What is the best USB S/PDIF converter

[PeterSt]

Haha, as I said, not really a big deal.
Ar-t.

Ah, I see, but I only do it with that particular person

Isn't he the most famous of them all. That's why I didn't want to say anything about it at first.

[digitalman]

hi Peter,

Thanks for your explanation. I'll send you a PM because then i can write in Dutch, easier for me.

Regards,
Martijn

[SlickenSmooth]

First off, let me say that the Hiface (modded by Jkeny) offers very good SQ and a quick soulution for it's price. I can't say what it sounds like exactly because I just got my Devialet which is still burning in so I'll wait before I jump to some (wrong) conclusions.

I think that ideally though in computer audio that you will not need an extra interconnect and a box between the computer and your DAC.

I just happened to have visit Peter yesterday. We traded some opinions, ideas and our view on the audio subject. Ofcourse I listened to the Phasure NOS1 DAC too . The sound was very good. Very precise, clean and a lot of information. I can't say wether it's the best DAC ever, as I haven't listened to all the reference DAC's out there. But for the price he's asking for it, it's a steal. The price/ preformance ratio is unbeatable and he could ask a lot more for it, but he explained to me (very clearly) why he doesn't.

Was it the best system I've ever heard then? No... Not by a long shot.. It didn't have the same magic as some 100k systems I've experienced, but I suspect this because Peter doesn't believe in high-end cables, acoustics, amplifiers, speakers and the synergy of the whole as much as I do.

On the other hand I must say I was impressed by the SQ, because  of the cheap cables and amps Peter was using. And the acoustics were far from optimal . So I DID learn that the source (or front end) has more effect on the whole outcome than I first thought. But to create musical magic, I still believe that the front to the back needs to be carefully matched and fine tuned to create a synergistic complete package. And I believe acoustics play a big part in what you're hearing. But making a room 'dead' like many professional acoustic engineers do is not the way for High End audio imo, you need to make the room work WITH you.

[PeterSt]

Was it the best system I've ever heard then? No... Not by a long shot.. It didn't have the same magic as some 100k systems I've experienced, but I suspect this because Peter doesn't believe in high-end cables, acoustics, amplifiers, speakers and the synergy of the whole as much as I do.

Haha, that's a nice one. But I guess it is true to some extend. Or at least it is proven by my crocodile wires which hold the xovers together ... for 3 years or so by now.
Also it is admitted that at least I don't do anything about it rather explicitly, already by pointing out *that* the xovers are connected like this - for years. And this is obviously not for the best possible sound ...

Well, while you could say that one can't do 100 things at the same time, and while this certainly counts for me, it may come across a little strange that someone claiming to have created a "best DAC" in the mean time deals with his cabling (and more) this way. Not a single piece of acoustic treatment either (ah, my curtains can be closed ), and what else.

But the real explanation is this :

I think I have a fairly good "absolute memory" if it were for sound. With this I mean that it is not so very difficult for me to recognize a character in the sound from its origine from for example one year back, while that origine is supposed not to be there anymore. Hard to explain, but think about cymbals sounding some way, and when I change something in the software, I suddenly hear those cymbals sound from a specific situation that year back. That I can recall this is one thing, but that I'm usually also able to remember what caused this sound (one year ago) is another. Anyway, this is very important to "restore" things. But it is also important (and this can't be emphasized enough) to make progression. So think a kind of other way around : it may occur that a certain virtue occurs not to be there anymore, next I should be able to think back : since when has this actually gone, or IOW, what actually to do to bring it back. Then it comes handy to know *when* this changed, so I can re-capture *what* actually changed (for the cause), to next restore it.
That all you great people are a great help with this, is another matter (like : hey, the bass from 0.9y-xxx whatever was much better !).

But now think further : how would I be able to restore and check (!) when in the mean time I would be working on my crocodiles and all ?
It just couldn't ...
And so it happens that I *do* create new interlinks as I showed you, but will never use them, and will only measure them when I can find some time in between jobs. You saw it happening, that one interlink with its nice Neutrik connectors being on the floor somewhere, if you only believe that a. I made them 2 months back, and b. there really weren't used at all one single time.
Who does that ?
The why I just told about.
More physically : I told you about this new cable in advance, and how and why it should be better regarding "some" theories (about SE vs. balanced ad such). So, for fun we measured it, and it was *worse*. There went the theories, and no lies about them being apparently wrong. But also, no lies in general, because looking at the result, what would I be looking at, at measuring a next DAC (which could be yours, haha). No lies ever, and expecially not to myself !

