USB DACs with 24/192 via USB

Let’s think for a second here about when USB for music playback came into being… and why.

It seems to me the USB interface was directed towards the ‘sake of convenience crowd’, far more so than for the ‘audiophilic nervousa crowd’.

But just as with the Pro Audio sector, the audiophobic crowd has found yet another vein for which to investigate and try bending to their ends. With a modicum of success only, they then have the audacity to cry for excellence from this interface while still in its infancy and as yet ill defined in it’s metamorphoses.

Goodness. See how much those little iPods have done to us? More so, I think than they have done for us, at times.

USB was to us… however large or small the promise was on it’s lips. A simple, widespread interface that yielded plug and play use. No learning curve to speak of, and it’s CHEAP!

Well…. It sounds pretty good on the desktop… let’s see how it sounds on the big rig! Hmmm… needs some tweaking but it has potential. Enter then, G Rankin, and those of that ilk offering the use of that simple convenient nothing to it cable, and assuring better than ever performance with some interesting and unique designs. Great!

Hard Drive acreage plummeted like A.I.G. stock, and now storing vast amounts of media could be had almost for the asking.

High Def… finally had sufficient egress. A new home almost anywhere and for mere pennies. Confusing the issues further was Hollywood. Namely with a covetous protection array instituted purely for their own ends called HDMI.

24-192 capabilities over HDMI 1.3a. one wire! Indeed an audiophiliac’s notion of heresy! I was just getting used to USB 1.0!

How better to serve the music nut than to enable them to render veritable square miles of HDD space than to make great DACs that also (oh by the way), have USB inputs? As well, for the more discriminating ($$$), some other levels of higher yielding digital fare?

Wait a mo’…. What about I2S, and Firewire… oops… USB 3.0?

USB was made for computer users. Personal confusers outdate themselves quicker than chickens eating skinny worms! Geezzz louise, they have obsolescence built into the equation as standard operating proceedure!

Now there’s a new USB format upcoming?
Hmmm…. Let’s see… can I keep up and live comfortably on the ‘bleeding edge’?

Nope. It’s too costly as the changes arrive too quickly and with too vast an assortment. Latest and supposedly greatest isn’t always bestest in truth.

So what’s to do? Well, what has worked in digital for some time now during the inception of iPods, HDMI, Why Fi, firewires, the various USB iterations and those which inevitably will follow?

AES… BNC, and Coax SPDIF… yep and TOS too.

So if it’s a digital world we’ll be a dwelling’ ing, All one needs to do is convert properly the digital signal, preferably outside the PCs domain to these aforementioned units and be done with it and let the digital dust settle.

According to the Stereophile review by JA on the BC usb converter, he made a case for the M Audio $99 unit too for that task, and the EMU USB card for a second option while addressing the 24/96 devotee needs.

there are others, BTW…. RME, Lynx , etc. which satisfy higher word lengths and bit rates.

I don’t think the digital world and the audio purists worlds are ever going to be on par with one another. The focus for each is different. The targeted audience is different. Blending new school tech with old school traditions is where things become muddied.

AS much as I respect efforts from Wavlenth, Imperical Audio, Bel Canto, Lavry, etc… using a standard (gosh) high end DAC being fed by a good to very good sound card via AES, BNC, or coax sure has it’s benefits. Not to mention the abilities to process more than adequately the higher ‘numbers game’.

True also for some configurations, the wireless route seems best and least pricey for some time to come yet. Unless of course, your pockets are as deep as are your ambitions.

As Jax2 said and I’ll support in other words, it always comes to this… “Just what flavor of chocolate does one prefer, and how much are you willing to pay the vendor for it? The digital world begs one other question… “…and how often?”

There’s an awful lot of ways around here to skin the proverbial cat than merely by USB alone that are a bit more ‘future proof’.

AS much as I respect efforts from Wavlenth, Imperical Audio, Bel Canto, Lavry, etc… using a standard (gosh) high end DAC being fed by a good to very good sound card via AES, BNC, or coax sure has it’s benefits. Not to mention the abilities to process more than adequately the higher ‘numbers game’.

I don't see any benefits of introducing an extra step of a sound card conversion from USB to AES/coax. In fact, I really don't see the advantage of using the badly designed AES/coax SPDIF connection that lacks a separate clock transfer and barely can make 24/192 (most SPDIF inputs are limited to 24/96 too).

One of the big advantages with asynchronous USB is that you can place the clock right next to the DAC chip and slave the PC to the DAC clock. That gives the lowest jitter and something that is not at all possible with AES, coax or any other traditional conversion schemes. Finally, the only limit to data transfer rates via USB is due to the lack of drivers. If a company is willing to write drivers for their DAC then 24/192 won't be a problem. And I don't see USB disappearing from PCs anytime soon.

There is something to be said for Firewire too - the best computer DAC implementation I heard to date uses Firewire (the Weiss DAC2/Minerva). But that requires extra drivers as well for 24/192 operation.

07-24-09: Restock
There is something to be said for Firewire too - the best computer DAC implementation I heard to date uses Firewire (the Weiss DAC2/Minerva). But that requires extra drivers as well for 24/192 operation.

That Focusrite Saffire, in addition to having two FireWire ports and RCA SP/DIF In and Out, also has built-in A/D *and* D/A converters with a max rate of 24/192.

List price $500 (same as the Bel Canto USB-to-SP/DIF converter), but typical street price is $350. And if the DAC isn't up to snuff, one can always send the SP/DIF signal to a Benchmark, Lavry, or what have you. (PS:Lavry eschews 192K intentionally).

