State-of-the-art CD transports vs USB/SPDIF converter shootout

[Elberoth]

Pls give me a couple of extra days for the next writeup.

 

I did not try the Audio-GD or the V-Link 192 - just the regular one.

[Elberoth]

Elberoth,

What other converters have you compared to BADA?

 

Too many to list, ranging from $59 Matrix to $4990 dCS. You will find all the info in my next writeup.

[dallasjustice]

Thank you for doing this so we don't have to. I trust you ears. :-)

[coxhaus]

Adam

I bought a Berkeley Alpha USB on your advice and I am very happy with the purchase. I feel like I have now matched my transport for sound. Thank you so much for doing this.

lee

[spdif-usb]

It all depends on the quality of the other parts of the DAC. A crappy DAC, even with the M2Tech module (which is OK, but nowherere near as good as the BADA) onboard, will most likely still sound like crap. One cannot base his DAC performance assesment on USB converter module used alone.

That is why I said "at least in theory". Adding a Musical Fidelity V-LINK 192 raises the total cost compared to having an M2Tech OEM internal module, and it doesn't bypass S/PDIF conversion, so therefore it cannot bypass the jitter problems associated with S/PDIF (which is OK, but nowhere near as good as the M2Tech OEM internal module).

[acousticsguru]

Adam

 

Since you're using "generic" (which?) BNC cables everywhere, am I correct in my assumption that you use the same as word clock cables? I was surprised to learn from no other than dCS's own Martin Reynolds that word clock cables differ sonically. My guess was (no longer) that as long as they're 75Ω and correctly terminated, safe sailing… What gives?

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[Elberoth]

Since you're using "generic" (which?)

 

I use the ones supplied by my dCS Scarlatti. They are like $4 each. Nothing fancy - 75 Ohm cable and 75 Ohm BNC connectors.

[Matias]

Elberoth, we tested interfaces once and preferred Weiss INT202 with dual Purist AES-EBU over the BADA and Wavelink+Valhalla BNC into a Debussy. Also another group tested the Scarlatti transport against a Wavelink and the Scarlatti won for the majority. Go figure. Different groups, different systems, different conclusions.

[Elberoth]

Interesting. Did you use a Mac or a PC as a source ?

[bhobba]

Interesting.

 

I too have been a privy to similar tests using a Wadia, heavily modified battery powered Marantz with upgraded clocks and I2S plus other stuff with exactly the same results.

 

Be warned however - people hear and prefer different things - one guy I demoed it to preferred the Wadia - computer audio always has a digital edge to his ears.

 

Funny you like the BADA better than the Off-Ramp. I have done that comparison with my Off-Ramp and the Off-Ramp was easily better. But a little birdie did tell me the BADA pulled ahead with direct mode in Audirvana.

 

Thanks

Bill

[Matias]

The first test was with a dedicated PC. The second test I was not there, I believe it was a Linux PC or Mac, not sure.

[Elberoth]

bhobba - ORT has his charms (excellent color density) but in my and friends systems, we all thought it was not open enough on top, did not give the sensation of resolution, layering and space other top converters were able to convey.

[Jotave]

Elberoth, thank you for your detailed experience.

 

I had the BADA Alpha USB since April last year and it was always the best sounding connecting my MacBook pro to my Playback Designs MPD-3.

 

Last month I purchased the Caps v3 Zuma, and my surprise was that connecting its Sotm USB card directly to the MPD-3 USB sounded better than using the Alpha.

What made me more confortable as for playing DSD files I had always to disconnect from the Alpha and connect to the MPD-3 USB.

João

[asiufy]

I have the MSB Diamond IV DAC, with internal USB, as well as Musical Fidelity V-Link 192. I believe I've written this elsewhere, bur the MF compares rather favorably against the MSB's internal USB.

It's not better, it's different, a much drier sound. Since I like MSB's overall punchy fullness, I don't think the MF is better per se, but some people might find it that way.

When I ran the MF against the Puccini U-Clock, feeding into a dCS Paganini, there was a considerably smaller difference.

So, if your DAC doesn't have USB, I consider the MF a rather good choice, for the price. It might not be better than the BADA, but it's not as expensive either.

 

 

alexandre

[Elberoth]

Last month I purchased the Caps v3 Zuma, and my surprise was that connecting its Sotm USB card directly to the MPD-3 USB sounded better than using the Alpha.

 

That is how it should be. In an ideal world, every DAC should have a great USB input that should sound superior to outboard USB converters, that have to deal with the flawed SPDIF interface (internal converters are able to use the much better I2s interface).

