iFi iPurifier 2

[Dom]

So I am using the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. Amazingly good results. For the first time sounds sound real on some things instead of digitally. Its given me a new thirst for sonic heavon.

I'm looking at upgrading the Music Fidelity M1 DAC ( Since it is cheaper than buying a new DAC ). I have sent an email to Fidelity Audio about it.

Anyone had any experience with them?

 

[TrevC]

Small update in that the treble has become rather good, exellent infact. Cannot stress how good this device is.

Glad you put the smiley on there. Someone may think you aren't joking otherwise. :O)

 

[Dom]

Small update in that the treble has become rather good, exellent infact. Cannot stress how good this device is.

Glad you put the smiley on there. Someone may think you aren't joking otherwise. :O)

Hi, Im not joking. This device is pretty good. Cheers

 

[ellisdj]

Ignore TrevC. Glad your happy and hearing a benefit - no suprise really - assume your using a PC as a source?

If so you have taken 1 small step into reducing the PC sound and getting properly at the music.

Most people on here dispute this but after hearing a lot of standard computers as sources I have found none to sound good.

However there is Huge potential to get amazing sound from the computer even from standard redbook cd's. You wont get any good advice in this forum you need to look elsewhere.

All the best

 

[BigH]

So I am using the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. Amazingly good results. For the first time sounds sound real on some things instead of digitally. Its given me a new thirst for sonic heavon.

I'm looking at upgrading the Music Fidelity M1 DAC ( Since it is cheaper than buying a new DAC ). I have sent an email to Fidelity Audio about it.

Anyone had any experience with them?

They do 3 levels of upgrade, the top one is £699.

 

[BigH]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Why pay £700?

 

[Dom]

Ignore TrevC. Glad your happy and hearing a benefit - no suprise really - assume your using a PC as a source?

If so you have taken 1 small step into reducing the PC sound and getting properly at the music.

Most people on here dispute this but after hearing a lot of standard computers as sources I have found none to sound good.

However there is Huge potential to get amazing sound from the computer even from standard redbook cd's. You wont get any good advice in this forum you need to look elsewhere.

All the best

Thank you for your comment, I agree that I have dipped my toe in. The PC is perfect for playing music, FLACs MP3s are exellent formats and the premanent nature of SSDs/HDDs and convenience is whats its all about.

The thing is I quite like about this forum and its laid back nature, but will check out more like minded forums as well.

 

[BigH]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Thanks for the input, I will give it more consideration. I will be upgrading my DAC soon but I'm going to buy the Hifiman HE-560's first though. Glad to hear its such an amazing product.

I would hold on, you may not need to upgrade your dac if you buy a Mutec. I would find out what an upgrade will give you. If all these devices are doing the same thing then seems like duplication when all you need is one decent converter.

 

[ellisdj]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

 

[BigH]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

Well you can get a lot cheaper now. Surprised it makes much difference on your cdp or is it just the computer?

 

[ellisdj]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

Well you can get a lot cheaper now. Surprised it makes much difference on your cdp or is it just the computer?

I think the standard one is cheaper but the USB version is more expesnive - I got it from the UK distibutor which is a bit cheaper than from here. The price I quoted was with shipping as well.

I use it between a Computer and an older DAC with NO USB in - but I know someone who I trust to know very high end sound - he has tried and owned most of the best USB to SPDIF Convertors / clockers like Total Dac, Puc Lite 2, Berkley Alpha, Audiophielo, Sonic Weld Diverter HR2 and he feels its bested all of them - so for the money that makes it a steal. He also has a super high end dac with a very high quality USB Input and he was uncertain last time I spoke to him what he preferred but it was a close call -said a lot to me

In reading up on the product before I bought I came across forum posts where people were using one to great effect between older blu ray players, even sky boxes etc. So I am sure between a good CD Player the benefits would still be there - but I have not tried this I admit.

The big one for me is the quality of the Win Driver and options - you have latency and buffer options and these make a huge difference to the presentation.

Low Latency and Low buffer the sound was ultra tight but way too lean and digital - the other end highest buffer and one down the highest latency gives in my system a very full range sound - but tight as a drum with no harshness and excellent clarity.

