The 3TB Challenge

I find your premise offensive Likesmusic - you still haven't answered my question - were all other things equal - and without that you can not calibrate a response other than being a subjective assessment in an uncontrolled environment - sure it has value and merit - but not in the world of engineering  - perhaps you can suggest a different rationale for EMC and conducted noise.. I am afraid in electrical and computer engineering - truths and fact should be  far from shocking - its a case of managing it and mitigating it ... I have frequently posted the TI conducted Ethernet interfacing guide to mitigate EM noise issues on this forum - the same principles apply to USB - take a look its quite enlightening - other than USB isochronous transmission breaks the balanced data flow when adjusting the senders packetized data flow rate and so causes EM emissions.

If you want the Isoch USB spec you can download it from the USB.org - this is the industry portal for USB development and promotion

For a discussion on mitigating EM noise on balanced transmission including USB look here - very informative

https://product.tdk.com/en/pro...eemc_practice_02.pdf

Of couse the isochronous unbalancing pulses will cut across this -and effectively circumvent the balanced filtering.

But for where D+ and D- remain balanced here is the TI guide in minimising EM noise using USB

http://www.ti.com/sc/docs/apps...face/usb/emitest.pdf

Ethernet only ever uses balanced pair signaliing

Consumer SPDIF uses a single coax shielded unbalanced signal.

Simon

Likesmusic - I suggested Rob Watts was choosing his words carefully or stating a subjective assessment of preference for a given circumstance  - and in his listening test with his sources he may well have preferred the USB presentation with the TT - what were his transport sources? Was he using a Naim NDX for his SPDIF for example? - after all the major improvement with the TT was the USB ground or galvanic isolation as it was a weakness with the Hugo.

That is different to my assertion of the EM noise produced by the differing technologies and with all other things being equal may well affect the sound quality (proportionally to the noise produced). Rob Watts is very fastidious on noise - and so is Naim.

Simon, you said that "if you spoke to Rob Watt one to one away from brand associated social media .. the discussion would be somewhat different". That is a clear accusation that his statements in forums are untrue. You need to withdraw it and apologise, or put up the evidence.

Sorry you are putting words and thoughts onto me that I find personally offensive - I was talking about engineering matters. So I suggest you withdraw your accusation that I was calling Mr Watts a liar - or you go on my block list

S

I havent found that specific statement by Rob Watts - can you point me to it?

Meanwhile, on the head-fi forum he has said:

"...the other issue for the digital inputs is how much RF noise is injected (or created) within Hugo. RF noise inter modulates with the analogue parts, creating noise floor modulation, which makes it sound harder and brighter. This would account for the difference in sound of digital cables and sources. I prefer optical, as it normally sounds smoother and warmer, precisely because of this effect."

And this:

Rob Watts "Yes Qute and Hugo both share isochronous USB, so timing comes from the DAC, not the computer, so any sound quality differences is categorically not jitter. Your right, my explanation too is RF noise, as this is the only thing I can think of that can upset the sound, as it's not jitter and it is bit perfect (otherwise DoP simply would not work). Moreover, the SQ improvements sound exactly like reduced noise floor modulation due to lower RF noise - smoother sound with more body."

Yes. Look at post 510 and 536 on the 2Qute thread on the head fi forum.

Rob Watts says: "On 2 Qute the galvanically isolated USB does sound slightly better than Toslink, but it is very small difference."  and "The SQ difference is very small but the benefit is that the USB is driven from the clock on the FPGA, so source jitter is not an issue. With Toslink, the data is asynchronous (from the FPGA point of view) so is processed via the DPLL (digital phase lock loop). "

There are several other relevant posts, which you can find by searching that site. Your quote I believe dates back to the original  Hugo thread, but he has now improved the USB input on the 2Qute, TT and DAVE. 

Yes, i was indeed just thinking of the standard Hugo. And I've fixed the issue by using the Gustard u12 USB to spdif isolator/convertor.

Not being afflicted with upgrade-itiss I shall no doubt not hear TT or Dave, and will await their offspring in what I hope and trust will be 10 years or more time before Hugo even thinks of giving up the ghost (unless I win the lottery and navy spend £10-£20k or mso to have fun auditioning speakers...

Hi, yes most DACs use their own clocks now rather than relying on the transport clock to directly derive the DAC clock as in the early days of DACs and transport streams. I really don't think audio sample jitter enters into the equation. However the processing of the sample frames from the transport stream will cause a degree of powerline noise and EM interference. However careful layout and powersupplies will minimise this .. And we know that Naim like the Hugo have many decoupled powersupplies to minimise crosstalk... But it can't be removed entirely and my subjective listening assessment seem to suggest this.

Simon

Funny how a Melco post ended in a Hugo post......:-)

Bert, you are right, how did that happen?... Ahh Melco and not supporting SPDIF....

Melco post? I thought it was about mammoth storage capacity (greater than the Melco!)

True - but the Melco will bring the core storage on a different level and will even raise the bar significantly for the secondary storage......

I just pulled the trigger on the Melco. It will offer me in the first place 4TB direct storage which can be upgraded later with bigger disk, or via secondary storage. Now I am looking forward how it will improve the sound quality in my case.

Just received the Melco. Now the lengthy process of copying the data will start. In December I also then should receive the music server of the Melco which would also enable the WAV transcoding.

I will keep you updated on the experiences.

Thanks Bert I'm interested in this. 

So I promised to talk about the experiences on then Melco. First the moving of music has been a pain as I started wrongly by assuming that I quickly could move it through using a big stick 128GB, I have given this up as it created a management problem for me as I was also ripping and downloading music on the side. So now I created a clean backup of my old NAS and I wiped the Melco out and then now pushed the button for the exchange (close to 3TB - 82487 songs....). So will be interesting to see how long it will take to import....

Soundwise it has stayed a revelation. One has to keep in mind that I am still waiting for the own music server of Melco which also can do flac-Wav conversion on the fly, but the result so far is already a step up from Wav through the network. 

A good old example is the 192 albums of Oscar Peterson. Before I had the Melco I very much enjoyed them had a good sound, but with the Melco I now heard that these albums have a certain base background noise which I didn't hear before. So much more detail.

Tonality wise I would say that the tones are much more rounded very pleasant more natural sound. So I can't wait to get the music server and hear directly from the Melco with now Wav conversion.

for everybody this is a relatively cheap overall upgrade of your system. So absolutely recommended.

i will provide further updates going forward to talk about the Wav experience and what happens after a couple of weeks.

While now again listening to this album of Avashai Cohen which only is being played on pass through (so not from the hard disk from the Melco), the difference is already so big that one could say that it's almost a shame if you don't have a Melco to feed your NDS...