does a soundcard change the bits?

[PeterSt]

With the DAC acting as Master clock and the soundcard slaved to it???

Right. That one I missed (in my context, not in your story).

To be honest, I don't know. Few people will be able to do that, and in here you are probably the only one doing that.
Must the answer be Yes then ? anyway, IMO you should do the test with a normal CD to avoid possible other anomalies.

Hmm ...

[PeterSt]

I mean, I only listen through nos.

Peter, do you use the FF800 to send an spdif signal to the nos DAC, or are you using usb?

SPDIF.
I can use USB as well, which is in the DAC converted to SPDIF before going to the chips, and it sounds way different (and far from better). Whether this is related to the FF reclocking I don't know.

Probably more things are going on, and reading the net it looks like more people come to the conclusion that USB is not Walhalla in those cases where a choice is possible.
Anyway, and as I said more often before, in almost all cases it is impossible to compare, because things just cannot be compared. For example, if the FF could take USB (in and out), I myself would already be much closer to an honest comparison.
Or, if my DAC would have I2S internally, and both SPDIF and USB would convert directly to that, the same.

I am fairly sure that - with enough people hence equipment - around, we could find the absolute best connection, and the connection will show a nature by itself. Actually this is what I created this board for.
But it really takes many more people.

It's already good that now ONE person is around who can slave his soundcard to the DAC. Didn't know that ...

Must think about this ...
If you, in the mean time, have more input to this, I'm very glad to get your opinions. Everybody would.
It is the most interesting anyway.

Peter

[manisandher]

Yes, I will repeat the test with a non-HDCD CD at some point. It will be interesting to see if the veiling is there or not with everything set to zero in the mixer (including L/R pans).

But the biggest question that remains on my mind is why the soundcard is changing the data in the first place. And it must be because my DAC doesn't register the HDCD signal with everything set to zero in its mixer.

I can undo any changes that the soundcard is making by changing settings in the mixer. This allows the HDCD signal to be detected... but does this really fix the problem or introduce the veiling effect?

One really important point here is that this has nothing to do with the PC or XXHE. This is purely to do with my transport, soundcard and DAC. The PC is merely being used to change the mixer settings. But the mixer sits in the soundcard (i.e. the soundcard can be used as a standalone unit).

WRT slaving the soundcard to the DAC, what can I say? I would never buy a DAC where I could not do this.

My DAC allows three different settings: 1) PLL, 2) RAM buffer and 3) Wordclock + RAM.

Setting 3) turns the DAC into the Master, with the clock sitting right next to the four PCM1704 dacs. And there is simply no comparison.

Mani.

[manisandher]

Then, parts of your enthusiasm may have forgotton your original objectives (mentioned under 1) and 2)

See http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=481.0

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Yeah, I read that first this morning. Already forgot that this "story" was in a separate topic.

(FWIW, I did manage to get some answers to my original questions, which I will post separately.)

Even that didn't trigger my sleepy head.
Coffee was good though.

For the remainder, I guess it is too difficult for at least me to comprehend what you can exactly do with your settings, how your soundcard mixer should or should not influence your DAC, how the soundcard can play offline (I understand this) while mixer settings influence playback, combined with the soundcard slaved to the DAC but the DAC (D70) should produce the sound.


The only conclusion which seems logical to me would be that you use the soundcard as the DAC in this slaved situation (the P70 playing). But since you will not be doing this ... as said, I just can't comprehend.