Are the other 15 wires connected to the GND?
Will it be useful/recommended for regular RCA interconnects?
Thanks for your explanations John.
Exactly, that's where I was aiming at. For me the concept of PC audio is flawed by design, I have moved away from it many years ago and won't let any PC or laptop component anywhere near my audio reproduction chain, the amount of garbage and noise in this digital domain is just so devastatingly immens.
6 or 7 years ago I went to the greatest possible lengths, building computers who were reduced to the bone and e.g. complete ran on battery power, with isolated and LiPoFer powerd soundcard (the famous Juli@ ;-) ), dedicated Linux OSs and what not. Since I believe in "proper measurement first", I took these to a professional measuring lab (this guy services, calibrates and modifies professional measuring equipment for a living, if anybody knows this stuff it's him), and we constantly were shocked with how barely recognizable and just buried under loads and loads of garbage and noise the i2s signal was even in this extremely optimised systems. More often than not the garbage's impact even on the measuring devices was hard to handle, so I don't want to imagine what's happening inside a DAC...
For this reason, I happily jumped on the SD card player, which I then and now still consider the best possible digital source, at least for 16/44.1 material (I hardly have anything else, some 24/96 stuff maybe, so that's completely fine with me). As said before, when you John decided to move away from the approach of combined / integrated SD transport and best possible DAC, and instead offered TOSlink as digital input mostly aimed at PC audio, my disappointment was huge, because it brings back the 'crappy source problem' into the equation. Surely, totally understandable from a business perspective, but not in terms of audio quality.
For exactly the reasons you described: I want the SD transport back!
Any chance John that you will be re-intrudicing one to your line of products, either as a standalone device or as integral part of the DAC (ideally with an option for external input also)?Hi Joshua_G
Yes, the 15 wires are connected to GND.
It can be useful with RCA interconnects too, preferably using bullet plugs or plugs with a similar construction:
Eichmann Bullet
Yes, the 15 wires are connected to GND.
It can be useful with RCA interconnects too, preferably using bullet plugs or plugs with a similar construction:
Eichmann Bullet
From what I have been reading about computer audio is how much the source is important. Theres big threads at head fi and many user claim enormous improvement when getting better and better USB to SPDIF converter.Thanks for your explanations John.
Exactly, that's where I was aiming at. For me the concept of PC audio is flawed by design, I have moved away from it many years ago and won't let any PC or laptop component anywhere near my audio reproduction chain, the amount of garbage and noise in this digital domain is just so devastatingly immens.
6 or 7 years ago I went to the greatest possible lengths, building computers who were reduced to the bone and e.g. complete ran on battery power, with isolated and LiPoFer powerd soundcard (the famous Juli@ ;-) ), dedicated Linux OSs and what not. Since I believe in "proper measurement first", I took these to a professional measuring lab (this guy services, calibrates and modifies professional measuring equipment for a living, if anybody knows this stuff it's him), and we constantly were shocked with how barely recognizable and just buried under loads and loads of garbage and noise the i2s signal was even in this extremely optimised systems. More often than not the garbage's impact even on the measuring devices was hard to handle, so I don't want to imagine what's happening inside a DAC...
For this reason, I happily jumped on the SD card player, which I then and now still consider the best possible digital source, at least for 16/44.1 material (I hardly have anything else, some 24/96 stuff maybe, so that's completely fine with me). As said before, when you John decided to move away from the approach of combined / integrated SD transport and best possible DAC, and instead offered TOSlink as digital input mostly aimed at PC audio, my disappointment was huge, because it brings back the 'crappy source problem' into the equation. Surely, totally understandable from a business perspective, but not in terms of audio quality.
For exactly the reasons you described: I want the SD transport back!
Gustard U12 USB Interface 8 Core XMOS chip
the user rb2013 have tested more then 30 USB to SPDIF converters. His favorite is the breeze xmos du-u8 and the pro DXIO after all his tests.