 

However, we do not live in an ideal world. Most DACs available on the market today still have a rather pedestrian USB inputs (just look at the size of the internal USB converters and quality of the clocks used, and compare that to Alpha USB internals) or do not have USB inputs at all. And that is where BADA Alpha USB comes into play.

[bhobba]

bhobba - ORT has his charms (excellent color density) but in my and friends systems, we all thought it was not open enough on top, did not give the sensation of resolution, layering and space other top converters were able to convey.

 

I too did the comparison with fellow audiophiles and we all thought the BADA was a touch dry and uninvolving. Still a very good converter - it's third on my list just behind the Wavelength but that was so close it would be quite reasonable to call it a tie.

 

That said, the guy that lent me the BADA for comparison got an Off-Ramp because he too preferred it, but when Audirvana released direct mode reckoned the BADA easily pulled ahead. Indeed he even, via direct mode, found an Audiophellio really narrowed the gap with the OR - the OR was still a smidgen better but it now was really close.

 

Thanks

Bill

[dallasjustice]

Ive had the offramp 4 with battery, caps, turbo clock . . . in a different system so I couldn't compare. Nugent has historically been a parts and upgrade jockey so I would avoid any of his gear.

 

In my current sytem ive had the wavelength 96 and 192, the legato ii and bada usb. Every dac is different so I can't dispute what someone else hears with their dac. But in my system the bada was significantly better than either wavelength iteration and slightly better than legato ii. The bada has the added advantage of being a complete design that won't change and can do all sampling rates. The funny thing is that the wavelength 192 sounds better than the 96 even though the 96 runs on battery. I had the wavelink when it first came out and I hated it. I think there was an update to the output xformer and it sounds much better but still kinda smoooth sounding.

[tranz]

That is how it should be. In an ideal world, every DAC should have a great USB input that should sound superior to outboard USB converters, that have to deal with the flawed SPDIF interface (internal converters are able to use the much better I2s interface).

 

However, we do not live in an ideal world. Most DACs available on the market today still have a rather pedestrian USB inputs (just look at the size of the internal USB converters and quality of the clocks used, and compare that to Alpha USB internals) or do not have USB inputs at all. And that is where BADA Alpha USB comes into play.

 

Hi Elberoth

 

Bit of an old thread revival, but I am curious about the MSB USB input you had compared with the Berkeley Alpha USB.

 

MSB has a few different flavours on their website. My assumption is that yours is the Signature USB2 384Khz extra shielded one, is that correct? Is this an unchanged design since it first came out many years ago or did they improve upon it with newer XMOS chips, etc.? Did you ever get more details on the design of their USB input? How is it shielded?

 

Logic would dictate that a shorter path without another transition to SPDIF would be beneficial, but implementation is everything. Did you have any power improvement pieces in between such as an IFI USB, or even physically covering the 5v Pin of the USB plug, SoTM USB card, etc.?

 

Curious why you are selling your MSB and what the replacement is...

Cheers!

[Themos Nicoletopoulos]

In the past 12 months, I had a chance to do some extensive comparisions between various, traditional CD transports and the USB/SPDIF converter. (For those who, for the past three years have been sitting in a cave and do not know what an USB/SPDIF converter is - this ia a device, a bridge that connects between the DAC and a computer, and allows to play music from the hard drive.)

 

All the transports I tried, from my dCS Scarlatti to the McIntosh MCD-1000, could easily aspire to the State-of-the-Art status and are top of the range models from the respective manufacturers.

 

So is the USB/SPDIF converter I used to evaluate the transports - the BADA Alpha USB I've been using, is, to the best of my knowledge, the best USB/SPDIF converter available on the market today. (I base my statement on the extensive tests of some 15+ different USB converters I also conducted in the past 12 months - I can describe the results in a separate thread if anyone is interested).

 

Anyway, the transports I have tried were:

 

$33k dCS Scarlatti Transport:

 

$20k Accuphase DP-800:

 

$9k McIntosh MCD-1000:

 

And here is the $1800 BADA Alpha USB (on top of the Metrum Hex DAC):

 

I have also tried some other transports as well, starting with a $700 Stello CDT100, but those were much cheaper, so are not really revelent to this thread.

 

 

All the transports, including the BADA Alpha USB, were connected to my dCS Scarlatti DAC using the generic BNC cable. I'm a firm believer in BNC cables, as in my experience, even a cheap, $10 generic BNC cable can outperform fancy RCA and AES cables costing hundreds of dollars. The only exception was the McIntosh MCD-1000, which was used with the Stealth Varidig Sextet AES/EBU digital cable, as it lacks the BNC output.