Another system might need a different setup so its lovely to have the ability to make that much difference to the presentation.

The box is very susceptible to placement and cables - people shun this line of thought I know - doesnt bother me - I had a pal over on Sunday - he brought round his very high end power cable to try against an already good solid cable I was using - by this I mean Its from a well known company that make good cables - its 2.5mm OCC Silver Plated Conductors, 3 or 4 layers of screen, Furutech Plug and IEC. The difference was extremely dramatic between the 2 - I have been trying to buy it off him since but he is not having any of it at the minute

 

[BigH]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

Well you can get a lot cheaper now. Surprised it makes much difference on your cdp or is it just the computer?

I think the standard one is cheaper but the USB version is more expesnive - I got it from the UK distibutor which is a bit cheaper than from here. The price I quoted was with shipping as well.

I use it between a Computer and an older DAC with NO USB in - but I know someone who I trust to know very high end sound - he has tried and owned most of the best USB to SPDIF Convertors / clockers like Total Dac, Puc Lite 2, Berkley Alpha, Audiophielo, Sonic Weld Diverter HR2 and he feels its bested all of them - so for the money that makes it a steal. He also has a super high end dac with a very high quality USB Input and he was uncertain last time I spoke to him what he preferred but it was a close call -said a lot to me

In reading up on the product before I bought I came across forum posts where people were using one to great effect between older blu ray players, even sky boxes etc. So I am sure between a good CD Player the benefits would still be there - but I have not tried this I admit.

The big one for me is the quality of the Win Driver and options - you have latency and buffer options and these make a huge difference to the presentation.

Low Latency and Low buffer the sound was ultra tight but way too lean and digital - the other end highest buffer and one down the highest latency gives in my system a very full range sound - but tight as a drum with no harshness and excellent clarity.

Another system might need a different setup so its lovely to have the ability to make that much difference to the presentation.

The box is very susceptible to placement and cables - people shun this line of thought I know - doesnt bother me - I had a pal over on Sunday - he brought round his very high end power cable to try against an already good solid cable I was using - by this I mean Its from a well known company that make good cables - its 2.5mm OCC Silver Plated Conductors, 3 or 4 layers of screen, Furutech Plug and IEC. The difference was extremely dramatic between the 2 - I have been trying to buy it off him since but he is not having any of it at the minute

I see, yes the usb is much more money. If it so good is there any point in having an external DAC, why not just use the computer/cdp ones?

 

[Dom]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Thanks for the input, I will give it more consideration. I will be upgrading my DAC soon but I'm going to buy the Hifiman HE-560's first though. Glad to hear its such an amazing product.

I would hold on, you may not need to upgrade your dac if you buy a Mutec. I would find out what an upgrade will give you. If all these devices are doing the same thing then seems like duplication when all you need is one decent converter.

Thanks I will probe deeper into the Mutec. Having said that I have taken steps in cleaning the USB transmission with the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. The Mutec would be considered a complete solution and render the 2 cleaning devices useless and condemened to Ebay which is something to consider.

Since I have taken these steps, upgrading the DACs internals seems an attractive route. Fidelity Audio does a 'Level 2' which includes voltage regulator mods. The cost is £450 so its not cheap but it should be major sonic improvement.

 

[ellisdj]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Thanks for the input, I will give it more consideration. I will be upgrading my DAC soon but I'm going to buy the Hifiman HE-560's first though. Glad to hear its such an amazing product.

I would hold on, you may not need to upgrade your dac if you buy a Mutec. I would find out what an upgrade will give you. If all these devices are doing the same thing then seems like duplication when all you need is one decent converter.

Thanks I will probe deeper into the Mutec. Having said that I have taken steps in cleaning the USB transmission with the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. The Mutec would be considered a complete solution and render the 2 cleaning devices useless and condemened to Ebay which is something to consider.

Since I have taken these steps, upgrading the DACs internals seems an attractive route. Fidelity Audio does a 'Level 2' which includes voltage regulator mods. The cost is £450 so its not cheap but it should be major sonic improvement.

