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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 AES/EBU may have better noise rejection but has imbedded clock signal,SPDif is outdated as well as speed constrained and I2S not standardised.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
soix
9,660 posts
 

@j_andrews My advice, especially since you’ve got an Iris, sell both your DACs and get a Musician Draco. Why? It’s got an i2S input that your Iris can provide to it. I’ve got an Iris feeding my Musician Pegasus into its i2S and the transformation over USB was at another level. Not even close. You want as short of an HDMI cable as possible, and I’m using this lowly 6” cable from Monoprice that was more than capable of showing the superiority of i2S. You’ve got a wonderful Iris, so I say USE IT!!! The Draco is 95% of my Pegasus (and by association the Denafrips Pontus ll) at a big discount, and it’ll love you feeding it with your Iris. Just my experience FWIW, and best of luck!

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13578

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B096S6HBQY/ref=syn_sd_onsite_desktop_30?ie=UTF8&psc=1&pd_rd_plhdr=t

 

j_andrews
146 posts
 

Thanks for all the great suggestions 

happy new year!

hickamore
679 posts
 

@lalitk N200 is USB out with coax only for "legacy" or second system DACs. Which DACs in the =/< $5k range are specifically optimized for USB input? (External clocking is out of the question).

danager's avatar
danager
958 posts
 

Maybe I don’t know what an ethernet based DAC is??? Isn’t it just converting the ethernet stream to a protocol like I2S? There isn’t a cable or a connector as it can be wired directly but wouldn’t it be prone to have all the same issues as a separate processor without the convivence of upgrading the source?

The Peachtree GaN 1 Beta eliminates the DAC by only accepting a COAX input but that’s not ethernet either???

Cheers

lalitk's avatar
lalitk
5,570 posts
 

@hickamore 

Holo May KTE and Denafrips Terminator II are the two comes to mind at top of 5K range. Now I have not done head to head comparison with aforementioned DAC’s but did audition Konus Audio Digitale 2000 in a very high end system. Gorgeous analog sound with lots of detail. We listened to multiple genres and nothing sounded out of place or forced. The fact, Digitale 2000  - $3900 held its own in a system just shy of $100K, it was quite remarkable. My only knock, it does not do DSD or anything above 24bit/192kHz. 

Among the used bargains under $5K, take a look at SW1X Dac III, AQUA La Scala and Bricasti M3 DAC. They are currently listed at other site. 

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