 

During the tests, I have also tried the matching Accuphase DC-801 and McIntosh MDA-1000 DACs. In the case of dCS and Accuphase DACs, I did not use the available clock link feature (which greatly improves the sonics in all-dCS and all-Accuphase systems) as I was interested in comparing the pure SPDIF performance of all transports, not learning that SPDIF as a standard is flawed, which I have ackowledged a long time ago.

 

The test was as fascinating, as it was ... short. The BADA Alpha USB turned out to be much better than all of those transports mentioned. There was even no need to switch back and forth as we often do to hear the differencies. The difference was so obvious, that you could hear it in the first 10s of a familiar recording (I recommend a recordings with lots of HF energy, like lots of percussive instruments - triangles, hi-hats etc and a lively acustics; pesonally, when comparing different digital cables, digital transports, USB converters or computers, I always use 'La Spagna' by Atrium Musicæ de Madrid and Gregorio Paniagua published by BIS records - a fabulous recording of XV century music; there is also one by Harmonia Mundi, but I like the BIS one better).

 

The BADA Alpha USB made the sound smoother, with ZERO artificial edge, grain or digital glare.

 

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.

 

The resolution also improved quite a bit. You could hear the sounds that you were not aware are on the recording, the HF decays had much longer trails and hung in space much longer.

 

The most fascinating thing was that sound had better resolution, but at the same time, was so much smoother and fluid. Usually, it is another way round. Very often we try a new component or a cable and at first are fascinated by improved resolution, only to find out a few days later (after we had X-rayed all our recordings), that the increased resolution brings listener fatigue and makes the listening far less enjoyable.

 

Not this time. BADA pulls this incredible trick of sounding both more resolute, more transparent, and much smoother at the same time.

 

The traditional transports sounded grainy and congested at the same time. The whole rendition of space just shrunk, as if someone sucked out all air. Once I have heard the BADA, there was no going back.

 

One may ask - how it is possible that a $1800 device can outperform a $33k transport ?

 

For starters, the USB converter much cheaper to manufacture, as it doesn't have an expensive (in case of Scarlatti - EXTREMELY expensive @ $5000) CD drive, fancy box, big PSU with separate legs for the drive, display, servo, control logic and SPDIF out, etc. Since it is so small and has no controls, it can get away whit what looks like a $100 box that can be hidden away.

 

On performance side, I think it all goes down to the quality of the onboard clocks used (and their respective power supplies). The clock stability has a direct influence on the quality of the SPDIF signal, as the whole SPDIF signal is generated using clock as a reference. So more stable clock = more stable (less jittery) SPDIF signal.

 

All the transports I mentioned use clocks that were available 7-8 years ago, when those transports were designed. They were probably one of the best avalable at the time, but are rather avg by today's standards - there was a great advancement in clock art (with respect to their phase noise) in the past 3 years.

 

The latest Ultra Low Phase Noise clocks that are used in BADA Alpha USB (made by Crystek), have the levels of phase noise that rival the ultra expensive Rubidium Clocks. Sure they do not have the long time accuracy of the Rubidium Clocks (the PPM figure), but that doesn't really matter, as what is important in digital audio is the short term clock stability (the level of Phase Noise).

 

Were does this leaves us ? Well, the dCS owners do not really have to worry, as enabling the clock link feature between the transport and a DAC (during the course of this test I kept the clock link feature disconented to level the playing field) will improve its performance. The Scarlatti clock may not be enough to get past the performance offered by the BADA (the U-Clock shurely wasn't), but the Antelope 10M Rubidium Clock is.

 

 

Scarlatti transport driven by Antelope 10M clock (and needed Antelope OCX clock divider) still gave me the best sound I have ever heard from my Scarlatti system. Not to mention the fact, that it does SACD as well.

 

But for the rest of you, who DO mind spending $50k for the transport, clocks and cables, this is a great news. Nowaydays for ~$5000 (BADA Alpha USB + CAPS v3 Lagoon computer + NAS) you can have a State-of-the-Art digital transport, that will rival most super expensive CD spinners.

 

Because this is a very good review, you may be the appropriate person to answer how can I transfer my cds to my computer apart from the on board dvd player. I mean, there is no usb output on any transport, so how can I make a high res playlist ? In the past of high fidelity we were able to make cassettes and tapes of our favorite music and now we can only do this via the cheap dvd on board? We spend hundreds on an expensive transport and it simply cannot do what a 20 euro dvd can? Won' t the transcript from the transport be of superior quality?

