SPDIF vs USB

I am sure you've heard or read (even on this forum) about a dedicated computer in a little box by Sonore  - the microRendu which has good USB. For sure when set up right, it improves over my HP 8440 laptop direct USB to DAC-V1. I am powering it with a TP 7 too, iFi 9V power on the TP-Link switch and using a mix of CAT 5e (router-switch)/CAT 6 (everywhere else) and digging it (CAT 6 alone resulted in too 'dry' a sound for some reason or another)!

I did not have the mR when I ran a Hugo - but its USB never really impressed as it's strong point, though it did get better with the Regen. It was  better on coax SPDIF.

Always worth trying these things out to see what works best for you. Not all USB sources are equal and the same can be said for USB inputs. Glad you've found a solution that works for you though 

James

What you have done by using an optical cable is to electrically isolate your Hugo from the noise of your source. I suspect this accounts for the improvement. make sure your playback is bit perfect and you should be in business.

I seem to remember replying to another post of yours recommending you try optical and also recommened a fantatic but inexpensive sys concept optical cable guaranteed to work at higher rates, unlike the stock cable.

coax will take you back to square one with a hugo as it will introduce noise and therefore sound worse than optical. hugo has no galvanic isolation so optical is best.

Brilliant posted:

I am sure you've heard or read (even on this forum) about a dedicated computer in a little box by Sonore  - the microRendu which has good USB. For sure when set up right, it improves over my HP 8440 laptop direct USB to DAC-V1. I am powering it with a TP 7 too, iFi 9V power on the TP-Link switch and using a mix of CAT 5e (router-switch)/CAT 6 (everywhere else) and digging it (CAT 6 alone resulted in too 'dry' a sound for some reason or another)!

I did not have the mR when I ran a Hugo - but its USB never really impressed as it's strong point, though it did get better with the Regen. It was  better on coax SPDIF.

Where did you go after Hugo?

Cheers

Adam

Halloween Man posted:

What you have done by using an optical cable is to electrically isolate your Hugo from the noise of your source. I suspect this accounts for the improvement. make sure your playback is bit perfect and you should be in business.

I seem to remember replying to another post of yours recommending you try optical and also recommened a fantatic but inexpensive sys concept optical cable guaranteed to work at higher rates, unlike the stock cable.

coax will take you back to square one with a hugo as it will introduce noise and therefore sound worse than optical. hugo has no galvanic isolation so optical is best.

Hi yes you did to be fair.

I've only just got the Gustard so not had a chance yet to look at better optical cables.

Im only playing CD quality WAVs - would the upgraded optical cable be worth while in this instance?

I have a pair of B&W MM1 actives at my computer desk... i listened to these for years while.living at home. Since moving and buying this proper system, i've found it hard to get near them for musicality and feeling - i know that sounds nuts. But get an imac/pc and a pair and plug them in and sit and listen. Not as refined but they sound like music.

Today, with the Gustard between the Zenith and the Hugo I have 'magical', natural sound for the first time. I used to get up and dance around, not done that for a long time. Today I am again. I feel the vibes of the melodies again. It just feels right again.

SPDIF breaking the USB/electrical seems to be a game changer. I went back to a very high quality USB cable and it wasn't the same. Over egged and accentuated.

Bare it mind I use an Zenith audio server too which was a vast improvement over a noisy Mac (and cost a decent amount). By a country mile it sounded better. The Zenith + SPDIF is another level.

I went back to the Mac too, just for a check in. Lost it all again.

Can't wait to see what the Regen/LPS does. If not the same as this I'm going to do SPDIF convertor trials. Including an NDX from my Zenith.

One thing that strikes me about my journey so far is; A lot of stuff sounds bigger, wider, fatter, more separate, more 'air', etc etc but most of the time it's tosh. Finding naturalness and togetherness is the hardest thing.

My only gripe now is I need a bit more beef. My Nait XS2 isn't perhaps up to that and my 'exotic cap' PSU probably doesn't help (makes things thinner). 

So I think a SN2 is on the cards next year. Need a little more presence and scale. The tone is super now.

I think the sys concept is worth purchasing, it's such a low cost cable and in theory it should reduce jitter and therefore sq. However, Hugo manages jitter anyway so it's debatable that you will hear any difference at lower sample rates. The stock cable I had broke up at higher sample rates.

my own view is that feeding the Hugo a bit perfect signal using a high quality optical cable is all you need and you're done. Don't worry too much about all these other boxes. I can imagine the Hugo, naim amp, and proac speakers you have sounding very good indeed. I can vouch for the sn2 being a superb integrated amp, I used to have one before I went the active speakers route.

