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USB reclocker pecking order?

Opinions on what the pecking order, best market options are for USB reclockers to a DAC via fiber optic or coax SPDIF? I've seen comments on the Hi Face (~$180), the Hiface EVO (~$500) and the OffRamp (~$800) Had the MusicStreamer II for a while but as I improved the music server my modded Adcom DAC won out for musical ease.
I've stripped my PC music server into a lean, sweet kernel streaming machine (6.7 on windows user experience rating), but I can still hear edge/grit in the highs on various sound card SPDIF sources from my PC that I don't get direct from CD source.

Is there any clear winner for $500 or less that would make a difference at 48Khz? Or am I possibly picking the wrong priority to resolve?
128x128davide256
cbw723
89 posts
 
It may be that in some particular systems one converter is as good as another, but there is a fair amount of anecdotal evidence that the various converters "sound" different in some reviewers systems.

For the record, the Audiophilleo can be had for $495. It appears to perform identically to the more expensive model, but lacks the display, some options, a Wireworld USB cable, a choice of colors, and a fancy case. I haven't used this product, but it's interesting and I wish there were more reliable reviews of it and other converters head-to-head.
davide256's avatar
davide256 OP
395 posts
 
thanks for the responses. I've decided to wait a while to see if HRT chooses to make a BNC/RCA digital out model using the fairly good digital circuitry in their existing Music streamer.
koegz
317 posts
 
I am using a DCS Debussy dac with a fanless silent music server through a ubs cable. Using Media center 15 and flac. Anyone have experiance with a clock added? Is there a true improvement?
davide256's avatar
davide256 OP
395 posts
 
hmm, I see there is an asynch USB product for SPDIF out from Musical Fidelity, "V-LINK - USB To SPDIF Converter" that supports coax and optical SPDIF thats supports up to 96Khz. Anyone played with it yet? Price point ($169) is right for something thats likely to be obsolescing technology a year from now.
larry_s
128 posts
 
I'm very skeptical of the marketing mumbo jumbo for the V-Link. The whole point of asynchronous USB is so the target (DAC) doesn't not have to recover the clock from the data stream. This is why is it works so well compared to S/PDIF. With S/PDIF you have cable issues and variable frequency clocks on the DAC that help create jitter. So, anything that uses S/PDIF is flawed by design compared to what asychronous USB end-to-end provides.
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