[Paul R]

Because this is a very good review, you may be the appropriate person to answer how can I transfer my cds to my computer apart from the on board dvd player. I mean, there is no usb output on any transport, so how can I make a high res playlist ? In the past of high fidelity we were able to make cassettes and tapes of our favorite music and now we can only do this via the cheap dvd on board? We spend hundreds on an expensive transport and it simply cannot do what a 20 euro dvd can? Won' t the transcript from the transport be of superior quality?

 

It isn't like a record player, you are not turning the digital information into music when you RIP (i.e. copy) it from a CD to a disc on computer. There is little that can happen to the sound in this case, and the little that can possibly happen is also hotly contested. Just choose a format that is "lossless", like AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, or WAV, and all should be well.

 

Paul

[Audio_ELF]

Because this is a very good review, you may be the appropriate person to answer how can I transfer my cds to my computer apart from the on board dvd player. I mean, there is no usb output on any transport, so how can I make a high res playlist ? In the past of high fidelity we were able to make cassettes and tapes of our favorite music and now we can only do this via the cheap dvd on board? We spend hundreds on an expensive transport and it simply cannot do what a 20 euro dvd can? Won' t the transcript from the transport be of superior quality?

Because of the way a computer CD (or DVD) drive works, it is possible for the computer to read the disk multiple times to ensure the data is read correctly. This enable a $20 DVD-R drive to ensure a better "rip" than you are going to get with a $20,000 reader which can only read in real time.

 

Some people will suggest the drive and power supply for that drive matters; but the general consensus is that most drives can make a "bit perfect" rip and once you have that rip while different playback methods (computer, drive and software) can make things sound different; two identical files cannot sound different depending on what drive ripped them.

 

Eloise

[acousticsguru]

Because of the way a computer CD (or DVD) drive works, it is possible for the computer to read the disk multiple times to ensure the data is read correctly. This enable a $20 DVD-R drive to ensure a better "rip" than you are going to get with a $20,000 reader which can only read in real time.

 

Some people will suggest the drive and power supply for that drive matters; but the general consensus is that most drives can make a "bit perfect" rip and once you have that rip while different playback methods (computer, drive and software) can make things sound different; two identical files cannot sound different depending on what drive ripped them.

 

Eloise

 

+1

 

@Themos: Just make sure to use a ripper (software) that does either an "accurate" rip (using a databank full of comparison rips to make sure yours is bit-perfect), or, in the rare cases where there are no rips to compare to (i.e. CD is a rarity or hot from the press), a comparison rip (again making statistically sure your rip is bit-perfect, i.e. 2 out of 3 rips are identical). Once secured, a bit-perfect rip may be played back by a variety of media players (softwares which, interestingly enough, don't all "sound" the same, although they're supposed to).

 

Greetings from Switzerland, David.

[johndoe21ro]

Thanks for the nice review. I guess some of us know that DACs, USB-to-SPDIF converters, audiophile USB, Firewire and Ethernet cables and slick software kind of changed the rules of the old game. Although I'm convinced that the BADA converter is one hell of a product, it seems pretty strange that you never mentioned Audiophilleo with PurePower and Off-Ramp converters.

[sandyk]

two identical files cannot sound different depending on what drive ripped them.

 

Eloise

 

In addition to previous confirming reports by Martin Colloms and others :

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/linear-powered-rips-and-flash-drives-sound-better-alex-was-right-22116/

 

I have since had confirmation by "audiophile neuroscience's" friend who was the host at a listening session last Friday, that he was able to hear clear differences between the comparison tracks on the duplicates of the 2 comparison CDs that I sent Barry D. some time back.

e.g. Tracks 9 and 10 on CD2 - "Tangled Up in Blue- Bob Dylan"

[Paul R]

In addition to previous confirming reports by Martin Colloms and others :

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f8-general-forum/linear-powered-rips-and-flash-drives-sound-better-alex-was-right-22116/

 

I have since had confirmation by "audiophile neuroscience's" friend who was the host at a listening session last Friday, that he was able to hear clear differences between the comparison tracks on the duplicates of the 2 comparison CDs that I sent Barry D. some time back.

e.g. Tracks 9 and 10 on CD2 - "Tangled Up in Blue- Bob Dylan"

 

All of which had no or very little control on the source or chain if custody and are therefor suspect. Take any admonition that two identical files played back over exactly the same equipment can or will sound different with a healthy dose of skepticism. I might be true, but it far far away from being a proven fact.

 

Arguments about files sounding different because they have been transmitted over the internet are also specious. Again, engage a very healthy dise of skepticism when evalutaing those claims.