SBAF DAC Talk II

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by Maxx134, Jul 22, 2018.

  1. rlow

    rlow A happy woofer

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    Right - I neglected that part. You’re right, huge soundstage is not the Onyx strong suit.

    The only other option that comes to mind for me is the Ifi stuff, but I haven’t heard the black label stuff yet, only the silver. I found the silver stuff to be pretty great sounding, with a large stage, and inoffensive in treble (no Sabre treble glare). I wish they made a DAC like the Pro IDSD without all the millions of options and gadgets, I’d probably check it out, but that one may be an option too.

    The only other NOS DAC with tubes that comes to mind for me that I’ve never heard, but that people seem to love is the BorderPatrol DAC, but would need to check the input impedance on the amp to see if it can match up (the higher end of 20-50k ohms input impedance is best I think). On paper the thing sucks, but everyone who hears it seems to love it. Probably no worse measurements than the MHDT stuff, but don’t quote me on that.
     
  2. Baten

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    The iFi micro BL is pretty great sounding and has a NOS mode too (BitPerfect). iFi has hinted at a revision of it though with balanced output, which could be interesting!
     
  3. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    MOTU drivers vary on Windows from system to system. If you try it and it doesn’t work, just return it. It’s cheaper and sounds better than RME. They’re not coasting by on their brand name like RME but RME is more stable. Really pcie cards are still the most reliable. RME and Lynx make them and RME interfaces are a good deal behind Lynx’s soundwise. RME is still lofi and small man. It’s like a Seinfeldian pool for your music and recordings.

    Mac? No reason to touch RME over MOTU or Apogee.

    Hopefully Metric Halo will finish their 3d drivers in the next decade and kill all this stuff. Or Merging will.
     
  4. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Well I have no idea when the RME will ship, so I still have the option to cancel... then again, the MOTU M2/M4 look like they haven't been released yet either.

    Any thoughts on the UA Arrow?

    The babyface is stll on the table for being compact, bus powered, and with the optical out so I can feed my Lyra at home. Any other options that have those criteria that cost less and don't sound like mush?

    If my Clarett was able to be bus-powered if I would have just stopped with that. Oh well. I'll just sell it after I figure out what to get next.
     
  5. EagleWings

    EagleWings Friend

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    I don't mind leaving the DAC on all the time. It's just that we have power cuts every now and then and the socket I am using for isn't connected to the UPS. So every time there's a power cut, it'd be back to square one.

    Oh yea, I forgot about the Pro iDSD. Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for a used unit.
     
  6. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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    I've got an M4 sitting on my desk right now. And have for a few months. :)

    It gets really light usage, but it's been stable for me w/both Win10 and Mac.

    I use it for podcasting. AMA.
     
  7. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Huh weird, maybe it just hasn't shown up on Canadian shelves yet. How do you feel it fares compared to our usual audiophile stuff on the lineouts and headout? (I'm assuming the headout is ch3-4?) I'm not expecting it to match obviously.

    The issue that I was having with my Prism was that whenever my laptop went to sleep and I tried to come out of that, it would cause a blue screen crash. The Focusrite less so, but sometimes still happens.

    I don't record very much (on rare occasion), so the portable interface is for the light DJ'ing purposes. I pre-ordered the babyface because I figured I could use the optical output to feed my Lyra at home.
     
  8. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Optimize the power management on your computer. Turn off sleep. RME sounds worse than everything you own and are asking about.

    https://support.focusrite.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207355205-Optimising-your-PC-for-Audio-on-Windows-10

    Undo “optimize for background services” when not doing audio stuff. Only do that one if you have pops and clicks and dropouts.
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's the super hot outputs from the Convert-2. The noise, even if the spec is very good (confirmed via measurements here), will still be in proportion to the max output. That could be a bad thing for home audio.

    It's on my list.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Soekris 14**
    Bifrost 2 (warmer, but if you are worried, nothing at all like the Modi Multibit, which is like a better MHDT)
     
  11. NeoZeed

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    I signed up just to confirm this. I've owned a Babyface Pro for a couple years now and I honestly think it sounded worse than the Scarlett 2i2 I had before it. I used to own a a Modi Multibit until my sound engineer buddy laughed at me; saying how badly consumer DACs measure and told me that my Babyface sounded better than any of it.

    Well, it honestly sounds pretty bad. Treble is harsh, and seems smeared. Not very dynamic. Is also prone to clipping. I came back to this forum looking for a new DAC because I'm so unhappy with the RME. For my own mixes and for listening to anything that isn't a podcast or youtube video.
     
  12. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

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    Wow. I can't imagine anything sounding worse than the Scarlett 2i2.
     
  13. philipmorgan

    philipmorgan Member of the month

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    I haven't done any serious comparisons to known gear on the output side of things. Sorry.

