Lossless SD digital Player is computer audio now reborn?

[rickmcinnis]

I would be tempted to remove those chips, too.

Not because of their power consumption but as you say, their (presumed?) noise contribution.

Never know until you do it and afterwards, who cares? Wasn't going to use them anyway.

Take care,

[nige2000]

Did you see Barrows' comments on the main Soekris thread where he mentions comments from "digital engineers who he respects"... I assume one of them is John Swenson who I referenced... but I'd been wondering if the FPGA-based reclock was as good as the HW setup on something like the Ian FIFO. Apparently not. I guess I'll have to try a setup with an R-Pi into an Ian FIFO and then into the DAM bypassing the DAM's isolators.

i saw
funny thing is that usb isolators make a big difference
whats also funny is that the fpga clock out doesnt actually look bad on the scope
but has a loss in resolution when using it to reclock with f-f in comparison to master clock

the new 1121 is supposed to reclock the fpga signals with f-f which could be an improvement
but tbh im tired with the "start with something bad and fix it routine"

ive a feeling theres alot sq lost in the fpga of soekris
but still manages to sound great

[gstew]

funny thing is that usb isolators make a big difference

Yah, but they really serve an entirely different purpose... keeping computer noise away from the USB receiver side. And there is reclocking of the USB signal built-into the USB receipt process anyway.

Add a Regen type of thing to minimize the effort the receiver chip must exert and you should get as good of a USB feed as possible.

BTW, Swenson/Crespi appear to be working on a super Regen with isolation built in.

whats also funny is that the fpga clock out doesnt actually look bad on the scope
but has a loss in resolution when using it to reclock with f-f in comparison to master clock

I expect that really small differences that are hard to see on a typical scope (not sure how good the one you have is, Nige) make significant differences.

the new 1121 is supposed to reclock the fpga signals with f-f which could be an improvement
but tbh im tired with the "start with something bad and fix it routine"

That was the same feeling I had when I read your comments about the Rev3 being better than the Rev1 and thinking "OK, now I need to sell these and get Rev3's". I'm glad that the mods make them equivalent.

ive a feeling theres alot sq lost in the fpga of soekris
but still manages to sound great

I wonder how hard a fully HW-driven setup would be to make? See DIYParadise for what I think is a fully HW-based R2R DAC. Not sure he sells it, tho.


Greg in Mississippi

[nige2000]

funny thing is that usb isolators make a big difference

Yah, but they really serve an entirely different purpose... keeping computer noise away from the USB receiver side. And there is reclocking of the USB signal built-into the USB receipt process anyway.

Add a Regen type of thing to minimize the effort the receiver chip must exert and you should get as good of a USB feed as possible.

BTW, Swenson/Crespi appear to be working on a super Regen with isolation built in.

any links about super regen?

whats also funny is that the fpga clock out doesnt actually look bad on the scope
but has a loss in resolution when using it to reclock with f-f in comparison to master clock

I expect that really small differences that are hard to see on a typical scope (not sure how good the one you have is, Nige) make significant differences.

there's a little correlation with the clk signal between what i see with the scope and sq at this level i see no difference
i always go with my ears i just use the scope for troubleshooting

the new 1121 is supposed to reclock the fpga signals with f-f which could be an improvement
but tbh im tired with the "start with something bad and fix it routine"

That was the same feeling I had when I read your comments about the Rev3 being better than the Rev1 and thinking "OK, now I need to sell these and get Rev3's". I'm glad that the mods make them equivalent.

stock r3 is better than r1 by a long shot, i havent done a stringent apples to apples modded r1 vs r3 im only guessing there in the same league

ive a feeling theres alot sq lost in the fpga of soekris
but still manages to sound great

I wonder how hard a fully HW-driven setup would be to make? See DIYParadise for what I think is a fully HW-based R2R DAC. Not sure he sells it, tho.

yea think it was 1500 or 1800$
some guy on headfi said he had one for 3 months and sent it back because of a distortion on low level detail otherwise "was to die for"
oh still have the page open
http://www.head-fi.org/t/310441/mhdt-havana-dac/2550

id like to build a hw only r2r

http://www.sonicillusions.co.uk/discrete_dac.htm

guess discrete r2r is not more common because of its part count, laboursome and expensive

[gstew]

any links about super regen?

Alex Crespi has dropped a few hints about it in the CA forum, here's the latest:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-da ... post520212

He's also dropped hints about some special tricks that are being used in Sonore's new uRendu that John Swenson also designed. I suspect some of those tricks may also be part of what is going into the Super Regen.

I'll post more about the rest of your comments later. Thanks for the R2R DAC info.

Greg in Mississippi

[nige2000]

any links about super regen?

Alex Crespi has dropped a few hints about it in the CA forum, here's the latest:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-da ... post520212

He's also dropped hints about some special tricks that are being used in Sonore's new uRendu that John Swenson also designed. I suspect some of those tricks may also be part of what is going into the Super Regen.

I'll post more about the rest of your comments later. Thanks for the R2R DAC info.

Greg in Mississippi

so many forums to watch i can only do 2-3

looks like the digital revolution is upon us and entering the mainstream
seems like yesterday that yould get gunned down or ran out of town for suggesting such things

sonore doesnt seem to release much info on their gear?
is it just ordinary mid-fi convenience stuff?