Halloween Man posted:

I think the sys concept is worth purchasing, it's such a low cost cable and in theory it should reduce jitter and therefore sq. However, Hugo manages jitter anyway so it's debatable that you will hear any difference at lower sample rates. The stock cable I had broke up at higher sample rates.

my own view is that feeding the Hugo a bit perfect signal using a high quality optical cable is all you need and you're done. Don't worry too much about all these other boxes. I can imagine the Hugo, naim amp, and proac speakers you have sounding very good indeed. I can vouch for the sn2 being a superb integrated amp, I used to have one before I went the active speakers route.

I'll give it a go. It's like a hifi shop round here anyway! Might as well. I'm close to shutting up shop after the latest development.

I must say I am utterly gobsmacked at the sound quality hike now.

The only thing I can gripe at is sheer power. I need a bit more to be fully satisfied. But that bit is easier than the painful journey so far.

Guys, the Hugo like most DACs these days does not use the transport clock to directly drive the sample clock... so sample rate jitter is entirely down to the accuracy of theDAC clock. I think transport DAC jitter was more an issue in the 80s and 90s.

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

This of course the same that I have heard and measured with Ethernet interframe timing from NAS's and carrier clocks from network switches.

Back to USB as used in 'asynchronous audio' mode, I am quite suprised here as deliberately the balanced serial pair (where it is a half duplex mode), is put out of balance to signal the sender such as to increase or decrease the frame rate.. this happens after every frame or other regular time period  and will almost certainly cause a electromagnetic field pulse that will couple some where... this is not what you want with high quality audio components where cross coupling could occur. I do wonder if this one of the reasons is why it appears currently Naim are not pursuing USB audio with their latest devices.

It does seem odd for naim not to offer asynchronous USB in its new products. I'd love to know the reason why.

I've just seen the new Uniti Core. Comes with on SPDIF. I'm guessing that says a lot about USB. Having been on this journey I can see why USB is flawed.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

Simon.

It’s the other way around, noise produced in the transport manifests itself as jitter. Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise.

 I think I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

The async. USB input on the V1 DAC is very good, better than the spdif inputs to my old ears.

In the end it's all down to how these various inputs sound, and it's nice to have the choice.

fatcat posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

Simon.

It’s the other way around, noise produced in the transport manifests itself as jitter. Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise.

 I think I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

Simon, Fatcat,

These two effects are, in some ways, two sides of the same coin...

Noise in the output signal of the transport, and in the digital processing circuitry appears as jitter when viewed in the digital domain (but remains as noise when viewed in the analogue domain) and this acts in addition to the jitter that's already there due to other causes.  Reclocking substantially reduces the jitter (in the digital domain).  However, the noise in the signal and the digital processing circuitry, and the sidebands of the remaining clock jitter will still be coupled to other parts of the circuitry (to some extent) and influence it in other ways (such as those Simon describes); indeed this can appear as jitter by being added into the timings of the digital signal(s). 

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

Huge posted:

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

No.

"Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."

The effect caused by the noise is jitter. It reduces (probably more accurate than eliminates) jitter.

fatcat posted:

Huge posted:

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

No.

"Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."

The effect caused by the noise is jitter. It reduces (probably more accurate than eliminates) jitter.

"The effect caused by the noise is jitter." is a very bold statement.

Most people who have worked with analogue or mixed mode electronics would vehemently disagree with that.  Jitter is but one of several effects.

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

Huge posted:

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

No.

"Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."

The effect caused by the noise is jitter. It reduces (probably more accurate than eliminates) jitter.

"The effect caused by the noise is jitter." is a very bold statement.

Most people who have worked with analogue or mixed mode electronics would vehemently disagree with that.  Jitter is but one of several effects.

Jitter is but one of several effects.

But. If jitter is one of several effects of noise, it must be an effect of noise.

fatcat posted:

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

Huge posted:

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

No.

"Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."

The effect caused by the noise is jitter. It reduces (probably more accurate than eliminates) jitter.

"The effect caused by the noise is jitter." is a very bold statement.

Most people who have worked with analogue or mixed mode electronics would vehemently disagree with that.  Jitter is but one of several effects.

Jitter is but one of several effects.

But. If jitter is one of several effects of noise, it must be an effect of noise.

Your statement was "The effect caused by the noise is jitter." that is phrased as exclusive; denying all other possibilities and effects.

Did you actually mean "An effect caused by the noise is jitter."; in which case I would agree, it's but one of several effects.

Frank F posted:

The problem with Hugo is that it uses micro usb input and the supplied usb cable is crap as are most usb micro to usb cables.  I found that SQ dramatically improved using a proper, high quality usb A to usb B cable with an adaptor.

Case solved?

FF

Tried that. Still sounded brittle and computerised compared to SPDIF which is a revelation.

Don't forget that, unlike S/PDif,  USB was never designed as a real-time protocol and was never designed for audio use.  Asynchronous mode USB (actually isosynchronous mode) is a adaption to work around the limitations inherent in the USB base protocols.  As the limitations are fundamental to the basic operational mode of USB, the workaround may be fairly successful, but can never be entirely complete.

