USB Drives that DO NOT Work with DAC

We should also include ones that work but sound good...

Maybe in a different thread.... that would be great info.

They all sound good to me.....

After several format/reformat cycles, I could not find any which do not work.
Older lower capacity sticks ( below 1 GB) sometimes require more than one reformatting. Modern, higher capacity sticks ( 8 or 16 GBs ) always works straight out of the box or after one reformatting to FAT32.

The old sticks can not handle 384 kHz / 24 bit files reliably ( I have some, upconverted from 192k/24 bit live recordings). The new, higher capacity, faster sticks have no problem with it. You can download few 352.8 kHz/24 bit .wav (DXD) files from 2L's website (http://www.2l.no/) to test.

My favorite is the Korean Memorette Dual Gold. It is very fast, very reliable and (stone me ) sounds good, (probably better) than others.



I generally can say, that those sticks with golden trace for the power sounds a bit different than the traditional USB sticks. Usually these new, smaller sticks are using the so called Chip-On-Board technology, so there is a chance that somehow it can make a difference. Somehow and can. Or not. Or I am fooled

Haha. great stuff. Gold plated Usb sticks hit the audiofool.

Fools gold....

quote:

Originally posted by ferenc:
After several format/reformat cycles, I could not find any which do not work.
Older lower capacity sticks ( below 1 GB) sometimes require more than one reformatting. Modern, higher capacity sticks ( 8 or 16 GBs ) always works straight out of the box or after one reformatting to FAT32.

The old sticks can not handle 384 kHz / 24 bit files reliably ( I have some, upconverted from 192k/24 bit live recordings). The new, higher capacity, faster sticks have no problem with it. You can download few 352.8 kHz/24 bit .wav (DXD) files from 2L's website (http://www.2l.no/) to test.

My favorite is the Korean Memorette Dual Gold. It is very fast, very reliable and (stone me ) sounds good, (probably better) than others.



I generally can say, that those sticks with golden trace for the power sounds a bit different than the traditional USB sticks. Usually these new, smaller sticks are using the so called Chip-On-Board technology, so there is a chance that somehow it can make a difference. Somehow and can. Or not. Or I am fooled

I bought one of these on your recommendation Ferenc, and indeed it works flawlessly and sounds very good. It is also very compact in size which suits me very in my setup.

(Relatively) cheap and promply delivered.

I can recommend this one!!

-
aleg

quote:

I bought one of these on your recommendation Ferenc, and indeed it works flawlessly and sounds very good. It is also very compact in size which suits me very in my setup.

Where to buy?

I recommend kingston sticks, 4 quid on amazon for 4 giggers.

sadly they are not gold plated so the data misses every 4 drum beat, but I am sure you will all get used to it.

p.s. hows people getting on with their gold plated USB leads? We must ask Apple to create a gold plated mac mini then you can all sit their jacking off to the music.

garyi,

funny...NOT.

I am only playing. You have to see the amusing side really. Extolling the virtues of a gold plated USB stick.

IMagine your mate coming round, 'Hey Jack check out my usb stick it plays music'

'Cool lets see, erm how do you know which track you are on'

'um, yea but its gold plated see!'

I really think the nDac should be implemented with the use of the SPDIF and a proper user interface in the form of your computer, the usb stick thing is very amusing, gold plated is just the icing for me. haha.

Picking up on Patrick's initial post and in contradiction to garyi's findings, I can not get a Kingston 1GB or Kingston 4GB stick to consistently work, even with numerous reformats.

The sticks were bought from Amazon about 3 or 4 years ago. They work fine on computers and on my cheapo ghetto-blaster with USB input.

I guess my naim DAC is a bit choosey: "They don't like it up 'em!".

quote:

I really think the nDac should be implemented with the use of the SPDIF and a proper user interface in the form of your computer, the usb stick thing is very amusing, gold plated is just the icing for me. haha.

I agree with you with the SPDIF...BUT boy oh boy, playing wav-files from any USB-stick in my nDAC is really really wonderful...and technically, you are not right.
The nDAC´s USB-section is really high-end-stuff.

I have some wav-files on 24bit/192khz and the sound is just plainly WONDERFUL.

No real need to "belittle" the USB-input.

I just KNEW this thread was a bad idea. Oh well.

