Home Computer Audio Asylum

Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] Thread: [ Display  All  Email ] [ Computer Audio Asylum ]
[ Alert Moderator ]

My experience was: the juli@ digital part works great when applied as Cics recommends

Hi carcass93

I never bought/ heard the ASUS Essence because it initiately had no asio drivers available.

But I also had the EMU 1212 card, side by side with the Esi Juli@.
However I did never used the ESI Juli@ with the crummy coax SPDIF via breakout cables.
Right from the beginning I used the ESI Juli@ card as Cics recommends in his cMP-project: through the S/Pdif optical-out with a HIGH QUALITY optical glassfiber cable.
I frist tried the Juli@ digital part with the ‘plastic’ optical cable that came with my RME HDSP 9652 card. This sounded just okay.

After that I decided too buy an Lynx EAS16 digital interface card. The Lynx EAS16 too me sounded the best from what I had tried so far in 2008.

After 2008 I started too experiment with better power supply and I found that Cics recommendation always delivered as promised.
I also separately powered the ESI Juli@ with +5 and + 3.3 V (cutting the PCI-fingers and removing the onboard 3,3 V regulator).

I’m firmly route in the ‘Bits-is-Bits Camp, but finally I decided too follow the last recommendation from Cics cMP-project that I had not implemented so far: using a high quality glasfiber toslink cable.
I decided too buy the cheapest high quality optical cable: Van Den Hull opto coupler MKII. As I still was very sceptical.
I also wanted too have a 100% perfect galvanic-isolation between my cMP-pc and the Layry DAC / Klein & Hummel O300 active speakers.

But whow…. I now could hear what Cics meant. Some sort of home-coming. After this I sold of all my cards and settled on the separately powered ESI Juli@ with high quality Toslink.
Was it the galvanic-isolation? Was it the high quality glass-fiber toslink? Or Both?
I will never now, but it sounded WAY BETTER and every sound card I used for digital interfacing until than. So I sold them all.
Keeping the moded Juli@ digital part and the high quality glassfiber toslink.

In 2010 and 2011 a friend if mine was looking for better sound quality and invited me many times too join him on listening sessions. He also came by with demo machines he got too audition at his home, but he also took them too my home, too hook them up too my Klein & Hummels O300 active Speakers. This way I heard about every good (AD-)DA converter between $ 1.500 and $ 5.500. Mostly Pro-audio converters but also some DAC’s from HiFi origin (Perfect Wave, Ayre, NAD, and some others I forgot) My friend really took the time too work through his LONG ‘short-list’ :-)
Mostly I heard these converters through my friends MAC-book, using Pro-Logic as software player (I-tunes really sucks) and USB-out or Firewire-out) into my Klein & Hummels O300.

It was only than I started too realise how good Cics cMP Project was. A tweaked (separately powered) Juli@ digital part used with a high quality glasfiber toslink cable is a very high quality digital sound card interface. Even though you need an relative expensive high quality glasfiber optical cable, it’s is an very cost-effective high quality solution too transfer your music bits and timing bits from the PC too an external converter.

I now don’t use the cMP/cPlay software any longer but I still run the cMP-hardware.
On the cMP-hardware, I now run Music Player Demon (MPD) on a slimmed Linux version (Puppy Linux).
Put together: better known as the MPDPUP-project.
It outperforms the cMP/cPlay setup by a fair margin.
Especially on: micro-details, music texture and imaging.

But I still use ALL (!) lessons learned from Cics cMP-project.
- importance of clean power and galvanic isolation
- Don’t use more hardware and more software processes than strictly necessary.
So also:
- slimmed OS-es: slimmed XP / slimmed Linux (Puppy Linux)
- slimmed hardware: no keyboard, no mouse, no HDD or SSD, no VGA screen attached, etc.

I now try too figure out how I can boot puppy linux over my LAN with help of PXE booting.
This way it is no longer needed too boot MPDPUP from an USB-stick, which would allow for disabling USB in the bios.
From Cics project I learned and heard (!) how USB has a negative impact on sound quality.
(I don’t hear any negative impact on sound quality when using LAN)

Why this looooong story?
Too share through the Audioasylum that I found (out the hard way) that ALL (!) Cics recommendations do really work.
Including Cics firm recommendation too use the ESI Juli@ dgital part with a high quality glasfiber optical toslink cable.

Mark

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Parts Connexion  

Follow Ups Full Thread
Follow Ups
  • My experience was: the juli@ digital part works great when applied as Cics recommends - hfavandepas 06:48:16 01/11/13 (0)
FAQ

Post a Message!

 Forgot Password?
Moniker (Username):
Password (Optional):
  Remember my Moniker & Password  (What's this?)    Eat Me
E-Mail (Optional):
Subject:
Message:   (Posts are subject to Content Rules)
Optional Link URL:
Optional Link Title:
Optional Image URL:
Upload Image:
E-mail Replies:  Automagically notify you when someone responds.

[ Top Top of Page ] [ Contact Us ] [ Support/Wish List ] [ Copyright © 2024, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]