[gstew]

so many forums to watch i can only do 2-3

Yah, I get that! I do this forum, DIYAudio, some areas of CA, occasionally the Asylum, and very occasionally AudioCircle. I just found a forum from Jocko Homo, I need to spend some time reading it and catching up on DIYHiFi.org too, many who have been banned from DIYAudio post some interesting stuffs there.

looks like the digital revolution is upon us and entering the mainstream
seems like yesterday that yould get gunned down or ran out of town for suggesting such things

Not everywhere. But things like the Regen, the Wyred4Sound Recovery, and some of the AudioQuest and iFi stuff are making it mainstream. It is still not enough to tempt me to try USB yet, just too many inherent issues with not enough benefit... I am OK to deal with I2S-connected hair-shirt devices like the SD Card players, I DIY around it anyway!

sonore doesnt seem to release much info on their gear?
is it just ordinary mid-fi convenience stuff?

Their low-end stuff like their SonicOrbiter SE are that, but better than most stuff at the price. OTOH, IMHO the uRendu, the Rendu Signature, and their DIY-focused USB->I2S card are all three very serious efforts with some ground-breaking ideas and engineering, especially in the uRendu. They are all top-of-class products at pretty reasonable price points (for what they are). I suspect over the next year we'll learn a lot about some of the tricks Swenson and Jesus used in the uRendu and they will become standard practices (where they can be copied) in the same way re-working the USB signal in the Regen has become.

BTW, I've learned more about those three products from postings by others involved around them such as Barrows, Alex Crespi, and John Swenson. What they post is the main reason I go to CA at all!

Greg in Mississippi

[rickmcinnis]

The thing is the REGEN guys know USB is flawed. From a conversation I had that is a very mild characterization of how they feel.

One can figure they are coming up with these USB band aids to fund their work on a proprietary replacement.

The super REGEN is not aimed at purists. I know nothing about it but I know enough to know it will be a product for selling and not for serious use.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with to replace USB even though I have no interest in using a computer as a player.

[nige2000]

The thing is the REGEN guys know USB is flawed. From a conversation I had that is a very mild characterization of how they feel.

One can figure they are coming up with these USB band aids to fund their work on a proprietary replacement.

The super REGEN is not aimed at purists. I know nothing about it but I know enough to know it will be a product for selling and not for serious use.

I look forward to seeing what they come up with to replace USB even though I have no interest in using a computer as a player.

super regen will be for serious use for those using pcs or worse again macs which is by far the vast amount of digital sources

i have a fair idea what it will do for the sound id be surprised if it isnt at least competitive with the sd card players using a extremely modded pc

sometimes i think if you're having a bad day usb will be to blame :)

[rickmcinnis]

You will hear one of these days.

USB does not give me a bad day since I do not use it for audio.

Perfectly fine for what it was intended.

When REGEN releases the replacement for USB I suspect everyone will be in agreement though it will be expensive. It will be "safe" to say USB is bad.

I now think Greg was on the right track trying to resuscitate the sound card for computer audio. If one is determined to use the computer. I thought he was crazy but now I hear/see he had a good idea. I would think a good sound card with WTF (if it would recognize it) might be pretty good, but still much too complicated to compete with a simpler approach.

I will go as far as to say the computer will never equal the SD players or whatever follows that is not based upon a computer. I liked the convenience of the computer but even that aspect is not as beguiling as it once was. By the way I found out from the fellow who makes them that the SATA IIS converter only works with optical drives. I did not realize that.

The SD card player has its inconvenient aspects but being able to skip a track easily makes it easier to use for me. With WTF, even in the gui mode you had to stop the track you were listening to and select the next track.

Nigel, if you had got yourself an SDTrans I feel confident you would be happy with it; you would not have any doubts about which method is superior.

Using the computer to play REDBOOK is like the proverbial lawn mower with a DUCATI Panigale R's engine fitted. Maybe one needs the computing power for "high rez" but then you deal with all of the noise "high rez" brings along with it. And then there are those outlandish assemblages we read about at CA. It seemed absurd to me when I was using the computer and now they are beyond absurd. How anyone could think that much manipulation could possibly sound better than the simplest possible path for the signal goes against everything I have learned and experienced. Maybe I just need to accept that everything I know is wrong and simple amplifiers sound bad and I should get speakers with ten to twenty drivers to get coherent sound?

It was a fun experiment but it just doesn't work as well as we wanted it to. To use your excellent observation that too often too many of us are so happy that something works at all we then tend to think it works really well. I must admit that explains my fascination with the computer for audio. It did work and for most of the time I was using it my phonograph system was in flux and I did not have a good reference point. Once the turntable was settled the reality of the situation was impossible to ignore. Of course, we all want our systems to sound like actual music being played but this isn't happening for any of us. All I had for any kind of baseline was the sound one can get from LPs and there was no comparison.

I know I need to spend more time with the SDTrans before I say again that I think it has reached a near parity with the LP system.

Happiness is hard enough to find without others delineating good and bad. If it makes you happy that is all that matters.