Anyone try the Purist digital isolation adapter?


Sounds like a potentially interesting and inexpensive tweak. Anyone own one or try it in their system? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
homunculus
Hello Natan6355,

I was interested in your feelings on the Purist digital isolation adapter. I've been thinking about trying one.

John
Hi. What was the conclusion about the PAD Digital isolation adaptor? I have read it is targeted more towards situations where the transport/server and DAC are not designed originally to work together (eg, blu-ray transport and separate DAC from different manufacturer). that is my situation. thanks for any guidance!
Hello,

The short answer is yes it works and I highly recommend buying one even though the cost (around$300) is more expensive or on par with than many DVD players, cd players and music servers in circulation. Also, since more expensive gear is not immune to jitter I think its a no brainer for the high end enthusiast.

The long answer is that jitter is real and affects the bass the most. Poorly defined bass then impairs all the other frequencies thereby affecting soundstage width, depth, height, rhythm and pace, transparency, ultimately enjoyment. I dont know how much jitter the PAD digital adpator actually removes but it's enough to make a dramatic difference.

As far as price relative to the unit your attempting to de-jitter, I have been able to juice a $350 Sonos piece to the point where streaming music is so very close, very enjoyable, very long term listenable but not better as compared to good cd or vinyl sources, and it aint cheap but very much worth it. I'm sure that the likes of Wadia and Linn are working on new streaming equipment (for this is the future) with multi thousand dollar price tags also checkout Bluesmokesystems, but all you really need now is an inexpensive streaming device with a digital output and put hard earned cash into a state of the art DAC and let the prices of better quality streaming devices come down to reality.

To juice this basic set up as I mentioned in an early post the underwood hifi mod for the sonos provides the best returns. I have a stock sonos as well and one AB listen is all you need to hear the improvement. The PAD Digital adaptor is also essential providing further jitter reduction. A wired ethernet connection turned out to be much better than wireless and I think long burn in time should be expected, however, the wired contribution is not as dramatic improvement as jitter reduction. Power cord is important but also just an incremental improvement. Digital interconnect was the final piece of the puzzle and brings it all together and for my set up is the most expensive contributor. If you can find an inexpensive digital interconnect that works in your system consider your self fortunate. I am still in the hunt but for now the best I have heard is MIT oracle 2c3d digital (MSRP 3000, preowned about 1650). It has an articulation selector which works as advertised. And yes I AB'ed this interconnect with and without the PAD adaptor and jitter is still very much problematic even with expensive interconnect, so I still consider the adaptor essential unless you have an I2S connectionwhich has the least jitter of all.

Hope this helps
I found a digital cable that works well in the above application of sonos to dac, one that I've had in my system between a DVD player and home theater processor for quite some time. Celtic silver digital from United Home Audio won't break the bank at about $300. It's better than links costing 10x more.