I was talking about things you can do long before the signal gets to the usb interface

 

[ellisdj]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

Well you can get a lot cheaper now. Surprised it makes much difference on your cdp or is it just the computer?

I think the standard one is cheaper but the USB version is more expesnive - I got it from the UK distibutor which is a bit cheaper than from here. The price I quoted was with shipping as well.

I use it between a Computer and an older DAC with NO USB in - but I know someone who I trust to know very high end sound - he has tried and owned most of the best USB to SPDIF Convertors / clockers like Total Dac, Puc Lite 2, Berkley Alpha, Audiophielo, Sonic Weld Diverter HR2 and he feels its bested all of them - so for the money that makes it a steal. He also has a super high end dac with a very high quality USB Input and he was uncertain last time I spoke to him what he preferred but it was a close call -said a lot to me

In reading up on the product before I bought I came across forum posts where people were using one to great effect between older blu ray players, even sky boxes etc. So I am sure between a good CD Player the benefits would still be there - but I have not tried this I admit.

The big one for me is the quality of the Win Driver and options - you have latency and buffer options and these make a huge difference to the presentation.

Low Latency and Low buffer the sound was ultra tight but way too lean and digital - the other end highest buffer and one down the highest latency gives in my system a very full range sound - but tight as a drum with no harshness and excellent clarity.

Another system might need a different setup so its lovely to have the ability to make that much difference to the presentation.

The box is very susceptible to placement and cables - people shun this line of thought I know - doesnt bother me - I had a pal over on Sunday - he brought round his very high end power cable to try against an already good solid cable I was using - by this I mean Its from a well known company that make good cables - its 2.5mm OCC Silver Plated Conductors, 3 or 4 layers of screen, Furutech Plug and IEC. The difference was extremely dramatic between the 2 - I have been trying to buy it off him since but he is not having any of it at the minute

I see, yes the usb is much more money. If it so good is there any point in having an external DAC, why not just use the computer/cdp ones?

Its not a DAC - still need one of thosem

 

[BigH]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Thanks for the input, I will give it more consideration. I will be upgrading my DAC soon but I'm going to buy the Hifiman HE-560's first though. Glad to hear its such an amazing product.

I would hold on, you may not need to upgrade your dac if you buy a Mutec. I would find out what an upgrade will give you. If all these devices are doing the same thing then seems like duplication when all you need is one decent converter.

Thanks I will probe deeper into the Mutec. Having said that I have taken steps in cleaning the USB transmission with the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. The Mutec would be considered a complete solution and render the 2 cleaning devices useless and condemened to Ebay which is something to consider.

Since I have taken these steps, upgrading the DACs internals seems an attractive route. Fidelity Audio does a 'Level 2' which includes voltage regulator mods. The cost is £450 so its not cheap but it should be major sonic improvement.

Should be better but don't know until you get it back. Be interesting to see how it compares with the John Kenny Dac that is often said to be the best DAC upto about £1,000.

 

[BigH]

Why pay £700?

That was the price

Well you can get a lot cheaper now. Surprised it makes much difference on your cdp or is it just the computer?

I think the standard one is cheaper but the USB version is more expesnive - I got it from the UK distibutor which is a bit cheaper than from here. The price I quoted was with shipping as well.

I use it between a Computer and an older DAC with NO USB in - but I know someone who I trust to know very high end sound - he has tried and owned most of the best USB to SPDIF Convertors / clockers like Total Dac, Puc Lite 2, Berkley Alpha, Audiophielo, Sonic Weld Diverter HR2 and he feels its bested all of them - so for the money that makes it a steal. He also has a super high end dac with a very high quality USB Input and he was uncertain last time I spoke to him what he preferred but it was a close call -said a lot to me

In reading up on the product before I bought I came across forum posts where people were using one to great effect between older blu ray players, even sky boxes etc. So I am sure between a good CD Player the benefits would still be there - but I have not tried this I admit.

The big one for me is the quality of the Win Driver and options - you have latency and buffer options and these make a huge difference to the presentation.