Posted by rb2013 View Post
DXIO Silver/TeraDak DC-30W/Cerious 130
PUC2 Lite TeraDak X1/FR caps/Cerious 125
DXIO Black/TeraDak DC-30W/Cerious 118 unit not working properly
PUC2 Lite - USB power 110
Breeze with Cerious Graphene 108
Breeze DU-U8 (Talema version) 98
Breeze DU-U8 (BingZi version) 95
Hydra Z with LPS 92
Melodious MX-U8 (upgraded caps) 85
Melodious MX-U8 (stock) 81
Gustard U12 (upgraded caps) 76
Gustard U12 stock 72
iDAC DAC2 (used as a DDC) 65
Musiland USB3.0 US Dragon 65
M2Tech EVO with LPS 60
Audiophileo 2 50
M2Tech Hiface 40
this thread is the continuation of RB2013 effort.. you can see the classement he did of all the units he tested on the first page. here it is:
DDC - Digital USB interfaces - Xmos or Amanero Combo384 based - reviews, comparison, modifications and USB-Audio in general
a must read for anyone wanting to have the best source feeding the mosaic dac.
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Hi John,
Sorry bothering but could be helpful to other guys - will it be OK to try 17 wires- left and right signal plus earth together in one stereo jack ?
Thanks,
Thank you for this information.
These guys are funny - elaborating a sophisticated scoring pattern for their meticulous ranking, yet all based on subjective listening tests, without a single useful jitter or noise spectrum measurement to be found on 244 pages
I don't really understand the concept of using the extremely "dirty" PC environment as audio source and then adding great efforts for regenerating etc., when much better alternatives like SD players are available that generate a much "cleaner" source signal in the first place. Interesting that abartels, the thread starter from your second link, seems to go the same route with his RPI project.
However, in fact I'm really agnostic to which concept or device used as source, as long as the signal output is as "clean" (in terms of noise and digital artefacts) and as low jitter as possible. Does anyone know any good comparisons based on jitter and noise measurements of such source concepts and components?
I used to have ec designs sd-1 player. personally, im happy he went with computer source for his Mosaic t. Couldnt be happier to not have to deal with sd cards anymore
+1 the Mosaic Dac with modern player like Roon + Tidal is the perfect to mix your own library and Tidal Streaming. i have waited this for a long times i don't want to return to CD or SD card .. as for the sound itself there are a lot of Server/ Renderer solutions on the market to keep the noisy Computer out of the equation..
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Why not designing a all one fifo buffer, isolation + passive recloker front end! because how is the jitter after all these links : if bad for the chinch in analogic, what about in digital domain where the impedance matching should be sota ? there is a reclocking before the R2R ? how to be sure the that the spidf conversion is not jittered even if reclocked at the output before being injected to the résistors benchs ?
spidf with fiber is complex and need a usb to spidf converter and is yet limited to 192 MHz if the fiber is good enough ! Although I'm not sure one can hear the difference between 192 M Hz and 388 M Hz material !
But why not as far it's sound good. Many too much transparent Dacs sound bad because a bad tonal balance !
spidf with fiber is complex and need a usb to spidf converter and is yet limited to 192 MHz if the fiber is good enough ! Although I'm not sure one can hear the difference between 192 M Hz and 388 M Hz material !
But why not as far it's sound good. Many too much transparent Dacs sound bad because a bad tonal balance !
Nice puppy , more interressant that the elephant (with doggie on his head to get up its ears) I bought to benchmark my digital tweaks !
I like more the work of people like ECDESIGN wich work of the source like a whole... I'm sure his first R2R version is good enough (as a confirmation we can ask to YouKnowYou member who can benchmark with his first ECDESIGN TDA1541 DAC). Also because he had an acumulation of experience with digital and layout around it.
Well I don't think NOS or NoNos (fot the dogs) discussions are revelant today ! With my simple TDA1541A at 4 times oversampling I have more resolution than a R2R dac at ears... so ! Even some says it's hard to listen to on the bit depth between 16 or more !