Despite this a particularly well implemented USB interface can match S/PDif, but it takes a lot of design and development work to achieve this, and even then it can still depend on the USB controller into which the (hopefully well designed) audio client device is plugged!

Huge posted:

Your statement was "The effect caused by the noise is jitter." that is phrased as exclusive; denying all other possibilities and effects.

Did you actually mean "An effect caused by the noise is jitter."; in which case I would agree, it's but one of several effects.

Huge

Taking the statement in isolation, perhaps you are correct. Maybe.

 But if the statement is taken in context with the preceding posts, both by myself and  Simon-in-Suffolk you are incorrect. Possibly.

 Next time I post and I suspect there is the slightest possibility you may read it, I’ll send a draft copy to my lawyer in Philadelphia to give the once over.

fatcat posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

Simon.

It’s the other way around, noise produced in the transport manifests itself as jitter. Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise.

 I think I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

Fatcat, not sure I follow what you are trying to say.. I am talking about the SPDIF framing clock, was traditionally used to drive the DAC clock.. hence why all the talk traditionally in hifi circles about jitter from SPDIF sources. However these days DAC clocks have their own clocks and so the transport jitter is isolated. However system coupling means noise from say the transport framing clock can modulate and intermodulation other clocks .. which can include adding digital noise... good old system theory and DSP practice ..  

Simon

Huge posted:

fatcat posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

Simon.

It’s the other way around, noise produced in the transport manifests itself as jitter. Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise.

 I think I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

Simon, Fatcat,

These two effects are, in some ways, two sides of the same coin...

Noise in the output signal of the transport, and in the digital processing circuitry appears as jitter when viewed in the digital domain (but remains as noise when viewed in the analogue domain) and this acts in addition to the jitter that's already there due to other causes.  Reclocking substantially reduces the jitter (in the digital domain).  However, the noise in the signal and the digital processing circuitry, and the sidebands of the remaining clock jitter will still be coupled to other parts of the circuitry (to some extent) and influence it in other ways (such as those Simon describes); indeed this can appear as jitter by being added into the timings of the digital signal(s). 

Fatcat, rather than "Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise."  did you mean: Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect causing the noise.

Indeed, however clock jitter will have a distribution around the clock frequency.. true noise will be randomly distributed... so they are slightly different.. but I think as you say, the key consideration is cross system coupling... so extracting the sample frames from the SPDIF transport and building a new serial stream with a new clock is kind of irrelevant... and if one was to take SPDIF in its raw state it would be very bursty and jittery.. because the samples are encapsulated and framed within packets by the SPDIF transport protocol.

Of course another consideration is that oversampling in the replay reduces the jitter from the source .. I love this maths... as the energy from the jitter in the source is a constant, by oversampling on replay and filtering the higher frequencies, one is reducing the jitter power and therefore reducing the jitter from the source..  

Simon

Huge posted:

Don't forget that, unlike S/PDif,  USB was never designed as a real-time protocol and was never designed for audio use.  Asynchronous mode USB (actually isosynchronous mode) is a adaption to work around the limitations inherent in the USB base protocols.  As the limitations are fundamental to the basic operational mode of USB, the workaround may be fairly successful, but can never be entirely complete.

Despite this a particularly well implemented USB interface can match S/PDif, but it takes a lot of design and development work to achieve this, and even then it can still depend on the USB controller into which the (hopefully well designed) audio client device is plugged!

The reply to why asynchronous USB is not available on the new Uniti range is alluded to by a response by Phil Harris in of the 'new Uniti' threads.

This is also the reason why the V1 sounds excellent via USB, even compared to its galvanically jsolated SPDIFs - Naim has made use of  Audiphilleo's USB tech to get an impressive USB implementation.  

For context, the Audiiphiileo USB to SPDIF converters' retail cost is about 75% the cost of the V1 and 60% of the cost of the Core- go figure ;-)

ive only read phil harris stating its not in the first phase functionality, have i missed something?

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

fatcat posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

However, as I believe I might have said a few times, cross system coupling means transport clock jitter will manifest itself as noise in connected circuitry. This noise can modulate digital clocks or analogue ground planes etc.. it will be incredibly low level, but typically the perturbations caused I understand our brains are most sensitive to.

Simon.

It’s the other way around, noise produced in the transport manifests itself as jitter. Reclocking doesn’t eliminate the noise, it eliminates the effect caused by the noise.

 I think I’ve mentioned this a few times before.

Fatcat, not sure I follow what you are trying to say..

Noise in the output signal of the transport, and in the digital processing circuitry appears as jitter when viewed in the digital domain (but remains as noise when viewed in the analogue domain) and this acts in addition to the jitter that's already there due to other causes.  Reclocking substantially reduces the jitter (in the digital domain).  However, the noise in the signal and the digital processing circuitry, and the sidebands of the remaining clock jitter will still be coupled to other parts of the circuitry (to some extent).