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In defense of the Juli@... and what looks to be the best currently available alternative

Rick,

I can't answer your question of whether the Lynx would be better than an optimized Juli@. But I've been looking at the Juli@ again over the last couple of weeks with an eye to what is right about it and what can be improved. And I'm looking at what the next level of upgrades and modifications might look like.

For the the Juli@'s positives attributes, we have the following:

1. It looks to be designed pretty well, with a multi-layer circuit board and even stock, a fairly sophisticated power regulation and bypassing scheme. An example of this is how it is designed to work and sound good even though it's intended to be powered by the computer power supply via the computer motherboard power rails. That it works as well as it does in this environment means the designers did SOMETHING right!

2. It does provide a lot of flexability in being able to output I2S and SPDIF, along with being usable via it's analog outputs (in a pinch).

3. It can be modified fairly easily for better performance.

4. It is sufficiently inexpensive that one doesn't feel too bad taking the risk of killing the card while modifying.

5. And as a bonus, you have the K&K I2S interface which allows you to bring the I2S out of the computer and connect to a remote DAC. I'm not sure how well it compares to a short cable (<3") and a close DAC (an option not available for most), but I have a lot of respect for the K&K guys (and the PS Audio ones too) and know that they wouldn't put it out if it was bad.


But the Juli@ does have the following drawbacks:

1. It does a lot of things not needed if you are using it only for an computer-to-DAC interface, especially if you are using the I2S bus. This means you have components that you don't need that are potentially degrading the signal quality and is true both for the hardware and the driver software. It DOES help that you can remove the analog card and it's devices.... too bad you can't do the same for the driver processing associated with the analog output.

2. PCI looks to be end-of-life, as you found with the latest motherboards either not having a PCI slot or using a PCI-e to PCI bridge (which HAS to be bad for SQ).

I think that the Steppe & Jolida Windows Slimmings do some positive things to reduce the extraneous processing in the Juli@ (or any sound card) processing stream. I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that you'd be able to run the Juli@ Control Panel after you've gotten very far down the Windows slim-down path.

I also think that the mods that I and others have posted for the Juli@ digital section go a significant way in reducing the impact of the excess complexity AND also the impact of it being a sound card powered by the computer's power supply via the computer motherboard rails.

What I'm working towards right now are a further set of mods that can take the Juli@ a few notches better, building on the ones I've generally done in the past and the clock mods shown by Mihaylov.

I'll be starting a sub-thread over in the cMP thread about this soon.

But finally Rick, after saying all of this, if you are looking for the best available alternative today to getting an I2S stream out of the computer, look at an EXAU21. Reviews have been very positive (including a couple comparing it to somewhat-modified Juli@) and it costs $430 CDN, significantly less than the Lynx. AND being a USB interface, it won't have the PCI end-of-life problem. AND since it is designed to ONLY produce an I2S datastream coming out of the computer, it starts with a lot less extraneous complexity that can impact the SQ. And it will need less work than either a Juli@ or a Lynx to serve it's best in that role.

And I almost forgot to mention that the EXAU21 provides galvanic isolation between the computer and the DAC (and I don't believe the K&K I2S interface does this... NOTE that I was not correct on this, while the K&K interface does not provide isolation, the K&K RAKK DAC does have isolation at its I2S inputs. This is important as this is the DAC Rick uses).

Also, since it mounts at the end of a USB cable, it provides another way to bring the I2S to a remote DAC.

These are two more important benefits of the device.

The positive comments about this new interface are what have prompted me to take a closer look at how to get the best out of the Juli@.

This is probably more like $2.37 instead of my $0.02.

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!


Edits: 10/13/11 10/13/11 10/14/11 10/14/11
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