Restock hit the nail on the head. It's not just souncard versus USB. If you feed a wordclock signal from the dac to the soundcard, you get better results than just sound card alone. Also, there a different ways to do USB - asynchronous, isochronous, different drivers, etc. And not all USB implementations are created equal. That's why other companies are now licensing Empirical Audio's technology for their USB implementations. A few years ago, there was a movement away from sound cards with AES and no wordclock feedback toward asynchronous USB because you could get lower jitter.

Without owning one, it seems that Playback Designs and the new Emm Labs DAC2 eliminate the problem of which type of signal to use by doing whatever they do to correct the signal after it reaches the DAC. Now, is the result better if you use a less jittery USB signal compared to AES signal that comes off a noisy PC internal sound card? I don't know.

Restock

“I don't see any benefits of introducing an extra step of a sound card conversion from USB to AES/coax. In fact, I really don't see the advantage of using the badly designed AES/coax SPDIF connection that lacks a separate clock transfer and barely can make 24/192 (most SPDIF inputs are limited to 24/96 too).”

I don’t claim to have the professional knowledge of exactly what USB can and/or can not handle, nor the reaches of coax, be it thru put or bit rates beyond 96KHz… or if it is in fact as simple as a ‘driver’ issue for USB. What ever the case is, Coax, AES & BnC connections are on and have been on many stand alone DACs which tout processing 16/44 all the way up to 24/192 for some time now and they up sample or over sample the given input signal within. There are even one box solutions which do this as well. Long before USB or IEEE came along. They all seemed to be doing just fine using the interfaces I listed to supply the initial input signal (s). they too are all converting, or transmuting one signal to another… so adding steps to the processing of a signal isn’t altogether a bad thing then…. For some.

Of the DACs you mention most of them, if not all of them are well beyond certainly my own means. EM labs, Weiss, Imperical, etc., and perhaps those of many others. Consequently, my proposal was an alternative route to extract info beyond 24/96 without the use of a USB to ??? converter. After all if it’s a USB changeover device of sorts, or a sound card, the info is being converted at any rate. Some folks use still more pricey cards than I’ve employed to feed still more pricey DACs than I’ve had the opportunity to own. I’d not wish to had a DAC which ONLY supported one interface.

Then too, the only truly limiting factor is the system the information winds up being reproduced with.

Restock
“One of the big advantages with asynchronous USB is that you can place the clock right next to the DAC chip and slave the PC to the DAC clock. That gives the lowest jitter and something that is not at all possible with AES, coax or any other traditional conversion schemes. Finally, the only limit to data transfer rates via USB is due to the lack of drivers. If a company is willing to write drivers for their DAC then 24/192 won't be a problem. And I don't see USB disappearing from PCs anytime soon.”

You might want to look closer at some of even the lesser expensive sound cards now on the mkt. They allow for this particular step… slaving the pc to the clock in the stand alone DAC… even my M Audio 24/192 Audiophile PCI card can do that. Very well in fact, and for about $160 new… or you can set it to use it’s own internal clock. You pick.

I set it to external and make use of the BC DAC 3’s clock.

I don’t see USB going away either… I simply submit it remains unsettled. The addition of IEEE supports that remark. Some future iteration is also on the not distant horizon. What then?

I merely wanted to input alterior methods to convey pc info into a stereo system which permits very good to exceptional sound quality, if not truly remarkable, IMO. In fact I’ve found using much simpler paths a most satisfying, moderately expensive alternative route which allows for outstanding sound in my opinion, and in truth. Just as you said the best you had heard was via the IEEE WEISS MINERVA.

I’ve gone thru several ASIO USB drivers, cards, media players, file formats, interfaces and DACs. From modestly priced to significantly costly ones. What I mention here is exactly my own experiences and just what I use and own now. Nothing more.

I’d love nothing better than to drop $5K $ 10K on a DAC without blinking an eye. I can’t however. It’s that simple. I’ve heard upsampled signals too and I can take them or leave them… past 24/96 I don’t perceive a performance gain, but merely a difference in the sounds presentation itself. Some could well argue that diff is an improvement, subjectively speaking. I don’t.

AS to the driver barrier…. I doubt that issue will be resolved by confuser makers at large any time soon. Rather, I suspect such an area will be addressed by those DAC makers who wish to support ultra high res pc generated signals, or they’ll convert them in their own DACs, which will as now, remain financially well out of reach for many. It will be interesting to see who learns to write code proficiently enough to satisfy current driver needs, and supports such needs with future updates. So there’s a whole other bag of worms.

God bless you if you can afford to dwell on that bleeding edge, for it is a less peopled region and changes all too rapidly.

I too feel much of the numbers game is simply that… a numbers game providing different more often than it serves the ideal of true betterment. I find that argument akin to that which opposes tube and solid state mavens. Neither camp there is without validation. Neither can one say which is definitely the best method for the end result to be had with those quite personal choices.

I don’t always feel that removal of items in the signal path is always the answer to improve performance, or arrive at a better sonic product…. Ie., Subtracting a preamp and going directly from a DAC to an amplifier, for example, or always use less components in a loudspeakers x over network.

I’m not going inside any of these gizmos. I won’t be modding them or seeking such avenues with these components. I would be simply plugging them in and listening. How many fewer or further steps are in the processing, matters not in the end.

Practically speaking, it’s always going to come down to as I‘ve already said, “What’s it sound like to me in my house, and can or do I want to pay for it.” Technology aside.

Until the dust settles, and prices drop, the majority will seek out, and very well should, other means which offer stability and well above average performance for lesser expense. Latest ain’t always greatest, and highest priced isn’t always anything but the highest priced.