Anyone has heard the Bel Canto REFLink Asynchronou


I am curious to know whether this would be a worthy addition to my Bel Canto 2.5 Thank you.
dlavoie
The REF Link is a USB-SPDIF converter.

A smaller/less featured USB-SPDIF converter is built into the DAC2.5

The external uLink mLink and REFLink provide some form of isolation of the noisy computer signals from the DAC itself. One end plugs into the computer's USB port, the other is a SPDIF type connection to the DAC (coax/optical or AES).

Besides the isolation, the new external devices also provide
a. asynchronous USB protocol (less prone to jitter)
b. 24/192 support that matches the SPDIF input capability of your DAC2.5

If you don't intend to upgrade the DAC2.5, I think it might be more cost effective to look at the lower end devices from Bel Canto
If I understand you correctly, isolation if one part of what this converter does, the other one is allowing frequencies higher than 90kHz. So if I all my files are 16bit data at 44kHz, there would be no point in getting such converter and I would be much better of by buying the lower end device to get some isolation. Is that correct? That is how I understand you last sentence.
Bel Canto has 3 new USB Link devices.

All 3 are asynchronous USB vs synchronous on yr DAC2.5 And I feel any of the 3 should work with your DAC2.5 to provide an upgrade in SQ.

FWIW, I have found big differences going from synchronous to async USB devices more so than going from 16/44 to 24/96
I bought the REFlink and is using it with my DAC3.5VB MKII.

Yes,the REFlink is giving the best sound I ever heard from my DAC 3.5. I was using the lightLink and subsequently the Weiss INT203 before. Also, I understand you will not get a better sound from the Bel Canto CD2 because it's internal upsampling. The CD2 will not provide you the native raw data from the CD, that is, 16 bit / 44K. It lowest bit rate is 48K.

I also tried it on another DAC, a Meitner MA-1. Between the the output of the Bel Canto CD2 and a Bel Canto CD3t, which output 16bit /44K only, the CD3t sounds superior. This could be due to the CD data having gone through 2 rounds of upsampling, once in the CD2 and then the Meitner MA-1.

(Audio)