@mitch2 phenomenal insight into these DACs. Appreciate your effort.
Anyone using the Mojo Mystique know what USB receiver it uses ? I run an optimized Windows platform on my diy server and need Windows driver. Mojo mentions to download the driver from JL Sounds website but there are different versions of the driver available. Since Mojo mentions JL Sounds, it must be using the USB to I2S bridge internally which is an excellent USB receiver used in Lampizator DACs I used to own at some point.
Many DAC designers optimizes one input over the other - some sounds better over AES/SPDIF, while others take a great deal of effort and care in designing a better USB input with high speed isolators, separate low jitter clocks, etc.
I think I read somewhere before that Mojo prefers AES/SPDIF input over USB but it would be interesting to know from actual users how the USB in Mystique compares to AES/SPDIF.
|
I agree 100% with Benjamin on the clocking part. The real myth is accuracy of the clock makes it sounds better not that an ocxo will sound better. Ted Smith of PS Audio has given similar explanation for audio, in the time domain small quanta accuracy is all that is needed rather than long term stability and yet we see OCXO clocks, which has the best long term stability, almost sounds better than a regular Femto/TCXO.
Moreover, it’s a given fact, and somewhat similar to I2S, that the proximity of the clock is important since it can significantly reduce emi and yet we see external master clock with 1M clock cable sounds better.
I have seen in some implementation with external master clock, a modestly priced 10Mhz OCXO did not improve the performance of the DAC until a very expensive one were used. This is very inline with what was described in the Mojo article regarding lower hash noise - the modestly price ocxo did not have a better hash noise than the internal clock itself and only when the expensive one was introduced did it improve the performance. I bet if we measured both these external clock in terms of accuracy in the time domain, we would be hard pressed to find any differences.
But having said all these, I am surprised that Mojo doesn’t employ an ocxo in their higher end dacs even when they believe it can improve the performance or maybe they did experiment and found no appreciable difference in how it sounds. Curious.
|
I'm using the most current USB driver. For Windows it doesn't show up as Mystique but works just fine. I've also tried an older driver which sounded the same so I reverted back figuring they must have a newer version for a reason.
@danager thanks for the info. Are you using the Thesycon or the Xmos driver from the JL Sounds download link ? Do you remember ?
|
@danager thanks. Yes, Windows reports I2SoverUSB. I know this since I had Lampizator sometime back and it uses the same JL Sounds USB receiver board in their DACs.
|
There are a small group of Chi-Fi manufactures who started promoting I2S and the audio-fools bought into it hook-line-and-sinker.
I don’t completely agree with this. I2S is not a Chi-Fi branding but I would agree that most of Chi-Fi DACs supports them today. PS Audio was a very early adopter of I2S (and they had two of them) and having owned their DS DAC when it was first released, their I2S input did sound a bit better than the USB. Admittedly, my USB source was not as sophisticated back then as it is today. IMO, I2S vs USB is a game of a combination of how good or bad your USB source in conjunction with the DAC’s usb implementation.
|
Another excellent American made DAC Audio Mirror Tubadour has I2S as well.
|
@no_regrets good to hear you are loving the X-24AM. If I am not mistaken, X-24AM and X SE are exactly the same DAC ? I agree with you that NCZ, though have a better quality choke, need not sound better in one's system. It's a matter of finding the right balance that suits one's taste I guess. However, I am not sure at this time if I would buy a new NCZ or have the X SE upgraded if that's possible. I would get in touch with Ben at some point to see if he could ship me a pair of NCZ chokes for me to upgrade if that's simple enough.
|
@mitch2 yes, Lampizator switched from Amanero to JLSounds a while back. I have owned couple of Lampi models pre (Amanero) and post move to JLSounds and the JL indeed sounded cleaner and more natural as far as I remember. However, I have Musetec 005 which uses Amanero and like how musical the DAC sounds through the USB. Admittedly, we don't know how the Musetec will sound with JLSounds but how a DAC will sound through USB is not only based USB board it uses but the whole package - power supply, clocks, analog stage, the chip or R2R, etc. I have a X SE in house now and I am not ready yet to compare with others (as I have a bunch of other diy stuff burning in my system) but I like what I am hearing :-) At some point I have to wonder how the NCZ version will sound once things settle down.
|
@brbrock yes, that's correct. I have been using the 005 for sometime now and as many here, I have gone through a fair share of DACs along the way but 005 has stayed the longest. When time comes, I will try to write sometime up though I am not an expert in the ways other writes here but right now my system had several mods which takes a while to settle down. What I can tell you right now is both are very good dacs in their own ways.
|
@no_regrets agreed on all fronts :-) I am very familiar with chokes and how the quality matters or not. I have employed them in several diy power supplies powering digital things like servers, switches, JCAT USB card, Clocks etc - started with off the self Hammond, then moved to custom order Mundrof and then again to another custom order from the boutique manufacturer in EU and every time it has added more to the music. In almost all cases, a better chokes helps, weather the resulting flavor is to your taste is a different matter. As a proponent of better chokes, I am mostly sure that at some point, I would like to try the NC version (assuming Benjamin can ship me a pair).
|
@debjit_g You mentioned the Musetec and Mojo DAC's are different. Can you explain how they are different. Can you mention some of the DAC's you have had in the past?
