Musiland Monitor 01 24/192 DACs

[jkeny]

Has anybody tried these devices?

 

The USD is a 24/192 USB to SPDIF device, whereas the US has a PCM1793 DAC inside. So optical, coaxial & BNC SPDIF out from the USD & analog & 2 headphone outs from the US.

 

These sound to be too good to be true for $70 & $80 respectively!

 

According to Musiland, the USB 2.0 Cypress chip interfaces to a Xilinx Spartan FPGA which is the heart of the system. This FPGA creates the SPDIF signal, does clock management (apparently it only adds 1 ppm of jitter in generating the audio clock from the internal 24MHz crystal), controls the asynchronous USB communication with the PC & can be upgraded in the future through software. It seems to be the first offering in a stable of models all based on this hardware platform (multi-channel recording & playback is mentioned) Early feedback on the sound are very favourable.

 

I'm interested in it for it's stated low jitter clock implementation & it's asynchronous USB. Unfortunately I can't register on their forum - trying to use it via translator. All my emails to them have bounced evn though using their "contact us" link. Anybody here on the forum?

 

Has anybody here tried it? I have no experience of Musiland - they are in China so information is via translation which isn't ideal. Some here have used other Musiland products - how are they? Does the Lilo also do asynchronous USB?

 

 

[bevan]

I'm also interested in this product. I've heard of Musiland, but these ones must be new. Pacificvalve appears to stock the monitor 01. Perhaps they can shed some light on it?

 

 

 

[dimsal]

.

 

[Audio_ELF]

I think one negative of the Musiland USB converter is that (if I read corrctly) it needs it's own drivers (like the EMU 0404 USB 2.0), compared to devices such as the BelCanto and any DAC with CEntrance code, etc. that uses the generic USB drivers.

 

Eloise

 

[jkeny]

I think one negative of the Musiland USB converter is that (if I read corrctly) it needs it's own drivers (like the EMU 0404 USB 2.0), compared to devices such as the BelCanto and any DAC with CEntrance code, etc. that uses the generic USB drivers

 

Any DAC that uses Asynchronous USB mode will have to use it's own drivers because there are no native asynch drivers in windows!

 

[Audio_ELF]

Any DAC that uses Asynchronous USB mode will have to use it's own drivers because there are no native asynch drivers in windows!

Incorrect sorry jkenny ... but Wavelength, Ayre and dCS all do interfaces that are Asynchronous and use the native driver. Currently they only support 24/96 (good 24/96 is better than bad 24/192 I think anyway) but as I understand it, this will change in time (Gordon is the one to say more on this).

 

Needing a driver isn't necessarily a bad thing, but some drivers are better than others and may need updating over time, which is less lively with a small company than a larger one. I was just commenting that it MAY be an issue. Of course, they also only provide Windows drivers (as far as I can tell) which stops it being of use to any Mac user.

 

Eloise

 

[jkeny]

Sorry, I stand corrected - but maybe that's why the current USB async implementations are limited to 96KHz? So I guess until "official drivers" are released for Win USB 2.0 then there are limitations?

 

But hold on, MACs have "proper" USB 2.0 drivers, don't they? Do any of the companies async USB products you mentioned work at higher than 96KHz with the MAC?

 

Edit: Agreed, drivers are not planned for Linux & i think planned but not available yet for MAC (I could be wrong here - I have been known to be wrong before )

 

[tosehee]

You are correct. No linux driver and mac driver isn't available yet.

 

[vortecjr]

John, the Wavelength and the Ayre top out at 96khz for both the pc and mac by design. Not sure about the DCS unit.

 

[jkeny]

Hi Jesus,

Aha by design, interesting! Could it be because: The SPDIF Pulse transformers used in the Musiland are reportedly not capable of 192KHz (Newava are recommended) and the Torx optical out might be under suspicion as the only Torx unit capable of all the audio speeds upto 192Khz is a Toshiba 142L which is obsolete.

 

How's your Popcorn Hour sounding now?