Lastly, the "acoustics" example, which almost is more important. Well, to me it is;
People may know, and I told it to you too, that it is my belief that all room anomalies are FIRST *created* by the source. The better the source is, the less problems room anomalies will be noticeable. I told about my PEQ and stuff with which I started out in this house, and which is all in the garage because it's not "necessary" anymore. But wait ...
We have special corners in the room where things are critical if it were for real standing (bass) waves. So, this is a "check it out" corner. For example, where before W7-SP1 this was still a place not to be, from off W7-SP1 it just can. It is of major importance to find differences in areas not profound in the first place. So, software change, another setting - mwah, looks okay ... but if this corner is not, it is thrown out. Hmm ...
So, although still theory (but for sure a working one), what to do if I started decorating the room with bass traps and everything ? ... all would be judged as ok on this matter, not knowing how it progressed really. And believe me, if I use Foobar and some old DAC ... you wouldn't want to be anywhere in this room, especially not with something like that Yello ...
The theory works, but I can't use a decorated room to make progress on this !

Well, I hope this is not appreciated as "this guy wants to have an answer to everything", because it's really the way how I operate and how things *do* progress.
That's what I hope anyway.

Thanks,
Peter

[Flecko]

People may know, and I told it to you too, that it is my belief that all room anomalies are FIRST *created* by the source.

I would admit to what you are saying but instead of FIRST, I would say SECOND. Because the FIRST thing you have to look for, when it comes to room acoustics is the speaker. If it is non linear on axis and/or has some peaks off axis and/or has resonanaces in the waterfall diagramm, it is the first place where coloration come from. But as it is a chain, with a bad source no good speaker can shine and with a "bad" speaker it doesn't help if you have a good source.

[digitalman]

@SilckenSmooth: Thanks for your info on JKModded Hiface. Hope you can tell me more when your amp has burned in!

[PeterSt]

I would admit to what you are saying but instead of FIRST, I would say SECOND. Because the FIRST thing you have to look for, when it comes to room acoustics is the speaker.

Interesting ... But maybe it depends how one "operates". I mean, when you build your speakers and depend on the sound merely (and which would be a very good idea btw), you will never know when the speaker would be first. You wouldn't even be able to judge amplifiers when the source would not be first.

I can imagine this is all way beyond you imagination, but please trust me. With the software alone (referring to XX) you can TRUST that this is eliminated largely already. With this at hand, *and* knowing that the speakers are ok too, you will be able to throw out an amplifier within seconds. It will produce standing waves in the higher frequencies (well, if so of course), and it is SO easily audible (the sound buzzes while it shouldn't). You will not able to judge at all - when this happens in the first place - when the source is not ok to this respect.
So believe it or not, but by this means an amplifier can be rejected really within seconds. But you have t trust the source (and speaker, for the amp example).
I took amplifiers as the example because I can tell it from experiene (read : I did not take speakers for the example, because I don't have the experience from those (acting wrongly)).

Point is : the source can be trusted (once proven for once and for all), while all those random speakers (amps) can not be trusted at all. You would be tweaking the wrong thing ...

Maybe we also must forget "old school" thinking, which is about "the speaker is the most important". It is not true. Not not not. I will try to back it up with one example :

I use horns. Well, horns are the most difficult to not let them sound like horns to begin with. Mine don't in the first place, crocodiles or not. You can tweak endlessly (let's say it took me a year of throughput time) to try to eliminate nasty habbits which won't go out; If one type of speaker will show a trumpet which really is a sax, it's a horn. Think about this ...
When a nasty (too square sound, which happens in a too small throad) is eliminated for one instrument, it shifts to the other because all you did it shifting a bump in the frequency. But, you test with music, and the music comes from this one source.
Now think standing waves again;

