Naim DAC optimal connection

To clarify the USB input on the dac cannot except a usb out from the mac, so by USB I guess you mean USB DAC. Plenty are available but if I were you I would start out with a simple SPDIF cable to plug into the audio output on the mac and start from there, at least that way it costs you £3 instead of £100 and you can 'upgrade' from that point into USB DAC territory if the sound is not to your liking.

Thanks for the clarification Gary. I understand the optical out from the macbook is very high jitter. I was wondering if the Naim can handle that, or I would need to get a USB to SPDIF converter.

Well your understanding may simply be based on peopls opinions, I simply don't know.

The mac os is very carefully optimised to its hardware which is quite unique in the world of computers, so I would expect of the computer audio digital outputs out there it would be one of the better ones.

However the DAC by naim will no doubt be able to handle what is thrown at it by a mac/pc/transport and as I said pervious 3 quid is not a lot of money to loose to at least get a feel for the sound thats possible.

Then you can purchase a USB dac and then waste lots of money on ammara and the likes. Its all good fun!

Hello, just speaking from experience. When I connected via optical on the macbook to the Chord QBD76, it was the lowest performing connection.

I will probably just go straight to a USB to SPDIF converter with the Naim.

The MacBook Pro optical output does indeed have high jitter (relatively) 
This has been verified by measurement.

I use a MF VLink USB/S-PDIF and would be surprised if there is a different converter that would improve the sound to my ears. I also have tried a hiFace and INT202 (which uses Firewire), both are very good, but I marginally prefer the VLink. All of these reduce jitter.

A good transport from Denon, Pioneer or a converted CDX2 will all have much lower jitter than a Mac's optical output. The Naim DAC sounds different from your Chord and I prefer it, but I would not say it is better, as both are excellent if different devices. Theoretically I'd expect BT to give the best results between a Mac and your Chord DAC, but only heard this with a Chordette Gem.  

All the best, Guy  

The Naim DAC is buffering all inputs into a temporary memory buffer, and then reclock the data to present it to the DAC chips. But there's no user-discernable delay before the music is played, you won't ever have to wait again until a memory buffer is almost full before it actualy start to play music, if you know what I mean.

So yes, there's a take-no-prisoners attitude regarding Jitter with the Naim DAC... But the best countermeasures against Jitter is one that you don't have to use, so make yourself sure you're doing everything possible to diminish it at the data source.

BTW, have my congrats for your new DAC.

Bye.

Thank you Guy and Stoik. Your recommendations are what I thought would be the best way to go.

The Chord also reclocks the signal and drops into a buffer, but I still had to feed it a low jitter source. But yes, waiting for the track to start is something I got used to, for better or worse.

Hi guy could you point me at the data for the jitter measurements, would be interested to read.

Hi Gary

There is an article in Stereophile about the Airport Express digital output that measures jitter (please click here) at 2,400 ps, which is much higher than most dedicated audio devices: the latest Denon transports are less than 10 ps. I think it was either HiFi News or HiFi World that measured the MacBook Pro (but I don't think the article is freely available on line; HFW is on line, but you have to pay a subscription) - however, I remember the measurements as being of the same order as those in Stereophile, so suspect the chip used is common or similar. That said, the optical output on my Apple Music Server is a dedicated one rather multi-purpose as on the MBP, but still seems a bit down in SQ terms compared with the VLink.  

Another MacBook Pro measurement was done by 6Moons and John reported it to be over 1000 ps (please click here)

I can connect my MacBook optically and have done so, but I can hear an improvement (at least that is my perception) using the MF VLink to my Naim DAC in my main system - the VLink is not very expensive (I paid £85) and you can pay a lot more for a dedicated convertor.

At the moment I'm using the MF to connect my Apple Music Server (PowerMac Dual G5 Leopard) to my UQ. I use a Belkin USB cable and Chord Optical Cable from the VLink to the UQ (I didn't hear any improvement using a Coaxial cable). 

Whether all this jitter stuff is a SQ determining factor I don't know, but using low jitter devices does seem beneficial to me.

All the best, Guy 

The nDac should deal with any jitter at least the adblurb says that it should.

