Recommendation for firewire-S/PDIF converter

Posted by: mipi on 20 January 2011

Hi,
could anybody recommend a firewire to S/PDIF converter that I could use to connect my Mac Mini to a Naim DAC? The price shouldn't exceed 400 EUR / 300 GBP.
Thanks, mipi

P.S: As there doesn't seem to be a search function I was not able to search for older topics that cover the same question already. Sorry.
Posted on: 24 January 2011 by Hot Rats
I am using M2Tech Evo. I connect to the DAC using BNC. The Evo was a significant upgrade over M2Tech's Hiface.

If you hear the Evo, make sure that you hear it with the rechargeable lithium battery or a quality power supply, not a £10 job from your local electronics store. I have a cheap power supply and it really degrades the sound quality. I'm waiting for Paul Hynes to deliver me an SR3-09 power supply.
Posted on: 01 February 2012 by NickSeattle

Not much talk of FireWire on the forum.  Don't know how I missed this thread. 

 

I use an M-Audio FireWire Audiophile box, which, in addition to SPDIF in/out, provides its own A/D and DA converters.  So, it can do many things, including making surprisingly good digital recordings of some of my irreplaceable vinyl. 

 

IMO, it is pretty obvious that SPDIF out of the M-Audio into the nDAC is better than the M-Audio's integrated DAC; but this is an 8-year-old, inexpensive box.  It also sounds better than a cheap optical cable straight from my Mac Mini into the nDAC.  Gotta tray a better optical cable one day.

 

Other considerations for FireWire include:

Allows you to dedicate the USB bus to hard disk only
Lower latency, generally than USB

 

If I were in the market today, I would look at the M-Audio Profire, or maybe something from Apogee.

 

Let us know what you decide.

 

Regards,

 

Nick

Posted on: 01 February 2012 by NickSeattle

Just realized my resurrection offense.  I am answering a question not asked lately.  Sorry.  (Ironic, considering P.S. of OP, don't you think?)  

 

Still, I would be interested in having a discussion of things-FireWire.  

 

Thanks, all.

 

Nick

Posted on: 05 February 2012 by ferenc

Firewire is getting less and less attention from manufacturers, there are no new developments, as I see the Mytek 192 DSD/PCM USB/FW DAC was the last serious new development for pros and for high-end audio as well. Thunderbolt connected audio interfaces are just started to emerge, there were 3 of them shon at the latest NAMM show in USA and even Weiss shown new DAC Thundebolt connected at CES. Thunderbolt will be more practical then USB and FW, as it is actually the extension the PCIe bus of the computers, so probably less wrestling with drivers, bus timing, etc and of course offers huge bandwidth, which is not used yet, I wonder how much of it will be used ever. But from integration point of view it can be very simple to implement for manufacturers if a bit expensive at the moment, but it will change with time and the number oif successful impelemtations.

Posted on: 05 February 2012 by ferenc

One more thing, which is against new FW products. The available boards use mainly 32 bit software drivers, and it just makes impossible to properly use the product/interface board in 64 bit environment.

Posted on: 05 February 2012 by rich46
Originally Posted by mipi:
Seems that everything (DIN, BNC etc.) is better than RCA.

99% of manufacturers use rca  if it is better other manufacturers would have done it  years ago, lots used din in the 60s.   even naim went rca and guess sales went up

Posted on: 05 February 2012 by Massimo Bertola

I wouldn't be surprised if Thunderbolt-equipped DACs would appear relatively soon.

M.

Posted on: 26 November 2013 by star

am not technical enough at  this issue yet ,can i get helped '  am looking to add a dac/amp to my laptop to improve its sound quality ,how do io connect the dac to the laptop ? am lost with all these names ,spdif cable firewire to usb,halide desighn bridge ,thunderbolt, which the one it takes to get best use out of the setting ?