Standing waves will happen inside of that throad anyway. Unavoidable once too narrow, let's say. But now we have this voltage coming from the source (think DAC for easyness, but I really talk software here) and it's unevenly spread throughout the frequency within itself. It's an harmonic and it's a false one. It will be emphasized because of the standing wave principle. The horn will "shout".
That standing wave is really not much different from one in your room - be it a low or be it a high frequency. It is incurred for by reflections.
Now, all it actually takes (can I say after a few years of explicit experience on this) is eliminate the distortion in the source.
I won't say I wasted my time of this year on getting the xovers etc. right, but I will say that the source has way (way !) more influence and the attention has been on the wrong subject mostly. Today ? today I have no shouting or uneven frequency output from my horns. Still I didn't change anything anymore when I (or better "we") stopped with it.

A speaker must be good in its base. But it is so much more tolerant than you ever can imagine. I know ... (now).

Peter

[SlickenSmooth]

The speaker surely is not the most important at first, but in the end it can become the most important.

I've been through this journey so I know. I had some cheap speakers in the beginning, with some cheap amps and cables and it didn't sound very good obviously. Then I bought some 2nd hand high-end pre and power amps and some better cables and guess what happened? There was a lot of the high-end sound coming from my speakers, which by then, I had only heard at dealers... My speaker sounded like a much more expensive speaker suddenly. But I don't want to give the wrong impression. Say my 1500 euro per pair speaker suddenly sounded like 6000 per pair speaker after I upgraded my amps but definitely not like a 20k speaker. Anyone who tells you that is mad hahah. Later I upgraded my source which was certainly a change for the better, but it wasn't as huge of a difference that the amps (and the cables) made.

Anyways given your amps, source, cables, audiorack and acoustics are of a high level (and create a good synergy all together) then the speaker becomes the most important factor as only a high quality speaker will let you hear the full potential and capabilities of all of your equipment AND the set as a whole. Will a lesser speaker sound bad? No, when everything before the speaker is of high quality and matched carefully it will not sound bad, it might sound very good. But imagine a prime Michael Jordan in the body of a 60 year old guy.. You get the point..

[Flecko]

I did not take speakers for the example, because I don't have the experience from those (acting wrongly)

I do, heard and measured

A speaker must be good in its base. But it is so much more tolerant than you ever can imagine. I know ... (now).

That is exactly what I think but I would conclude different-> At first you need a speaker of a good base quality. If you have a realy cr*py speaker, you can put the best source and amp before it and it will not sound good.

the source can be trusted (once proven for once and for all), while all those random speakers (amps) can not be trusted at all. You would be tweaking the wrong thing ...

How do you like to prove the software source is right? We messing around with this all day and still are not sure what is right or wrong. It is far more easy to prove a speaker is right. And as we can not measure the software at the limit we are working on, we must first trust our speakers.

Nevertheless, it is like the question: What was first, the chicken or the egg?

I would say: The speaker is the most overrated part in the hifi chain and the digital source is the most underrated. Plus, that a good digital source is the most difficult to get.

[Suteetat]

Personally, I think a stereo system can only sounds as good as its weakest link in the system. No $100,000 front end, speakers or amplifiers will  compensate for a cheap $1 cable in the system nor overcome a poorly recorded CD or LP completely. Nor a great system will overcome poor placement in a horrible room and a great room is not going to make a boombox sounds like a million dollar system. I am a afraid there is  no one magic bullet to make a system great.

[hubsand]

I have to declare an up-front commercial interest here because we've auditioned a lot of USB > SPDIF converters with a lot of different DACs and computers. And when I find something I really like, I then try to sell it. No disrespect to the other converters we sell (like the Halide Bridge and KingRex UC192), but John Kenny's modified HiFace sounds significantly better at that price than anything we've heard before. It's a great shame, because it's not as profitable a thing for us to sell (in fact, most dealers wouldn't touch it), but the fact stands that it performs brilliantly. I don't think it's as good as the Sonicweld Diverter, but that is the product of mad genius and costed (dis)proportionately!

[PeterSt]

Hubsand,

Please stay out with strange posts like this.
It almost looks like computer-generated.

It's not about your commercial interest (not hard pressed anyway), but about the out of the blue nothing-worth posting.

Thank you,
Peter