile Neuroscience

Happy New Year! Let us continue this discussion about measurements, sound quality and what make one gear or system sound good while not another next year.