USB Nervosa Thread Decrapifiers, pro interfaces, and bears oh my

Discussion in 'Digital: DACs, USB converters, decrapifiers' started by zerodeefex, Sep 28, 2015.

  1. Senorx12562

    Senorx12562 Case of the mondays

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    It confuses some of the details with background/line noise (bass bloom, voice roughness, breathing, movement and so on) and removes it. I want that stuff because i'm a detail whore, thus i prefer headphones over speakers. Some people don't want to hear every hiss, pop or crackle present on a recording, they want to kickback and relax. Not me. I want to feel engaged, moved ... sooo, it gets a no no from me. It does what it states on the box, plus more, which is not spoken about. Therefore i consider it misleading.[/QUOTE]

    I guess I am frigid when it comes to details, but i'd rather not hear the shuffling of feet, turning of score pages, and audience member sneezes, however, if I listen to a piece where I know such non-musical accompaniment exists, and I don't hear it, then I wonder what else I am missing. First-world problem I s'pose.
     
  2. kixx

    kixx Acquaintance

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    I laughed really hard on that one :piratemug:


    The who, the what, the why, this gizmo does, confuses my mind (this is why i partially call the computer a confuser). I don't understand what it does exactly or how it filters the noise. Audio over usb is a digital signal, not analog, so ... to remove bits means to convert, to filter, to remove and then to reconvert? The noise that is generated by the confuser should not affect the sound, as it's bit perfect over the usb (it reaches the conversion chip exactly as it's on the storage medium). On the spdif the signal is converted, relayed over optic fiber, then reconverted and finally decoded by the dac (to my understanding). Extra steps, so yes, things can go wrong...
    Whatever ... It was supposed to better my audio experience. Unfortunately, that is not the case, it seems. The sound is also affected in the way i described it in my impression post. I don't know if that is normal, or not, but me no likey. Maybe it's supposed to do that, and i'm a scrub that knows not good music and how it's supposed to sound. The first time i heard hd600's, my mind was blown, my pants fell down, i tripped and bent over. I did not know whether what i'm hearing is good or bad. But further listening on my stuff made it obvious ... i had the wrong toys. Such was the experience with the "purifier". I plugged it in, and i felt something is missing ... the "rig" performs better without it, for my particular taste. Whether that changes over the years, and the gizmo makes sense, remains to be seen ...

    Soo, I will leave tech details to people who can understand such things ... i, for one, am still trying to wrap my head around headphone measurements, and just got to level 2. Level 1 being able to understand FR, how the ear works, and how the sound is changed when it reaches the eardrum. Level 2 is CSD, and i barely started to understand what it is, and how you are supposed to interpret it.

    Life should be simple. You pick up said "dongle", plug it in, and observe the difference (if there is one). Does the result work for you? Or not? Do you like it? Or not ...



    I will leave it at that, as there is no point to beat a dead horse with a stick. :piratemug:
     
  3. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    Except that they do, especially in the case of USB. USB 1 and 2 are interrupt driven, and depend on the CPU to clock the data onto the bus, rather than using a DMA-based setup like you'd hope. If the CPU is busy, it's more than possible that it won't keep up with the requirements of feeding the USB bus, leading to eventual buffer underrun. This tends to sound like clicks or pops, due to sudden discontinuity in amplitude on the output. (Not loss of "authority" or whatever crap the chin-stroking woo-woo merchants with $400 USB cables will claim they hear, of course.)

    Actually it's the bane of budget project studio musicians and gigging DJs, who tend to use USB audio interfaces. So much has been written about "optimising" Windows in particular to avoid this problem. Pretty much every developer of realtime performance-centric audio software has needed a support section on it, historically.

    It's less severe than it has been; modern PCs are faster relative to the freqs we're talking about, and Windows 10 does a better job of pretending to be realtime than some of its predecessors. However, it certainly has been the case that you've been way more likely to have dropouts over USB than your local network, on a loaded machine, unless your network drivers were utterly terrible (which, admittedly, some of the Realtek ones used to be).
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2018
  4. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Is that a different thing to DPC latency?
     
  5. Kattefjaes

    Kattefjaes Mostly Harmless

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    DPC is "Deferred Procedure Call", a Windows-specific mechanism for scheduling how you service things like interrupts.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_Procedure_Call

    Knowing your DPC latency is a pretty good indicator of how well your Windows box will handle the sort of interrupts needed for USB audio playback. If the latency gets too high, potentially, underrun may occur as the system will take too long to "get around to" processing the interrupt to clock out more data in a timely manner.

    Buffer underrun is best thought of as the consuming device (like your USB soundcard) running out of data, because it's coming in more slowly than it's consumed.

    Short version: they're related.
     
  6. Maxx134

    Maxx134 Dunning–Kruger effect poster boy

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    If so, then Eitr is not currently best option in usb/spdiff...

    From my experience, I am using the DXIO Pro3Z
    Capture+_2018-06-08-22-20-43.png
    It is comapratively priced, and has using a more powerful chip than the even the SU-1, plus all the other features described in link(click on name)...

    I preferred the Pro3z to both times I had the Gen5. The Gen5 actually improved a bit for me (sounded smoother before) upon a PSU motherboard upgrade.

