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RE: new queezebox touch as quaility computer to spdif only

Posted by John Swenson on October 23, 2009 at 12:30:32:
The Touch definitely uses an asynchronous protocol to the server. It has its own local crystal oscillators (one for 44.1 and 88.2 and the other for 48 and 96).

I'm not sure what you mean by "reclocked", the output S/PDIF stream is directly generated using a local crystal oscillator, the jitter on the output is essentially that of the local oscillator. The circuit is designed so there is hardly any extra jitter added to that of the clock.

There is no upsampler or anything like that if that is what you are referring to.

The oscillators on the touch are not the lowest jitter oscillators on the planet, but they are not bad either. They come out to about 40-50ps. The output circuitry is pretty good as well so reflection issues on the cable and load will be minimized.

The result is actually a very good S/PDIF output stream, its one of the best I've heard.

Thats not so say its perfect. Its no that hard to add really low jitter oscillators to the touch and that will really bring its output up there. I expect that there will be digital modifications available for it that will do this.

Compared to a stock SB3 its quite a bit better. Its about on par with a SB3 that has been modified with low jitter clocks. A Touch with low jitter clocks will be really amazing.

This is all based on comparisons a couple months ago. They just did something to the firmware that makes it sound quite a bit better than it did before on the analog outs, I haven't tested the S/PDIF out yet to see if that also got better. (previously the S/PDIF to a really good DAC sounded quite a bit better than the analog out. With the new firmware the analog out was getting close to the previous external DAC sound. My guess is the external DAC out will now be better as well.)

John S.

John S.