    On the input side of things the M4 mic pre is warmer than good pro gear (comparison was to a Daking Mic Pre One), but way way cleaner than crappy prosumer gear (comparison was to a DBX286s). I'd actually be OK with my mic straight into the M4 without the Daking if I was keeping things on a tight budget.

    Channels 3/4 on the input side of things are line level in. I'm 90% sure 3/4 are true line level inputs, not padded down and run through the mic pre. The combo jacks for 1/2 ARE padded down and run through the mic pre when you insert a quarter inch jack to them, which warms that signal excessively. At that point may as well just use the built in mic pres rather than an external mic pre because of how the combo jack input fucks with the sound coming from the external mic pre. But again, you can run the external pre to 3/4 and avoid this.

    The m4 has limited routing capability, so if you want to monitor 3/4 inside the m4, you'll either have to accept 3 going hard to the L side and 4 going hard to the R or do what I did and get a TRS splitter so your line in gets routed to both 3/4 and appears on the headphone monitor circuit as a mono-panned-center sound.

    On the output side of things, I've only used the M4 headphone out into some cheapo cans, so I can't say how that side of things compares to Schiit or other gear. I'd bet not as good.

    On Windows all 6 channels (2 mic pres, 2 line in, 2 loopback) of the M4 are recognized by every software I tried. On Mac some software recognizes all 6 channels and others only recognize 1/2, requiring some soundflower fuckery to route 3/4 to 1/2 for those apps. This is with the M4 driver loaded on both Windows and Mac.

    Hope this helps.

    EDIT: The m4 is built real nice. Metal case, nice meters on the front. It feels good, esp. for the money. In that way it is competitive with Schiit et al.
     
  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    How is the headroom? The MOTU AVB boxes have tons of head room on the inputs, way more than any RME and Presonus crap.

    I’d call the MOTU pres “clean, detailed, warm” which is better than “bad flat harsh sterile” like RME or “fuzzy warm cleanish” like Yamaha d-sub to throw adjectives around interface pres.
     
  15. Pharmaboy

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    I've had a new MHDT Labs Orchid for 5-6 months. Got it configured exactly the way I like: w/a 2nd live RCA output pair ($1,200 shipped...bought from their U.S. distributor). It's NOS & sounds excellent. I picked up a couple spare tubes for the buffer circuit; they weren't expensive. Haven't gotten around to rolling one in (just lazy).
     
  16. Pharmaboy

    Pharmaboy Friend

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    One of the 1st things I do w/any desktop or laptop is set it up to never go into sleep/hibernate mode. Before I got smart about that, I lost a shitload of work one time years back (PC that froze solid & had to have O.S. reinstalled).
     
  17. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    There's probably some hidden function still somewhere in the power management that causes some type of hybrid sleep mode that I can't find. Here's the weird thing, I never had this problem with my old laptop. I also tried with my friend's laptop and he doesn't get the blue screen. I only get this on my Thinkpad. I even switched Thinkpads (same line, different model) and got the same error. So maybe it's just something screwy with the bios or whatever it is they build into their boxes? My old laptop was also a Lenovo, but not a Thinkpad.

    On Amazon.ca there's a used MOTU Ultralite AVB box on sale that I was curious about (about 20% cheaper than new).

    Or maybe I should just do something stupid and try that Merging Anubis box.

    Ok but really, I think I still have time to cancel my preorder on the Babyface if it's as meh as you guys say. What other options are there in that size factor and bus powered? MOTU has the Track16, but you need the dongle for outputs which is inconvenient. UA has the Arrow but I've heard mixed reviews on that too (mainly that it's overpriced for what it is because they overvalue their bundled plugins which I wouldn't use anyways). How about the MOTU Microbook compared to the M2/M4?
     
  18. GoodEnoughGear

    GoodEnoughGear Evil Dr. Shultz‎

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    Go into Device Manager and make sure in the Properties for the device (and any upstream devices) if there is a Power Management tab that the option to allow the computer to turn off the device to save power is unchecked. I turn that off for all my USB controllers and devices as it can create unpredictable results if an upstream device or the device itself is depowered.
     
  19. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

    Pyrate Slaytanic Cliff Clavin
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    Older motu prior to the AVBs isn’t so hot. If you need a usb bus powered interface, you’re not going to beat the Babyface pro unless the m2/M4 or the new ssl things are the shit and fit your needs
     
    Last edited: Jan 14, 2020
  20. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    @GoodEnoughGear
    I've searched around a bunch on device manager, sound devices, usb, blah blah. I don't think the culprit is in there, I suspect it's something buried in a power setting. I found it once on another machine, I think I had to edit something in a registry somewhere to even make the option show up. I just need to find it again. I will admit that turning off all the sleep settings that I can find does significantly reduce the blue screens.

    @Psalmanazar
    I think the Ultralite Mk4 is newer than the AVB? I've just had the avb sitting in my wishlist on amazon for a while, but yeah that's not bus powered.
    I haven't even heard of the SSL stuff... looks like they just came out? looking a little bit chunky size-wise though.
     

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