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A: I am in the process of designing and building my own music server and have since learned about an entire segment of hifi where this USB to SPDIF adapters can really make a mid to hifi DAC shine when being fed from a computer. Many of the better companies in fact claim these can elevate a decent DAC to better than vinyl performance. Q: How do I use audiophile S/PDIF processors? On the computer side, I was using my hi-man PC server (equipped with powerful i5 processor, fast RAM, SSD, Seasonic fanless PSU, various SOtM bits including PCI/USB SOtM card), running Win 7/64, JRMC 17 and JPlay v4.1. The dCS Scarlatti transport, which was used as a point of reference, was given a base score of 100 points. There was also much better layering of instruments, and air around the outlines. The instruments sounded not only better separated in space, but also much more 3-dimensional.
Cryogenic treatment. A long kept secret in the audiophile world, cryogenic treatment results in a dramatic improvement in sonic clarity and detail. This USB power unit supplies 5V at 1A to a USB line by breaking the power connection from the computer and inserting itself with an in-line adaptor plug – a neat idea. Rafael used it with the Halide Bridge convertor and felt they worked well together. Usb To Spdifs also come in a variety of colors. Do you need a particular color? You should also consider whether the color of your Usb To Spdif would have any effect on the efficiency of its operation. (6) DurabilityThe SNR reads -15.5 dB. I marked it on the spectrum. You can also see this signal has an amplitude of 632nVRMS correcting for the Hann window error. Note this signal is so tiny it is in nano volts. It is that small at -130dBFS. The signal is below the integrated noise floor (115.5dB calculated above) but the FFT processing gain makes it visible along with lowering the noise floor of the spectrum analyzer (I have an article on this coming up soon). We use the same procedure we used for Figure 7 to get the full-scale SNR by subtracting the signal level (-130 dBFS) from the SNR at that level (-14.5 dB) and once again get 115.5 dB SNR. The unit is not USB powered like many, so a USB power supply upgrade will not help. It has its own small wall wart supply, delivering 7.5V at 200mA. A battery version is available however. A metal screen further improves the isolation by dividing the internal volume into two compartments: Another convertor with a wall wart power supply! This one has an LED display with a volume control. My general impression in the Mozart Prague Symphony recording was that it was finding the elegance in the recording that left most of the others standing. It was the most believable of the convertors that I heard, with the possible exception of the Halide Bridge, which shared some of its characteristics. The sound of the strings was large, solid and timbrally refined. When I listened to the 'Dance of the Tumblers' on the Weiss DAC202’s FireWire output against it, the Audiophilleo managed to separate the texture of the cellos and basses better, where FireWire merged the two sections to a greater extent. The soundstage of the Audiophilleo was a few yards (metres!) deeper. This is one of the few convertors to have an optical S/PDIF output. Our measurements showed it worked almost as well as the electrical outputs, uincluding AES/EBU at left.
The net result is the Topping D10’s 16-bit J-Test jitter results again show it performs like a much more expensive product. John Harvards has done the best we can with our thoughts and recommendations, but it’s still crucial that you do thorough research on your own for USB To SPDIF Converter Audiophile that you consider buying. Your questions might include the following: ORT5 is a bit dark sounding. You will not get the vast sound stage that AP1/2 will throw, you will miss some spatial clues and decay trails. On the positive side, ORT5 had the best texture out of all converters I tried up to that point, and was the only converter that fully matched my Scarlatti CD/SACD transport in that regard. The Audiophilleo is quite a radical design, based on a DSP with an audio framework code. The Audiophilleo1 is a deep religion convertor that, interestingly, is so complex it is easy to use. Running software that utilises standard Windows and Mac USB drivers it does not need to have a Windows driver loaded, which avoids a lot of hassle. It processes up to 24/192 resolution, working asynchronously. The tiny aluminium case houses not just a DSP but also a full colour OLED display screen, all powered from the USB line. A digital volume control is provided to adjust channel balance by up to 10dB and, for religious education, a jitter generator is fitted so you can learn to identify Satan.
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The ADuM chips are digital isolators based on the Analog Devices, Inc., iCoupler® technology. Combining high speed CMOS and monolithic transformer technologies, these isolation components provide outstanding performance characteristics superior to alternatives, such as optocouplers.
So – how do you know if your DAC will benefit from a USB-S/PDIF converter or not? First up: ‘asynchronous USB’ gets touted by marketing departments as a fix-all solution. It isn’t. I’ve heard numerous DACs that use an async USB implementation but slap an Audiophilleo or Concero on them and presto (!), an altogether more vivid and propulsive presentation. We need to dig deeper into what the manufacturer has done with USB to find clues as to how good it might sound. An XMOS chipset is no magic bullet either. Ditto galvanic isolation. They all help, yes, but they still might not surpass the tonal colour and bass energy that you hear from many an off-board box. Sound wise – this is by far the best sounding USB/SPDIF converter I tried, better than the dCS Scarlatti transport. Moreover, your USB-S/PDIF converter should never make your DAC sound worse! If it does, something is very wrong. Moving the test frequency to 10kHz (not shown) the Topping D10 2nd harmonic was at -116dB (0.00016%), and the D10 hardly moved to -115dB at 96k samples/sec and -114dB at 192k samples sec. Harmonics beyond the 2nd were not observable with the spectrum analyzer at 48k samples/sec sampling rate. The QA401 performs better at the lower sampling rate which is a USB powered ADC limitation. Also, note the noise is up as a result of the QA401s 20dB attenuator in the signal path. The QA401 ADC distortion degrades if the signal is above 200mvRMS so I traded noise for distortion accuracy by using the attenuator. LEGENDARY SOUND EXPERIENCE FROM KLIPSCH AND THX - The Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 THX Certified Speaker System pairs the legendary sound of Klipsch audio with the revolutionary THX experience, filling the room with incredible sound for gaming, movies, or musicApple MFi Certified】: JSAUX Lightning to 3.5mm Aux Cable has completed Apple MFi certification requirements. Our iPhone aux cord built with Apple original terminal and smart chip, promise no warning message pops up, ensure completely and securely connect with your Apple devices. To me Berkeley Audio Designs Alpha USB defines the current state of the art in USB/SPDIF converters design. John Atkinson identifies the spurs amplitude and frequency of the J-Test in absence of jitter. John then comes up with an innovative line to be placed on a spectrum of the analog output of a DAC box which is reproducing the J-Test. Any spur below the line is inherent in the test and not from the DAC box. Kingrex advise manual driver installation before connection to a computer to prevent Windows automatically installing an unsuitable driver. Kingrex recommend Windows 7 and Mac OS-X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or later, but older OSes will work, including XP. Musical Fidelity keep it simple with balanced XLR output (left) and unbalanced phono only. Bright coloured leds show data rate.
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