metalnwood

Classic it's in the eye of the beholder I guess. Doesn't it seem like we are playing in the wrong field by using dacs and computers? Why do we use expensive amps/speakers if we use computers where one can 'massacre' another, or another can be notably better than it's peer. Why dont we stick to vinyl or good cd transports when a computer can have such an impact? I am curious, how bad was the sound from the mbp for the mini to massacre it? Also vice versa, how terrible was the sound from the mini for the mbp to be a noticeable improvement? It makes me think that either we should not be matching up our expensive gear with crap like computers, inherent noise etc, or people are completely over the top with subjective comments like 'massacre'. How can anyone make any choice without any analytical descriptions of the differences. Really, how can one massacre another, and then happen the other way?

Thanks Jud, I haven't bought any software just yet. It's all trial stuff. I need the dithered volume and that one seems to check all the boxes at $70 less. I didn't see a mnetion of using the ipad as a remote which is a nice side effect of the ones integrating with itunes. I will have a better look after picking up the boys from school.

So, I just plonked down some cash. I am taking a little gamble perhaps but I am trying to go for serious value for money while staying in my price range. I went for some audio-gd gear. The nfb 3.1 as well as the usb to spidif converter with its own power supply. The mac mini will no longer be supplying the power over the usb. I will have forgotten the sound of the hrt streamer II+ by the time this arrives but I think this sound should lean a bit more towards what I like, from what I have found to read about it. You are certainly getting a few nice boxes compared to the streamer. http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/NFB3-2011/NFB3.1EN.htm http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/dac/USBface/Digital1EN.htm

OK guys, I am prepared to try for myself and see if I can hear a difference between a cable from the computer shop or a audio supplier. I am in New Zealand so I don't want to import. Here are my choices Audioquest forrest 1.5M Wireworld ultraviolet 0.5M I have new dacs coming and I am curios after all the discussion. Thanks, Jason

Thanks. I just found sound manager which is pretty cheap and looks like it should have good SRC. It also supports lots of automator action in osx so I can create a quick workflow so it should be dead easy to convert.

Hi all, I am now going to look at the audio-dg nfb2 DAC but I have a question. It does not support 88.2. So, what do you do? If I buy music in that format because 96 is not available should I use some software to upsample it and keep it stored at 96? Obviously I would only get 96 if it was available. I am not sure about upsampling it on the fly as I will probably get either amarra or puremusic for their dithered audio. In that case they use itunes to do the upsampling which I have read is not very good. What software could I use to do it? Preferably mac but I have a windows machine as well. Is that how you guys would do it? Thanks!

OK, so two people have expressed their feeling about my comment re the locus cable. Firstly, I dont know the owner or his history so please don't take any offence. As I am sure you know, any manufacturer is up for some ridicule in the stereo world when they have a cable on the market at $3000/3ft. I am not the first or the last person to point this out. In fact, I pointed this out for that specific reason. To be honest, a $100 cable doesn't bother me at all. For us it's really just a percentage of the cost we put in to our components. One thing you will get with a cable at $50-100 is pretty much a guarantee that it is well built and will do the job for you. I think at $20 you are probably covered and who know exactly with very cheap generic ones as you really don't know where they came from or who made them. This thread was about advice for cheap or fancy cables and while it got off topic a little bit I still think the advice given by myself and a few others has a lot of merit. Like others who I may have disagreed with have said, and I agree on this point, if you like it and have the money then there is no problem. If you want to spend any amount of $$ on a product that is fine with me. Where I hesitate to stand back is where advise is given to people who are not in the same position as us. To me it is murky waters when we start suggesting to a new guy that $500 could be an appropriate amount of money to spend on a usb cable. Also, consider that while you may be taking offense at what I say because it seems that I am saying what you hear is all in your mind, the same goes both ways. It's just a discussion. You can't have a disagreement without it being just that.

