How good of a DAC is the Logitech Transporter

Raymond, I am evaluating Transporter and Hiface as "digital transports" with my DAC using S/PDIF connection (I am not interested in the Transporter DAC/Analog section). So, I wouldn't say that Hiface is just a convenience and, unlike Transporter, it is 192KHz/24bit capable.

Best,
Alex Peychev

Alex, i see...

I know the Transporter is only capable of 24/96 natively, will it make it 24/192 by simply adding a Hiface interface? i mean, ultimately you will need to use the Transporter's digital out to go into your DAC, is that digital out 24/192 or 24/96? i am interested in your experiment, let us know your findings please :).

best regards
raymond

Raymond, the Transporter is limited to 96K so adding Hiface will not help. Even when used as a digital source to an external DAC, the Transporter still can't do more than 96K. Of course, the newer Slim Servers make possible the playback of audio files with higher resolution, but these are being down-sampled to the 96K limit.

What you can do is experiment with a Hiface plugged to your laptop, feeding the Transporter digital input. In this case you will have 192/24 capability. But as I previously mentioned, the clock quality will be greatly decreased because it will come from the digital input receiver that uses PLL for the clock recovery. In other words, you will not be able to hear the full capabilities of the Hiface.

I will let you know about my findings once I complete the evaluation but, so far, at equal playing fields, I strongly prefer the Hiface. In fact, I like it so much that I will be using M2Tech USB interfaces in my digital products.

Best,
Alex Peychev
www.aplhifi.com

Thanks Alex!

Sorry but I am still confused at one thing.

You mentioned:

"the Transporter is limited to 96K so adding Hiface will not help. Even when used as a digital source to an external DAC, the Transporter still can't do more than 96K."

But then you also mentioned:

"What you can do is experiment with a Hiface plugged to your laptop, feeding the Transporter digital input. In this case you will have 192/24 capability."

What is point of feeding the Transporter with 192/24 if the Transporter is only capable of 96/24? I think I might be missing something here.

Regards
Raymond

I am sorry for the confusion, Raymond!

When used as a network player (wi-fi or LAN), the Transporter is limited to 96/24. This is due the processor they are using, I would guess.

When used as a DAC with its digital inputs, the Transporter can do 192/24 because the DIR (Digital Interface Receiver) and the DAC chips (both made by AKM), are capable of this resolution.

Best,
Alex Peychev
www.aplhifi.com