I have one that works. It is nice and small and green. So I guess I dont care.

quote:

Originally posted by Thorsten_Lux:

quote:

I bought one of these on your recommendation Ferenc, and indeed it works flawlessly and sounds very good. It is also very compact in size which suits me very in my setup.

Where to buy?

EBay from letsgo.buyitnow. the version shown is the Dual Gold

EDIT:
You're so strict Richard

Thorsten, search for the store from "letsgo.buyitnow" or search on "Dual Gold" or Memorette USB.

-
aleg

guess memory sticks are taking place of expensive cables,plugs and sockets

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
I recommend kingston sticks, 4 quid on amazon for 4 giggers.

sadly they are not gold plated so the data misses every 4 drum beat, but I am sure you will all get used to it.

p.s. hows people getting on with their gold plated USB leads? We must ask Apple to create a gold plated mac mini then you can all sit their jacking off to the music.

I can outdo that. My optical Toslink lead has gold plated plugs, ffs! They were featured on the package as conferring some sort of benefit! It was an inexpensive lead anyway, so I didn't mind. The amusement alone was worth the small extra cost.

You would imagine in this application a reflective surface might well be detrimental. But hey its gold!

everything about a toslink cable is reflective. It's how it works.

quote:

Originally posted by rich46:
guess memory sticks are taking place of expensive cables,plugs and sockets

Except those gold sticks have roughly the same price as the traditional sticks... I did not see anybody to mention any expensive stick, so you guys are on a completely wrong track.

quote:

Originally posted by garyi:
I am only playing. You have to see the amusing side really. Extolling the virtues of a gold plated USB stick.

IMagine your mate coming round, 'Hey Jack check out my usb stick it plays music'

'Cool lets see, erm how do you know which track you are on'

'um, yea but its gold plated see!'

I really think the nDac should be implemented with the use of the SPDIF and a proper user interface in the form of your computer, the usb stick thing is very amusing, gold plated is just the icing for me. haha.

There are all sorts of other technologies than SPDIF which can result better transmission between a digital (file) source and a DAC, like I2S, like MSBNetwork, EuCon, and so on. One of them can be the direct reading the data from the storage to the buffer without any protocol. This is why USB sticks are so good idea.

If you would be more interested to learn something new and clever, than to make fun, you could realize, that all those gold traced USB sticks are smaller, lighter than the traditional ones. I did not do any extensive research yet, but usually the gold USB sticks are manufactured with a so called Chip On Board technology, which is generally let the manufacturers make much smaller USB sticks. This is what an edu study said about it:

Chip-on-board (COB) technology involves mount- ing bare dies directly on a substrate without the need for the component’s package. Eliminating the compo- nent package reduces the required substrate area and assembly weight and removes one entire level of inter- connects. The saving in area can be as much as 90% in some cases. Using conventional printed wiring boards (PWBs) and standard wire bonding technology, COB technology can yield a factor of at least 10 in weight and volume saving... ... In terms of thermal management, COB devices offer a shorter thermal resistance path than their packaged counterparts, and their shorter signal paths also en- hance circuit performance.

Miniaturization can be good against RF noise for example and since the USB sticks using 5V DC power I can imagine that the shorter powering path can have an effect on the jitter which is caused by the power supply fluctuation and the modulation noise. This is one of the reasons why an USB cable can have an influence on the sound and I think it is one of the reason why the modern, smaller, faster USB sticks can be different. It just happens that all the modern, smaller, new technology USB sticks are gold plated. I did not see any which is not. So there is a good reason probably behind it.

We are (and the manufacturers too) learning the details of the file-based playing. 5 years ago almost nobody knew in hifi circles and believe there is a difference between the different player software and the operating systems have a serious influence how the played files sound. Pro audio editing software developers knew it years ago.

As everybody learns the details of the file-based music listening nowadays, be prepared for surprises.

Ferenc as long as people involved love hifi you can be sure of all them sound differences. Its the one constant of this hobby. Its just such a shame its passed into the computing domain.

It was going to be so sweet, naim would produce the means to hear the music, the bit they have always done best and all customers had to do was hook up a computer.

Patirck although I agree that an SPDIF cable is a glass reflecting surface, I do wonder at each end with a crappy gold reflection if there might be some unwanted reflections, seems unlikely but could be more of a risk than traditional black connectors.