Comments on Profile Post by Merrick

  1. Merrick
    Merrick
    Compared the USB out on my RPi with SPDIF via BNC from my v1 502DAC and the results weren’t even close.
    Jul 28, 2020
    Michael Kelly likes this.
  2. Merrick
    Merrick
    USB sounded flat, two dimensional. The sense of air and space around the instruments and performers was gone. Vocals became more prominent and individual instruments were harder to separate. Slight edginess/harshness, not a significant amount but noticeable in comparison to BNC. Significantly less emotional involvement in the music. I honestly couldn’t wait to turn it off.
    Jul 28, 2020
    JellyRhino likes this.
  3. Merrick
    Merrick
    Switching back to the 502DAC, the soundstage opened back up. Air and space and layering returned. Everything was more balanced, textured, detailed. I soon found myself just enjoying the music instead of analyzing it.
    Jul 28, 2020
    Michael Kelly likes this.
  4. Merrick
    Merrick
    The Gen 5 USB on the Gungnir kind of sounded like the Modi Multibit through SPDIF, which would be damning to the Gungnir if USB was your only input option and you didn’t want to upgrade to Unison. It’s also a compliment to Modi Multibit, in that it does sound good for what it is given the price delta. But SPDIF into the Gungnir blows the Modi away, as it should.
    Jul 28, 2020
    JellyRhino and rlow like this.
  5. Azimuth
    Azimuth
    An RPi is just not good on anything USB other than Unison I have found. Gen 5 is eh on a Pi..but it is much better on a Windows machine.
    Jul 28, 2020
    JellyRhino and rlow like this.
  6. rlow
    rlow
    The RPi (at least RPi 3) is such a terrible USB source, even Gen5 couldn’t do much with it. Unison manages to make it possibly passable, but IMO, still not great.

    Edit: Typing almost the same thing as rtaylor, too slowly :)
    Jul 28, 2020
    JellyRhino likes this.
  7. Merrick
    Merrick
    @rtaylor76 @rlow That's totally fair, and a better USB source could change the equation, but the RPi setup works best for my main system, so for me that's the USB source that mattered most.
    Jul 28, 2020
    Azimuth and rlow like this.
  8. Azimuth
    Azimuth
    I found Unison to be just a bit better than a HiFi Digi+. There was just a a tad more detail and clarity with Unison.
    Jul 28, 2020