First Impressions Continued = External power
Got a first taste of WaveIO with external power tonight. Again, I'll hold full review until new caps settle in. External power put my system into another league. Relaxed. While listening I realize that before there was slight tension that is now washed away. Extended bass and lower noise floor. Everything very natural and great texture on strings. Less zzz when there should be sss in femal vocals. Every breath sounds natural and human. Great space around instruments and air. Sound stage is balanced and natural. Live performance really is a treat.
WaveIO does like good power. I struggled to get enough juice. My supply ended up a simple CRC with Panasonic caps followed by a BG F. I had to use a 7805 reg as my low noise discrete reg did not have enough power. Room for improvement here. The BG in particular will take time to break in so I'll report back in a week when this all settles in.
But holly smokes, this is good.
Got a first taste of WaveIO with external power tonight. Again, I'll hold full review until new caps settle in. External power put my system into another league. Relaxed. While listening I realize that before there was slight tension that is now washed away. Extended bass and lower noise floor. Everything very natural and great texture on strings. Less zzz when there should be sss in femal vocals. Every breath sounds natural and human. Great space around instruments and air. Sound stage is balanced and natural. Live performance really is a treat.
WaveIO does like good power. I struggled to get enough juice. My supply ended up a simple CRC with Panasonic caps followed by a BG F. I had to use a 7805 reg as my low noise discrete reg did not have enough power. Room for improvement here. The BG in particular will take time to break in so I'll report back in a week when this all settles in.
But holly smokes, this is good.
I'm searching for those freq. but no success so far! For now, mine are 22.5792 Mhz and 24.576 MHz as requested by this card. Anyway, this series is limited to 60 Mhz... so there's no go with your specs.
Kind regards,
L
external power suply
Waiting Lorian's board i've built this discrete power supply .very good and usefull .1A
The σ11 Regulated Power Supply
Waiting Lorian's board i've built this discrete power supply .very good and usefull .1A
The σ11 Regulated Power Supply
Looks like a great choice. Lots of power and low noise reg. Good price too. Thanks for sharing that. I look forward to your listening impressions.
external power supply
The AMB power supplies are good for audio .I have one working with a Velodyne digital crossover and other as balanced line driver for a long run in a bar.Now they probablely have 10 000 hr . 1 A ,it's getting hot.For Lorian's board i've made the heatsinks touch the top aluminium cover of the box +2 screws.Always is a pain to source all the parts and little by little the price goes up .
The AMB power supplies are good for audio .I have one working with a Velodyne digital crossover and other as balanced line driver for a long run in a bar.Now they probablely have 10 000 hr . 1 A ,it's getting hot.For Lorian's board i've made the heatsinks touch the top aluminium cover of the box +2 screws.Always is a pain to source all the parts and little by little the price goes up .
More Impressions
After a week of burn in and listening I am quite impressed. Extremely full sound. Very balanced top to bottom. All the 3d holographic attributes we look for are available in abuncance. The ability to play HD recorded material a nice bonus. I downloaded some sample tracks and converted them to 96k which is all my 20 year old dac chip appears to handle. Very nice although a relatively small improvement over well reproduced red book.
My earlier analogy of a well done output capacitor remains. Its very clear that that USB is no longer the weak link thanks to WaveIO. It likes good power, but again not as dramatic impact as one would think. Lucien has done a good job with on board power handling. One could be comfortable running off USB power. For full potential external is the route. I ended up building simpe linear power supply with parts I had available. A 12v 100va transformer delivers up to 8a and a bridge rectifier produced lots of DC. I made a CRC filter with about 1000u Panasonic / 36r 1/2w R / Black Gate F 100u. A 7805 rectifier gives 5v. I followed this with a small inductor at 1.5ohms and put a 50u Black Gate N right across the WaveIO terminals. The filter after the 7805 was to clean up the noise from the 7805 a bit. Audibly a small improvement. Ultimately I supply all this from an isolation transformer. Another slight improvement, but nothing compared to impact on the DAC.
The real deal in improvements in sound quality is to be found upstream in the transport. I play all WAV material ripped with Exact Audio Copy. Transport is a PC running CMP2, improvements in the software made rather dramatic improvements in the sound which eclipsed any WaveIO power supply tweeks by a wide margin. I basically run XP as an appliance with a 24mb footprint and a registry trimmed to 600k. These slimmings of superfluous software in the source took me from clean but clinical (digtal) sound to natural organic sound that can puts you in the venue with the performer. I think the key is, with WaveIO and async USB, the weak links are now upstream and downstream. Typically BlackGates and Oscons take about 100 hours to fully bloom, so I will no doubt continue to see improvements over the next month.
WaveIO delivers.
After a week of burn in and listening I am quite impressed. Extremely full sound. Very balanced top to bottom. All the 3d holographic attributes we look for are available in abuncance. The ability to play HD recorded material a nice bonus. I downloaded some sample tracks and converted them to 96k which is all my 20 year old dac chip appears to handle. Very nice although a relatively small improvement over well reproduced red book.
