Dac Magic / budget dacs - getting to much hype as cdp beaters!

[Anonymous]

Craig M.:maybe, although with my dacmagic i think the optical from mac is (very) slightly better than usb (although the difference is so small i might be imagining it). i'd love to know the reason, because the theory behind using a hdd based source makes sense to me. hopefully the naim dac will make an appearance before i can afford the cyrus combo, and i can then demo a dac which doesn't rely on the timing of the incoming signal. having said that, i wouldn't be suprised if the cyrus dacxp reclocks the signal at input, using a PLL or something. or i might stop overloading my brain with it all and just get what sounds best.

It is feasible that there is the difference between usb/optical as the 'work' is done by different components in the chain, with differences in quality, and in this particular case this may work out to the benefit of optical. Reclocking by the receiver is not so straightforward as it seems - even slight timing differences between the two clocks will accumulate, and a dac slave can not make the incoming optical signal speed up or slow down. So I doubt that the cyrus does it, it will rely on a jitter free incoming signal. Also, while USB has to reclock the data (since there is no clock signal in the data transfer, just packets of bits arriving every msec), methods to adjust for these timing differences due to clock differences between source and receiver vary. The TI / BurrBrown method appears to work quite well. Making the DAC the master of the data transfer to begin with would have been easier. It seems that DNLA will be the answer here. Until then, stick to your last sentence & enjoy..

 

[the record spot]

RCduck7:

I had a Level 2 upgrade on my DacMagic from a dealer on this site... http://www.audiocom-uk.com/mod_inner.asp?id=82

I see my CDP is on their SACD list - that might be something to consider for a future upgrade, esp now the amp is out of warranty. Perhaps this could be £500 well spent in time. Need to have a think about a new amp too at some point, but that can wait...twelve months faffing around to find the right one to tide me over for now is enough to be going on with!

 

[Craig M.]

Pete10:Reclocking by the receiver is not so straightforward as it seems - even slight timing differences between the two clocks will accumulate, and a dac slave can not make the incoming optical signal speed up or slow down. So I doubt that the cyrus does it, it will rely on a jitter free incoming signal.

well put, pete. i hadn't thought of it like that, i guess something like the naim and chord dacs which buffer the signal will be good enough for the job, probably not that long before other cheaper designs come out as memory costs pennies. although hfw (i think) tested the xtse and found it had quite a lot of jitter for a cd transport. still probably much lower than a mac mini though.

Pete10:Until then, stick to your last sentence & enjoy..

 

[pete321]

PJPro:[I don't use playlists either. But I do use random playback. In this way I get to hear tracks from across my collection. If you don't like skipping from rock to reggae you can playback randomly within genre.

That was exactly my point earlier when I mentioned playlists created on-the-fly, it's great to be able to go through you whole PC based CD collection from your remote as your mood changes. I've only got about 3 playlists on my PC, I create them as I'm listening.