2. digital
  3. 181426-149317

USB yet again

For a few years I have had an Intona Isolator with Oyaide Continental 5S upstream and Intona Reference downstream connecting Streamer and DAC. Given the Strong benefit of filters on the upstream Ethernet connection I added a LHY Audio USB 3.0 purifier with a Grey Knights power cable. The tightening of the transfer and resultant SQ was remarkable despite having used superior cables before.

While USB remains a compromised transfer format, asynchronous USB is the only protocol synchronising the server’s and dac’s clocks unless both have master clock connections. AES/EBU may have better noise rejection but has imbedded clock signal,SPDif is outdated as well as speed constrained and I2S not standardised. Hopefully the industry comes up with a better solution. It is interesting that there seems to emerge a trend to combine server and dac: one wonders why?

antigrunge2
sns
3,305 posts
 

Optimal usb implementation requires quality rendering at both streamer and dac. This means usb boards with nice power supplies powered via dedicated power supply and top flight clocks on these boards. Far too many streamers are let down by less than optimal usb implementation, reason why so many find various usb filters and/or separate/dedicated streamers with top flight usb rendering to be of benefit.

I continue to rail against so many off the shelf streamers implementing less than optimal usb rendering, really not that difficult or expensive to do. They could add this as standard or upgrade option for aprox. $1-1.5k. I don't know, perhaps they don't have the capability to do this, The only streamers I'm aware of that offer quality usb rendering are Wadax, Taiko and Aurrender, and Innuos as separate box. Ridiculous IMO, leaving so much potential on the table!

barts's avatar
barts
722 posts
 

+1 @uncledemp 

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,570 posts
 

@uncledemp 

Enjoyed reading your post. Our systems are true reflections of how that painting should look (replicated) in our environment. I think for many of us, it’s the pursuit of perfection more gratifying and fun than the actual result 😊

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grannyring's avatar
grannyring
6,511 posts
 

USB is not inferior and offers superb sound quality in my opinion.  As always it depends on implementation and other digital supporting elements in one’s front end.   

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