Tog

Hi guido, so in conlusion one guy on the 6 moons site did one test and got a result?

We are not talking about airport express in this case.

Actually, I have not seen any claim by Naim in any adblurb, that nDAC should deal with ANY jitter.

Hello Guido,

> There is an article in Stereophile about the Airport Express digital output that measures jitter
> (please click here) at 2,400 ps,
To stop from drawing the wrong conclusions:
a) 2400ps is the measured jitter of the analog output
b) the digital output jitter is 258ps.

Please be aware that these measurements are the old Airport Express not the actual one.

jerry

That's interesting that you preferred the USB stick over the V-Link. Which brand do you like?

In regards to the V-Link, it's probably not your imagination. With the Chord, there was such a big difference going through an Off Ramp 3 converter, versus toslink from the macbook. In fact, the only way to get the full potential of the Chord was through a low jitter usb converter.

I can't tell you what jitter measurements any of these devices have, but into the Naim DAC in my system I have used:

1. Airport Express with Chord Optichord
2. Mac Mini Optical Out with Optichord
3. hiFace with Naim DC1
4. Halide Bridge

The Airport Express and Mac Mini optical out sounded similar (and very good) but the hiFace improved things a lot, producing a clearer, more detailed and controlled sound. The Halide Bridge I thought was a step up from the hiFace as well. I have just received a Kenny modified hiFace which I will be testing in the system shortly.

This is all just my opinion, of course, but I also listened to a few different options through a 500 system (Naim DAC with 555PS, 552, 500, Supercaps, hiLine, powerlines and NBLs). A MacBook Pro optical out was vastly improved by the addition of the hiFace and then further by the Halide Bridge, and these were then substantially beaten by the digital out from HDX SSD. In the more revealing system these differences were instantly obvious but they were still present to a lesser degree in my more modest setup.

I don't have any technical explanation for this but it is what I (and the others present) heard.

Hope that's helpful in some way.

Another vote for the Halide Bridge. A step up from the toslink optical from my Mini into my SuperNait.

Ben G, I looking forward to knowing your impressions with the JKenny hiface, which one are you going to try, Mk1 or Mk2?

It is the Mk 2. Have been trying it out for the last couple of days. It's a neat idea - it is powered by battery but with a charger built in, so you just flick a switch to move between charging mode and playing mode. This seems to bring sonic benefits as my impression is that it is another step up from the Halide Bridge. Not a massive difference, but an improvement nonetheless.

Hi Goldfinch -

Am also using the RME 9632 card, so if you do this comparison, I would be very interested to read your results!

I'm using a custom made DB9-to-BNC cable to make the connection to the Naim DAC.  Am curious -- what are you using?  

Also, am not as convinced as you are that async USB is the way forward.    I think Naim made a pretty convincing case for avoiding USB altogether.  In addition, I am now also using an "adaptive" USB dac/headphone amp -- the Centrance DacPort -- and it is a very impressive little device!   With volume on full, I have no problem using it as a line source!  I agree that what is "optimal" is hard to know, but at least we have a lot of options!

Thanks!

Hook

Hi Hook! I already knew you are one of the very few in this forum with this wonderful setup ,

 I have been with W7-Jriver-RME- for some time now and I just feel curious about the great reviews the Jkenny hiface is receiving...  

I also use a RedCo custom cable. This is not an "audiophile" digital cable so this also could be another way of improving the RME performance. I did experiment in the past with coax cables in different transports (Denon DVD-3930 and a M-Audio 192 pci card) and I couldn't find any argument for expending much money on them. Not sure if it would be the same with the RME though,

Asynch USB seems to be becoming the standard way of "digital link" between computers and dac, a least there is a growing number of these out there, 
I also have doubts about USB potential from an audiophile point of view but after all Naim DAC is actually using USB for memory sticks!, and besides Naim DAC usb port is usually used as a performance transport benchmark. Maybe playing wav (or now even flac) tracks is not the "optimal"( neither in performance nor in convenience) but it sounds pretty good to my ears and at least as good as my current PC setting.

I am glad to hear this. Do other people share the same opinion?

ASenna04