!
But I' not objectiv, 90% of my materials are Red Book ! And of course, I'm becomming deaf as I accumulate listening sessions as well !
, more interressant that the elephant (with doggie on his head to get up its ears) I bought to benchmark my digital tweaks ! I like more the work of people like ECDESIGN wich work of the source like a whole... I'm sure his first R2R version is good enough (as a confirmation we can ask to YouKnowYou member who can benchmark with his first ECDESIGN TDA1541 DAC). Also because he had an acumulation of experience with digital and layout around it.
Well I don't think NOS or NoNos (fot the dogs) discussions are revelant today ! With my simple TDA1541A at 4 times oversampling I have more resolution than a R2R dac at ears... so ! Even some says it's hard to listen to on the bit depth between 16 or more !
! But I' not objectiv, 90% of my materials are Red Book ! And of course, I'm becomming deaf as I accumulate listening sessions as well !
Hi Bertel,
Every digital audio source generates interference, some are cleaner than others but all digital sources and USB audio converters produce too much interference for integration in a DAC.
This interference can be subdivided in power supply & ground plane pollution, crosstalk, and EMI.
Most audiophiles prefer streaming and this means using computer-based digital audio sources.
The Mosaic T DAC supports both, with existing converters it can be connected to almost any digital audio source including CD transports / players.
The Toslink interface eliminates (HF) ground loops, it offers much better isolation compared to chip isolators and isolation transformers that suffer from leakage through stray capacitance. All USB DACs suffer from (HF) ground loops, built-in chip isolators are ineffective. The created ground loop also degrades all (analogue) audio sources connected to that same audio set as the interference is directly coupled into all audio interlinks. Ground loops often cause hum or buzzing sound that masks details and changes the spectrum.
Attempting to “clean up” a computer-based digital audio source is a hopeless quest. We simply have to accept that computer-based digital audio sources are noisy and deal with it.
I attached an oscillogram of a -60dB test signal generated by the Mosaic T DAC. This is the raw output of the resistor matrix, no filtering. This should say enough about Mosaic T DAC noise levels.
The second problem (jitter) is tackled by high performance PLLs and a passive tracking clock based on 16 crystals. This recovered clock is much cleaner than a local low phase noise crystal oscillator because it has no power supply induced phase noise and no semiconductor induced phase noise. Its output spectrum is heavily filtered so we end up with a sine wave with very high spectral purity.
I attached a second oscillogram showing the passive tracking clock output
So despite a noisy source and Toslink we get a cleaner clock signal and a cleaner audio signal compared to the previous Mosaic SD-player and Mosaic USB DAC.
Because the output signal is so clean, the masking effect is also greatly reduced and a lot more information comes through. However, this also means that a very small amount of source interference that still manages to leak through the circuits becomes audible again. This interference was also present in the Mosaic SD-player and Mosaic USB DAC but it was masked.
The Mosaic D/A converter core has no active output circuits that introduce non-linear distortion or cause masking. So we have a very clean, ultra linear output signal that will reveal every last bit of micro detail.
In order to get the very best out of the Mosaic T DAC one can use a clean source and good quality fiber interlinks. This ensures even lower input interference, and a smaller amount of interference that leaks through the circuits.
This is no specific design issue of the Mosaic DAC as this issue exists with all DACs. Every external DAC will sound slightly different when using different digital audio source or different interlinks because so called digital audio signals are in fact analogue signals that vary roughly between two voltage zones. This “digital” signal comes with jitter and ripple that leak through the DAC circuits. Sure a “0” is a “0” and a “1” is a “1” but we cannot simply ignore the jitter and ripple that comes with these one’s and zero’s.
DACs with integrated digital audio soucre like a CD-player for example will also suffer from source dependency, it’s just more difficult to compare this with other digital audio sources.
Every digital audio source generates interference, some are cleaner than others but all digital sources and USB audio converters produce too much interference for integration in a DAC.