    Anyways, although the Pro3z sounded better, its a spdiff input, so that's could be why as Gen5 only get close but no cigar.

    I use an ifi wallwart to a regen that then feed the DXIO Pro3z. I found that helped it better than just using the Pro3z external power capability alone.

    Its a simple stack that works for me untill hopefully we see schiit new implementation of USB in a future Eitr or other external device.
     
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2018
  7. Baten

    Baten Friend

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    Schiit USB Gen VI is in the works, no?

    @Maxx134 I heard Digione Signature is better that DiyInHk Pro3z. Same price, but it is an RPi design which is not for everyone. It can output a BNC signal which performs marginally better than s/pdif: better impedance matching.
     
  8. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I've mentioned this before, but here are two tools that people can use:
    https://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml
    http://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

    All the decrapifier widgets should only come after you've done your due diligence in hunting down the source of gremlins rather than slapping bandaids on top.
     
  9. Gruss Gott

    Gruss Gott Almost "Made"

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    Paul McGowan of PS Audio on USB cables at RMAF 2018:

    While at RMAF a young group of fellow YouTube channel contributors approached me with folded arms and a challenge. They had purchased at Best Buy the cheapest USB cable they could find. Their challenge to me was to prove to them a difference between their cable and my high-performance cable mattered.

    “No problem,” said I and invited them to Music Room One after the show. Within the first 30 seconds of the comparison the looks of shock on their faces was a sheer joy to me. Here were four bright young men intent on being right that cables cannot matter, yet open-minded enough to actually give it a try. After demonstrating the differences I left the room and their leader proceeded to test them with blind ABs and the group fared well: 70% accurate choices. Not bad for inexperienced listeners. (Yes, listening is a learned skill).

    Do they always matter? No, they do not.

    https://www.psaudio.com/pauls-posts/interconnects-and-speaker-cables-matter/
    (btw - i believe the "young group" was DMS, Zeos, and Joshua Valour ... Metal571 may have been there too)
     
  10. Maxx134

    Maxx134 Dunning–Kruger effect poster boy

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    Bad move, lol.
    It's been long time so I could be wrong, but I remember reading specs & some cables have a higher frequency rating(better).
    Also read others are better at separating/ insulation the power wire from the data.

    Too many variables in wire choice IMO.
    :)
     
  11. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    I like the Archemago D!

    But seriously, it is not so much data as power transmission that worries me with USB, because modern mobile phones easily prove some of them to be lousy at it, due to cheaping out on the power cables. Insulation a problem? Don't know. But if one thing has been cheaped out, maybe others have too.
     
  12. Hogcryat

    Hogcryat New

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    Thank you very much for your recommendation, I got a Singxer and indeed it was a very nice addition. It did not change the sound signature of my original chain much, but it improved air and separation quite a lot, (especially considering that my current DAC is only ~$300, the odd one in the chain), which is especially noticeable on complex passages, the hi-hats and small details are now kept afloat in the mix, unlike before.

    Can't wait until I finally muster up enough spare money to buy a Yggdrasil.

    Singxer SU-1 -> TEAC UD-301 -> XLR -> Bryston BHA-1 -> Balanced HD6XX
     
  13. gefski

    gefski Facebook Friend

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    Yes, "afloat in the mix" is a great descriptor. Then Yggdrasil's micro and macro dynamic swings really bring it to life!
     
  14. PTS

    PTS Friend

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    Anyone here know how to hookup and old DAC like a Theta DS Pro Gen V A to a computer - something as simple as a Schiitt Eitr?

    I'm really curious about this DAC after reading so much about it online. Those who have heard it - what say you?
     
  15. Thenewerguy009

    Thenewerguy009 Friend

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    Yeah, the chain should be Theta > coax > Eitr > USB > PC.
     
  16. winders

    winders boomer

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    Oops...read the chain backwards....your arrows are backwards.

    PC > USB > Eitr > Coax > Theta
     
  17. Yethal

    Yethal Facebook Friend

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    I'm in a bit of a pickle here. On one hand I'm told that Gen 5 USB on the Yggdrasil is larlely immune to bad usb source quality. On the other hand though RaspberrPi is supposedly so terrible that it's USB output shouldn't be used at all. My question is, which of these two "win" ? Is the RPI USB output terrible even with the USB Gen 5 or does the USB Gen 5 trump over RPI's terribleness?
     
  18. crazychile

    crazychile Eastern Iowa's Spiciest Pepper

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    I think this is an excellent question and am curious to what others may have to say. I use a Raspberry pi and have the extra pi board that outputs via coax, but have often wondered the same about bad USB. I would think that despite any Gen 5 USB magic that takes place, there comes a point where you simply cannot polish a turd.
     
  19. Taverius

    Taverius Smells like sausages

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    There's larger considerations, I don't remember the specifics but some or all of the network interfaces go via USB and the pi has 1 slow USB controller and 1 hub, so outputting via USB directly decreases your available network performance.

    That why the allo usb-output pi-like player has a separate usb via the hat connector to drive your DAC.
     
  20. allegro

    allegro Friend

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    There is a thread on CA where a Yggdrasil A2 owner swears SQ is improved using an Uptone ISO Regen. I am not bothering with any add on magic boxes for the USB on my Yggdrasil but just waiting for Schiit to come out with their new USB that should obsolete those.
     

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