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In Reply to: RE: I would buy one if... posted by flood2 on June 20, 2015 at 17:47:15
Hi i agree
it is strange that so few transports have aes out.
And also dacs the input by the way.
I read many valuable opinions about its superiority over coax spdif.
It should not be that expensive to put one in both
Kind regards,
bg
Edits: 06/21/15 06/21/15Follow Ups:
Indeed - it isn't that expensive! Many DACs already provision for AES/EBU so it is surprising how few transports offer it. Having said that Musical Fidelity DID provide one in the M1-CDT. Good on them!
I use AES/EBU throughout and fully balanced for the analogue section in my system. Definitely worth doing if you are able to.
If you are a DIY person, you can also fit your own AES output stage if you can identify where to tap off the SPDIF output signal and are prepared to do a bit of work on the case to fit the socket...
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Hi Anthony !
thanks a lot indeed for the very valuable advice.
As i said i read positive opinions from very talented designers about aes connection. For me it is enough to go for it.
When i read in Wikipedia that this allows for longer cables without degradation of the signal quality this suggests to me of a better standard.
I have found a network streamer from Shanling that indeed has a aes out and i am interested. But is not very popular.
I do not even know if they provide and app to control it by remote (a must for me nowadays. It is just too handy).
May i ask which AES cable are you using ?
I am using a cheap from Canare and it works ok.
Thanks a lot again.
Kind regards,
bg
I made my own cable using Neutrik XX connectors with Deltron GAC2 digital AES/EBU specified cable from Element14. I use the same cable for the (fully) balanced analogue connections between DAC/Pre (NAD M51) and Power amp. One thing to be aware of when using balanced connections; Not all equipment correctly separates chassis ground from signal ground. Consequently, you can introduce ground loops if your cable is (preferably/correctly) wired such that shield is connected at BOTH ends to chassis ground. In this situation, you must lift the shield at one end - which you would do if you needed to go from unbalanced to balanced using twin core shielded cable - in this situation you lift shield ground at the source (unbalanced) end. See the application note for good information on this.
Balanced connections work great if all the equipment is properly designed with correct chassis and signal ground separated. Otherwise, they can be a nuisance!!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Hi and this is the one i am using ... wonderful for the price i think.
Kind regards,
bg
Hi Anthony !
thanks a lot again for the very valuable advice.
Nice cable you have built. The look says high quality.
If i am not wrong it should be the one in the link attached.
Me too I use exactly the same cable for analog balanced as well !
again after reading a recommendation from pros.
I tried and it seems to work fine ... for little money.
I have also a pair of Cardas XLR for analog that fascinate me ... but they are a little big and stiff ... but i have to listen to them better.
Cardas cables usually need much time to settle down.
Lately i have been forced to headphones for neighbours reasons.
I have an headphone amp with xlr inputs.
My present dac has only XLR outs so i have been forced to xlr connections.
But for digital aes, on the basis of what i read (lately a guy recommending aes connections for a very high end Wadia dac), would be my first choice.I also read great things of the M51 ... a very good piece indeed and i like the preamp feature a lot.
Actually my ideal solution would be indeed a dac/preamp.
But i had to fix myself on something ... like for marriage i mean.
At least for 20 years ...
However i feel like i am quite close to decent sound ... but still not there.
Thanks a lot again.
Kind regards,
bg
Edits: 06/24/15 06/24/15 06/24/15
You may have seen my posts on the subject of Master Clocks in the past...However, I firmly believe that this is where you can get the biggest improvement even with what you have. IMO the Apogee Big Ben is well worth the price - It is about USD1200 to USD1300. You have to pay CONSIDERABLY more to do better (e.g Grimm CC1).
The biggest advantage is that it can be used in several different ways - as a reclocker and multi-input converter (i.e converting from RCA to optical or vice-versa or either of those options to AES or even the OTHER way if you desire!). It has provision for parallel AES connections too or you can treat them as two separate AES inputs. You can of course use it simply as a Master CLock for an ADC....
It will never be redundant even if you change source as it will complement your DAC as a multi-input digital stage (particularly useful if you only have limited inputs on the DAC).
Good luck in your quest!
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Thanks a lot again !
I have read mixed opinion on reclockers. Not 100% positive.
However as i said i am believer in AES connection. More than in spdif.
The task is now to get a good AES out of the pc.
I am sure it can be done ... i am not sure about the best way to do it.
Usb to AES is extremely handy for the portability ...
PCI to AES could have maybe an advantage ?
For now i am stuck on usb to aes and trying to improve it to see what i can get in terms of sound.
Clearly i am not looking for the high end ...
Thanks again.
Kind regards,
bg
..to the cheaper reclockers. The reason for the mixed reviews is because the cheaper devices often rely on SRC as the "reclock".
I own the original Perpetual Technologies P-1A and the GWLabs DSP (identical to the Monarchy DIP as it was designed by the same engineer under a different company name). They all used the CS8420 SRC to the upsampling and used a VCXO to "reclock" the input data if you chose not to upsample. They "work" up to a point and can certainly effectively buffer a low end DVD player for example to become "almost" listenable on your reference system. However, the intrinsic jitter is still quite high (typically > 200ps) also partly due to the limitations of the transmitter.
The Wyred4SOund Remedy is another such device - they are careful to market this product for comparitvely low end devices like the Logitech Squeezebox. The "femtoclock" doesn't actually tell you much about the final output quality since it depends on the jitter immunity of the input receiver. The output is fixed at 96kHz irrespective of the input sample rate so they obviously rely on SRC and the "femtoclock" is presumably the clock reference for the SRC. If you already have a good transport, you may hear no benefit, and very possibly the output will be worse because if your DAC upsamples, you will be doing the process twice - NOT GOOD!
Big Ben uses DDS to generate an ultra clean reference clock which is used to reclock the input sample rate to the SAME sample rate.
The USB to SPDIF devices are still limited by the capabilities of the TAS1020B (very common in many low cost devices). The newer replacement is a DSP, but these still are limited by the PLL intrinsic jitter. Big Ben will still improve these outputs.
Put it this way, Big Ben rendered my reference transport redundant and could turn an Oppo 103 SPDIF output into something indistinguishable!
Computers are very noisy (electrically), so PCI (soundcards) with an SPDIF output are likely to be much worse than USB (using asynchronous mode).
I own a Benchmark DAC1 HDR which they claim is jitter immune. Similarly, the NAD M51 is advertised similarly due to the conversion from PCM to PWM to a completely uncorrelated clock (108MHz). However, the effect of Big Ben and the Grimm CC1 are still audible (in a positive way) which suggests that they still benefit from an ultra clean input data stream.
See if you can find a pro-audio shop that will let you try Big Ben before you spend additional on a new source or DAC - I would be surprised if you are underwhelmed by the result! :)
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Hi Anthony thanks again.
So it is really something this Big Ben.
Actualy i am using the Rosetta 200 from the same brand.
It has a clock input.
I doubt that they allow me to try before buy.
I will think about it.
Thanks again for the very interesting advice.
Kind regards,
bg
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