I see a new venture(?) in your sig? Here's a site to add to your High-Res download links (particularly 24/192 for the Musiland)

http://www.2l.musiconline.no/shop/displayAlbum.asp?id=35847&cid=&sid=

 

 

[vortecjr]

the by design comment was for the Wavelength and Ayre....not sure about the rest. The popcorn hour unit is in a box in the garage....hehehehe. Yes new venture! I got inspired by the prototype after I heard it Thanks for the link!

 

[jkeny]

JR

Good luck with the venture!

 

[avjunky424]

hello, well first post here, I couldn't resist the price on this guy so I got one in the mail the yesterday. Software installed nicely. first impressions of sound decent, a little bass heavy, but i am a sucker for that. After some progressivelly louder and louder listening, I foung the problem. Lots and lots of noise at idle. I was shocked, but this is whya I did not ever get to the point of thinking that this piece is "great" So I am running it with winamp. My ps audio link dac smokes this thing and it shoud for 6 times the price. But the noise. Why is it there? It could be decent without it. Anyone else get this? thanks -marc

 

[jkeny]

Try the latest drivers V1.0.3.2 might make a difference - http://www.musiland.com.cn/downloads/drivers/beta/MlCyMon_1.0.3.2.zip

they are said to sound better but I haven't heard a report of it being noisy before. What hardware & software are you running it with, Asio, KS?

 

Somebody else had pops & clicks but it turned out that their PCI USB card was not seated correctly!

 

I also have to correct what i said before about SPDIF O?P transformers not being up-to-scratch - they seem to work fine in practise!

 

[avjunky424]

Hi, thanks for the quick response. I have been running winamp forever, due to it dealing with flac and shorten plugins on the fly, which many players will not do. I run vista on my server pc. please elaborate on asio and ks please. I will try these updates in the morning cause its gonna rain all day, although, I wonder if these are the ones I downloaded last night. The sound I am refering to is low level crosstalk/hiss/electrical type sounds. And I hear them only when I have no input or output from the dac and the voulume is rather high like i like it. Any other ideas let me know. thanks -marc

 

[avjunky424]

tried the new drivers, seems to sound better overall, and souds real good. but there is still that nagging dirty noise that i knw is thee, while playng as well as not. might try to contact the manufacturere about this. There is potential here though. marc

 

[jkeny]

That noise shouldn't be there - here's the RMAA test of the Monitor 01 US & the noise is down at -95dBA (16/44KHz) & -103dBA (24/44KHz) - oops can't upload an image file!

 

Edit: First step is always to try it in another computer!

 

[kana813]

FROM: AES 1998 and AES 2003 papers:

 

192k x 128 = 24.576 MHz = base rate (half bit or symbol rate)

 

To get good jitter you need to capture at least 5th harm so 24.576 x 5 or even 7>>125 to 175 MHz.

 

PE-65612NL 's bandwidth spec is 100Khz - 55Mhz

 

[glt]

avjunky424, Are using the unit as a USB DAC or just USB to SPDIF?

 

I also got the 01US unit which is replacing an airport express. Currently HPNetbook running iTunes -> 01US -> toslink -> OPUS DAC (Based on Wolfson WM4741)

 

With this set up, the system is dead quiet. There is no noise. I will also try the built-in DAC through the headphone connector and see if there is any noise.

 

Compared to the airport express, I hear two differences: more body in the reverb/decay for example piano and acoustic guitar have a "fuller" sound, in addition, the instruments seem more focused, with better definition. I think this is what people mean "more air" between the instruments.

 

These differences are not night and day but are there is you focus and do the comparison.

 

Another improvement over the airport is that the link is rock solid, plays music right away (no need to find the device, etc) and absolutely no hiccups or drops (with the AE, I've experienced drops a few times, which required reboots -granted, I've used the 01US only a few days)

 

In summary, if you are currently using an AE, this is a definite upgrade (windows only as there is no mac driver yet)

 

[glt]

I just tried the built-in DAC through the headphone connection and it is also dead quiet when I pause the music, even increasing the volume slider to its max.

 

Later I will try bypassing the spdif and hack into the I2S lines.