SPDIF vs USB

Posted by: ThatsNotMyNaim on 07 October 2016

After months and months of questioning the sound of my system I have finally realised that direct USB is not for me. I've had Naim DACs, Chord DACs, Mytek DACs and various others. All connected direct from USB using a Mac and also more recently an ultra low noise server. But never been able to enjoy my music the way I felt I should. Despite gradual improvements. 

Today a £150 Gustard U12 USB > SPDIF convertor turned up. I plonked it between the audio server (Innuos Zenith) and the Hugo. Using stock Hugo optical cable and a cheap Supra USB cable (The USB input cable makes no difference by the way). Despite USBs sounding very different direct to DACs.

Suddenly I am hearing actual music. Cohesive, rich, fluid, organic, natural, unforced, no treble glare, no shoutiness or edge. I don't know how so many dealers and people I spoken to have not been able to advise on this to this date. USB direct to DAC sounds robotic to me. After this discovery I have no idea why you would feed any other way.

I have a Chord Shawline digital Coax on order to improve things further hopefully. In place of the optical cable.

End goal for me now is an NDX with BNC / Coax to Hugo. Finally a resolution/clear goal that I am sure about.

If you are streaming from a computer and value music sounding like music, then ensure you try an SPDIF convertor of some type. This advice 6 months ago would of saved a lot of money and pain.

I do have a Regen/LPS on order but I can't see it having this effect. So will probably shipping these on quickly.

Winner.

Posted on: 11 October 2016 by Huge
fatcat posted:
Huge posted:

Jitter is most often a caused by temporal variation

But jitter is a temporal variation.

Selective quotation: Rendered meaningless due to the omission of the rest of the sentence and the context.

Posted on: 11 October 2016 by Huge
fatcat posted:

I'm open to consider all pulses.

My favorites are peas and soy beans.  

OK, that's also selective quotation: And also rendered meaningless due to the omission of the context.  

Posted on: 11 October 2016 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Some of the posts that have appeared do seem strange to me... I am not quite sure on the fascination of jitter per se with SPDIF or USB transports as the sample data is abstracted from the actual flow of data. The real issue in my opinion is clock modulation from system coupling through ground plane and Powerline modulation. Now typically a huge amount of effort is expended in maintains a suitable precision of the DAC clock, but ultimately there will be a degree of modulation. 

Also with analogue to digital and analogue processes errors occur at both ends, both timing errors (jitter) and reconstruction errors (DSP arithmetic and precision error). This of course why in the limit AtoD and DtoA processes are lossy.. I think as Huge said errors are added in both parts...in fact the AES had an interesting article of the chaining of digital errors in typical consumer recording and replay setups... and how such errors cumulatively degrade a hidefinition signal.... but you need to maintain the medium in a high resolution format, albeit the overeall audio signal recovery is effectively of a lesser resolution....  we tend to just focus on the end of the chain in hifi circles.

Simon

Posted on: 11 October 2016 by Huge

Simon, I don't think my like of peas and soybeans is strange at all!  

Posted on: 11 October 2016 by Simon-in-Suffolk