My earlier analogy of a well done output capacitor remains. Its very clear that that USB is no longer the weak link thanks to WaveIO. It likes good power, but again not as dramatic impact as one would think. Lucien has done a good job with on board power handling. One could be comfortable running off USB power. For full potential external is the route. I ended up building simpe linear power supply with parts I had available. A 12v 100va transformer delivers up to 8a and a bridge rectifier produced lots of DC. I made a CRC filter with about 1000u Panasonic / 36r 1/2w R / Black Gate F 100u. A 7805 rectifier gives 5v. I followed this with a small inductor at 1.5ohms and put a 50u Black Gate N right across the WaveIO terminals. The filter after the 7805 was to clean up the noise from the 7805 a bit. Audibly a small improvement. Ultimately I supply all this from an isolation transformer. Another slight improvement, but nothing compared to impact on the DAC.
The real deal in improvements in sound quality is to be found upstream in the transport. I play all WAV material ripped with Exact Audio Copy. Transport is a PC running CMP2, improvements in the software made rather dramatic improvements in the sound which eclipsed any WaveIO power supply tweeks by a wide margin. I basically run XP as an appliance with a 24mb footprint and a registry trimmed to 600k. These slimmings of superfluous software in the source took me from clean but clinical (digtal) sound to natural organic sound that can puts you in the venue with the performer. I think the key is, with WaveIO and async USB, the weak links are now upstream and downstream. Typically BlackGates and Oscons take about 100 hours to fully bloom, so I will no doubt continue to see improvements over the next month.
WaveIO delivers.
Last edited:
power supply
The AMB power supply is to feed the waveio threw an umbilical cord .A LT1083-5 regulator placed close to the card is the normal choice ,capacity can be much higher and there is no need of crc + isolation transformer.
DPC Latency Checker .check the computer for red spikes .
JRiver Media Center 17 In Detail | Computer Audiophile is my favorite player.
The AMB power supply is to feed the waveio threw an umbilical cord .A LT1083-5 regulator placed close to the card is the normal choice ,capacity can be much higher and there is no need of crc + isolation transformer.
DPC Latency Checker .check the computer for red spikes .
JRiver Media Center 17 In Detail | Computer Audiophile is my favorite player.
I took the easy road sorta, i could not find a suitable part number so i connected a extra http://ro.farnell.com/productimages/farnell/standard/1688065-40.jpg that i had on hand to the WaveI/O J5's MCLK, and connected the other end using the center pin with snug fit wire lead then soldered it to the right + pad of the R17, and soldered the other R17 - pad with yet another wire which then connects to the ground of the incoming MCLK .
If more specs, are required then you will have to come over and visualize my setup ,
regards
rol.
If more specs, are required then you will have to come over and visualize my setup ,
regards
rol.
Thanks Qusp!
For that price I don't see why I would use the cheaper ones... It's a bargain!
A guess when you buy thousands of those, this is where you start cutting!
no problem. pinnocchio
true, you can save a bit (about 30%) on the cables by buying the cheaper brands like Emerson and TE vs hirose. they are branded under UMC, UMCC and u.fl as far as i can tell these are all identical. i have used emerson and TE cables on u.fl sockets along with the official u.fl type; its a common connection standard these days, there are even some high end PTFE and SPC cables around for a bit more. bloody cheap compared to audiophile or even high quality belden coax thats for sure and it does a better job; however there is only a limited number of connection/disconnection cycles you can use before performance degrades, so only connect when you have set it all up and resist fiddling.
do not be tempted by the w.fl which are thinner and higher bandwidth, but MUCH smaller and not interchangeable. these are used on the ackodac, except for mclk which is u.fl. afaik hirose are the only brand of w.fl so far; last time i looked anyway
true, you can save a bit (about 30%) on the cables by buying the cheaper brands like Emerson and TE vs hirose. they are branded under UMC, UMCC and u.fl as far as i can tell these are all identical. i have used emerson and TE cables on u.fl sockets along with the official u.fl type; its a common connection standard these days, there are even some high end PTFE and SPC cables around for a bit more. bloody cheap compared to audiophile or even high quality belden coax thats for sure and it does a better job; however there is only a limited number of connection/disconnection cycles you can use before performance degrades, so only connect when you have set it all up and resist fiddling.
do not be tempted by the w.fl which are thinner and higher bandwidth, but MUCH smaller and not interchangeable. these are used on the ackodac, except for mclk which is u.fl. afaik hirose are the only brand of w.fl so far; last time i looked anyway
Do
I used these
Digi-Key - H5022-ND (Manufacturer - U.FL-2LP-088K1T-A-(100))
to connect Lucian's card to my Buffalo II
Best
Bob
I used these
Digi-Key - H5022-ND (Manufacturer - U.FL-2LP-088K1T-A-(100))
to connect Lucian's card to my Buffalo II
Best
Bob
. Please please please send me that lovely board so I am able to finish my BuffIII