2. digital
  3. 181426-149317

USB yet again

For a few years I have had an Intona Isolator with Oyaide Continental 5S upstream and Intona Reference downstream connecting Streamer and DAC. Given the Strong benefit of filters on the upstream Ethernet connection I added a LHY Audio USB 3.0 purifier with a Grey Knights power cable. The tightening of the transfer and resultant SQ was remarkable despite having used superior cables before.

While USB remains a compromised transfer format, asynchronous USB is the only protocol synchronising the server’s and dac’s clocks unless both have master clock connections. AES/EBU may have better noise rejection but has imbedded clock signal,SPDif is outdated as well as speed constrained and I2S not standardised. Hopefully the industry comes up with a better solution. It is interesting that there seems to emerge a trend to combine server and dac: one wonders why?

antigrunge2

Showing 2 responses by uncledemp

uncledemp
713 posts
 

This hobby is similar to running a manufacturing plant, it’s a game of bottlenecks in a quest for velocity/ perfection. Each rectified bottleneck, creates another bottleneck, as it can only be the case. At some point the listener’s hearing will become a bottleneck, and is/will be assisted/solved as technology advances. The flow will evolve and continue.

Mapping and measuring the flow of a manufacturing facility may be easier. Either way, solving the impediments will always be a challenge, otherwise they would not be impediments.

The issue to me is one of priorities, as resources (time) is limited, and so far, as far I know, the bottleneck of death continues to elude us, at least on planet Earth.

 

Sometimes I feel the goal of this hobby is to take a picture of a painting that is superior to the original work.

uncledemp
713 posts
 

@lalitk 

Yes sir, agreed. 
 

Best-

More to discover