@brbrock as I was mentioning earlier I can’t justify a real comparison between the two as I did a bunch of mods to my amps/pre, music server, etc right after I received the X SE. They were already in the pipeline, so I couldn’t avoid it. As with burn-in/break-in, it’s a roller coaster ride, especially when it involves Furutech NCF components. I will get to a meaningful comparison when my system settles in but these two DACs have different flavor - I will not say more but at a high level, Mojo is more of denser, Musetec is more airy. However, take these with a grain of salt and my opinion might changes later.
|
@brbrock For what it’s worth, some of DACs I owned, PS Audio Direcstream, Denafrips Terminator, Mytek Brooklyn, Mivera Purestream, Matrix Audio Element X (excellent measuring DAC), 4 Lampizator models (Amber 3, Baltic 3, Baltic 4, Atlantic TRP), Aqua La Scala, Musetec 005 and now the X SE.
My plan going forward is to upgrade the X SE to NC and then also get the 006 (I am very much fascinated by the choice of parts and design).
|
Every DAC manufacturers claims their implementation is the best and sounds the best. What’s new here ?
Whatever Mojo Audio has stated in that post is right and wrong at the same time. Many folks already know those facts but they are all theory, however in practice they don’t really agree irrespective of what a manufacturer claims.
Talk to Esoteric and they will tell you that their external clock can take their DAC to a different level and this is true - I have heard the stark differences running the external clock with 1M cable.
Talk to PS Audio, and they think their I2S interface sounds better and their are huge number of folks who uses I2S with their DAC simply because it does sound better and I used to own their DAC.
Talk to Taiko Audio and they will tell you their proprietary ultra high speed XDMI interface is the best for Audio with ultra low latency.
Talk to MSB and they will tell you their ProISL is the best since it can completely isolate noise from the source.
I have heard many DAC whose AES sounds mediocre at best. Then how come it’s the best interface for audio ? How come USB, which wasn’t even design for audio sounds the best with many DACs ?
and so on…
so, who is right ? Does anybody (especially the consumers) think there is a winner ? I doubt….
|
@sns you have already experienced the I2S input in your Musetec and how much better it can sound compared to other inputs, given a good source. Its all about the design choices and how much care you take to implement it - some DACs have the common inputs just for the sake of having it to be competitive in the market, some DAC designer simply goes beyond with the implementation.
|
@fuzzbutt17
I do not think anyone claims I2S is the be all, above all interface for audio, in fact, USB wasn’t to be either. It just so happens that in some DACs they simply sounds better for whatever reasons.
Most off-the shelf DAC chips will have an I2S interface to talk to and hence some manufacturers thought it would be wise to make it available externally, even though I2S is only meant for short connection, typically few centimeters. Now we see more and more DACs coming up with this interface - maybe they just want to have it for convenience and be competitive or maybe the designer have really put some effort to do it correctly (and there are good examples of it).
Another thing that is a FACT is that I2S is not approved by the Audio Engineering Society (AES) as an external data transfer protocol.
That alone should make any rational person question what these companies are doing and why they are doing it.
Have you considered that those companies who are promoting I2S are putting less $$$ into their other inputs so that their I2S input sounds relatively better?
I have not seen any manufacturer claim or promote their I2S input sounds better. All I can tell is I had two DACs with I2S input and in both DACs, there was no compromise on the USB implementation from the manufacturer side and I do not typically use AES/SPDIF as my DIY server doesn’t have it.
To have I2S or not is a choice for the designer/manufacturer and the market they want to serve. I still believe a well implemented USB both in the DAC and Transport (along with an optimized s/w) would be sufficient in most cases, however we cannot really generalize it and at the same time nobody is bashing Mojo DACs for not having I2S either :-)
|
Can anyone name a pro audio component that is used in professional recording studios that uses an I2S input?
On the other hand, USB is used in professional recording studios.
What does that tell you?
It tells you nothing. The pro audio world also use cheap (compared to audiophile level) well measured and flat response studio monitors, how many audiophiles use those kind of monitors ? They also use Belden xlr interconnect - what percentage of audiophile use Belden in their setup ? They also sit in front of their mixing table with their ears and head in a vice, 4 ft away from the monitors - how many audiophiles do that ? And their are many more....does it matter what the pro audio world uses ? Their environment, purpose, use case are completely different than audiophiles.
They do not listen to the music as we do - our purpose is to enjoy the music and to transport ourselves in that venue, their purpose to create that venue.
In seems like you keep bringing the pro audio just to justify the lack of i2s in your dac. As @sns also alluded, I have not seen any manufacturer claim one input is better than others. You have your design, other manufacturers have theirs - what sounds best is finally determined by the consumer in their listening chair.
@sns +1
|