Hi Paul, thanks for taking the time to type that up. It doesn't give me any context as to what the system was they were testing though. A lot depends on whats happening in the deisgn to get the bits through with the timing correct. Things we understand how they are working in USB but not for your example above. Thanks, Jason

As talked about, they do make a difference but I think we can ignore the really cheap and ugly ones that probably don't have good shielding or meet the basic specs. I also haven't found any research as was hinted at but I did some searching. I find many people are not sure if they hear differences (from reading) in that they think they may but the differences are so subtle that they could in no way guarantee that they are hearing differences. I have this as well when trying stuff. Can I, cant I? Are there really changes to be heard. I know myself from lots of tinkering its' easy to think things are dfferen't when you are dealing with what you perceive to be very small changes in sound. Ever played around with stuff while a/b ing and forgot to swap yet you still heard the changes you expected in the other interconnect/wire/etc. Most of us have. Ayre also sell cable and I dont know in what context they say cables make a difference as they do if you are dealing with a crap one. Would they suggest this one? http://www.locus-design.com/index.php/cynosure-usb-cable Doesn't it insult your intelligence just a little that you will get a better sound by using it?

The impact of components prior to the V-Link on the timing of the data is what's being eliminated. They don't claim the output will be unaffected apart from that. They don't claim electrical, RFI and ground effects will be eliminated, and there's nothing in the unit to isolate components down the chain from such effects. They don't claim to have isolated, understood, and eliminated every single possible effect the USB cable might have on the sound downstream of the V-Link. It's just a $160 jitter minimization device, not a reclocker - see Gordon Rankin's comments upthread - let alone a "recreator," and certainly not a magical eraser of all known and unknown sources of distortion in a little black box. Are you trying to point fun? I am not sure. What is a 'recreator'? Did I use that word? While I did not use that word, as in your context it sounds like something a mug would say, there is something that it is doing. It is processing the incoming stream, removing the jitter by clearing up any timing issues that have occurred over the usb bus and recreating that data stream over the spdif channel. It uses it's own clock to do that, if it didn't then how on earth would it remove the jitter caused by timing issues on the usb bus?

I bow to your superior wisdom. You will also want to have a serious chat with the V-Link designers to set them straight. I think you misunderstood what I was saying. There is nothing wrong with their product and I dont see any references to them saying a more expensive cable will sound different. I am just pointing out their design and how by capturing, storing and recreating the data means that the output process can not be influcend by the cable used. It's like someone mailing you a letter in the post and it gets to you wet. Not ideal but you can read it and you type it up to email to a friend. When it is inside your computer the fact that it had rained or the condition of the original letter doesn't matter to the guy that reads it in an email - as long as it was legible for you to type up.

But they would then need to admit that their system is not doing the job. Once it decodes the digital data coming off the usb line then the usb cable has no impact of what happens to that data further down the line. I am ignoring bad power coming from the usb source because any cable will still transmit that noisy power. OK, now that the data is in the device it is internally stored, buffered and re-encoded in to a digital signal to go out the coax. The usb cable cannot have any impact on the second stage of processing as it is out of the loop by then.

Richard, you may want to enquire if there is a fault with your v-link. Having a quick look at the specs it seems a cable should not make a difference given what the v-link is supposed to do. I would be very curious if an email was sent to the makers asking if there was a problem as it sounds different with different cables. I have a feeling they will reply and say it should not sound different or else the v-link is not working as expected.

Agreed, I think if we take an easy example that ignores the potential issues that different cables can have. We have an expensive dac of any make or model that has a usb connection but it's own power supply. I had a quick look at some of them and it seems common that the usb lines are optically isolated or otherwise isolated so that any voltages or currents coming from the pc's usb port never get to the actual DAC. Given that the power from the usb cable is likely not terminated at the DAC unit there will not be any power issues there either. Assuming that two cables of much different pricing are able to send bit perfect information I do not see _any_ other influencing factor that could alter the sound on a better quality DAC. Reviewers will say different, what is it that is now impacting the sound when all other electrical issues are removed?

Hi Chris, I think the cd player has the edge, the dac is very nice and easily listenable but it has lost some placement and there are times where the mids are not to my liking but usually one on occasion with voice solos - women.. I think it's worth going ahead with it though, the only other one I was offered by these guys was the cambridge audio but I think this unit is supposed to be better. I like playing about with things so I will try a tube preamp in course and see what happens. I think I have enough stuff around at the moment to build something nice. Its cool using the ipad for a remote and having sound come from the stereo and not from my m-audio speakers on the desk. I am now getting the urge to do an upgrade to the orions but that will cost me another $700 odd to make a couple of tweaks and then another $1500 to add the orions subs. oohh