This interference can be subdivided in power supply & ground plane pollution, crosstalk, and EMI.
Most audiophiles prefer streaming and this means using computer-based digital audio sources.
The Mosaic T DAC supports both, with existing converters it can be connected to almost any digital audio source including CD transports / players.
The Toslink interface eliminates (HF) ground loops, it offers much better isolation compared to chip isolators and isolation transformers that suffer from leakage through stray capacitance. All USB DACs suffer from (HF) ground loops, built-in chip isolators are ineffective. The created ground loop also degrades all (analogue) audio sources connected to that same audio set as the interference is directly coupled into all audio interlinks. Ground loops often cause hum or buzzing sound that masks details and changes the spectrum.
Attempting to “clean up” a computer-based digital audio source is a hopeless quest. We simply have to accept that computer-based digital audio sources are noisy and deal with it.
I attached an oscillogram of a -60dB test signal generated by the Mosaic T DAC. This is the raw output of the resistor matrix, no filtering. This should say enough about Mosaic T DAC noise levels.
The second problem (jitter) is tackled by high performance PLLs and a passive tracking clock based on 16 crystals. This recovered clock is much cleaner than a local low phase noise crystal oscillator because it has no power supply induced phase noise and no semiconductor induced phase noise. Its output spectrum is heavily filtered so we end up with a sine wave with very high spectral purity.
I attached a second oscillogram showing the passive tracking clock output
So despite a noisy source and Toslink we get a cleaner clock signal and a cleaner audio signal compared to the previous Mosaic SD-player and Mosaic USB DAC.
Because the output signal is so clean, the masking effect is also greatly reduced and a lot more information comes through. However, this also means that a very small amount of source interference that still manages to leak through the circuits becomes audible again. This interference was also present in the Mosaic SD-player and Mosaic USB DAC but it was masked.
The Mosaic D/A converter core has no active output circuits that introduce non-linear distortion or cause masking. So we have a very clean, ultra linear output signal that will reveal every last bit of micro detail.
In order to get the very best out of the Mosaic T DAC one can use a clean source and good quality fiber interlinks. This ensures even lower input interference, and a smaller amount of interference that leaks through the circuits.
This is no specific design issue of the Mosaic DAC as this issue exists with all DACs. Every external DAC will sound slightly different when using different digital audio source or different interlinks because so called digital audio signals are in fact analogue signals that vary roughly between two voltage zones. This “digital” signal comes with jitter and ripple that leak through the DAC circuits. Sure a “0” is a “0” and a “1” is a “1” but we cannot simply ignore the jitter and ripple that comes with these one’s and zero’s.
DACs with integrated digital audio soucre like a CD-player for example will also suffer from source dependency, it’s just more difficult to compare this with other digital audio sources.
Attachments
Exactly. Even swapping 2-3cm long I2S interconnect wires from my SD card player to Dual-Mono TDA15743 DAC prouved to change overall sound flavor, detail, impact...etc.
This way we can fine tune the player but it is remarcable anyway...For those stuck with Windows and PC audio, I strongly suggest you try the BugHead/Infinity Blade player. That way you can flavor your sound and get a much richer musical experience without the need to tweak the source at all moments.
Bug head
There are fora that discuss and help making the thing work
as it is not so friendly...Good luck.
M.
Hi John,
Since there was no comment on my question I have made the stereo cable as above - so far so good, the highs became more readable at their top end /considered as drawback of the 1541/ but still I have some suspicions there could be some interference between the two channels so close each to other in the cable. There will be no problem to prepare a new cable 15 + 1 and separate the two channels and try if you suggest so - please comment
Cheers,
Attachments
Thanks, I will do that. What about Eddy currents - still low nevertheless many strands ?
Regards,
Ignat
The use of 3mm mini jack is hilarious for a high grade product. May I suggest Lemo #00?
http://www.lemo.com/en/miniature-connector/00-connector
http://www.lemo.com/en/miniature-connector/00-connector