Low Latency and Low buffer the sound was ultra tight but way too lean and digital - the other end highest buffer and one down the highest latency gives in my system a very full range sound - but tight as a drum with no harshness and excellent clarity.

Another system might need a different setup so its lovely to have the ability to make that much difference to the presentation.

The box is very susceptible to placement and cables - people shun this line of thought I know - doesnt bother me - I had a pal over on Sunday - he brought round his very high end power cable to try against an already good solid cable I was using - by this I mean Its from a well known company that make good cables - its 2.5mm OCC Silver Plated Conductors, 3 or 4 layers of screen, Furutech Plug and IEC. The difference was extremely dramatic between the 2 - I have been trying to buy it off him since but he is not having any of it at the minute

I see, yes the usb is much more money. If it so good is there any point in having an external DAC, why not just use the computer/cdp ones?

Its not a DAC - still need one of thosem

Yes but there are dacs in computers and cdps? Or does it have to fit before a DAC?

 

[ellisdj]

Yeah its before the DAC in the chain

 

[BigH]

Yeah its before the DAC in the chain

I see. Do I need usb? I just use cable out of computer into a non usb dac.

 

[ellisdj]

Yeah its before the DAC in the chain

I see. Do I need usb? I just use cable out of computer into a non usb dac.

How do you do that - if you have a non usb dac you must be using a USB to SPDIF Convertor of sorts?

 

[Dom]

The Mutec MC3+ is twice the cost of my DAC. I'm sure the law of diminshing returns apply.

Thanks Spiny Norman it does sound ifi. Hopefully in a good way.

Thanks for the replys.

Fair play dude but remember it because at some point it may not be twice the price of your dac or you want want to step your system up.

The Mutec for £700 is a steal. Elevates the sound of very high end kit by quite a considerable margin and I mean people with my better kit than mine have told me this and unlike a lot of people that actually know what good sound is. These are the types of kit that should have and does have outstanding usb inputs. So imagine what it does to the rest. Digital harshness in my system is completely gone it's an amazing product

Thanks for the input, I will give it more consideration. I will be upgrading my DAC soon but I'm going to buy the Hifiman HE-560's first though. Glad to hear its such an amazing product.

I would hold on, you may not need to upgrade your dac if you buy a Mutec. I would find out what an upgrade will give you. If all these devices are doing the same thing then seems like duplication when all you need is one decent converter.

Thanks I will probe deeper into the Mutec. Having said that I have taken steps in cleaning the USB transmission with the JitterBug and the iPurifier 2. The Mutec would be considered a complete solution and render the 2 cleaning devices useless and condemened to Ebay which is something to consider.

Since I have taken these steps, upgrading the DACs internals seems an attractive route. Fidelity Audio does a 'Level 2' which includes voltage regulator mods. The cost is £450 so its not cheap but it should be major sonic improvement.

I was talking about things you can do long before the signal gets to the usb interface

OK, I won't do anything yet. I will keep you posted.

 

[BigH]

Yeah its before the DAC in the chain

I see. Do I need usb? I just use cable out of computer into a non usb dac.

How do you do that - if you have a non usb dac you must be using a USB to SPDIF Convertor of sorts?

Don't use usb. Just spdif out to dac.

 

[ellisdj]

From what? The motherboard?

 

[BigH]

From what? The motherboard?

Soundcard.

 

[ellisdj]

I started using a sound card Asus Essence ST and progressed from there - My system is leaps and bounds from where it started - its a long way on from 12 months ago with most of the work going into the system front end - Audio PC

If you keep your soundcard these are a few suggestions - sorry if you have already done or know these, sorry if you are not interested, just in case you are.

1. Dedicate the PC - move the PC to a fanless Chassis like a streacom case or similar quite a few about. The slimine streacom cases are appealing but limit your options due to space - you will to have to use a PCIE riser card for the soundcard for example - these are generally not great but they are cheap and readily availabble

Get all the fans out reduces noise in the mobo, having just the hard drives in there you will use - def use a seperate HD for storage to Operating System - dont put your music on the OS Drive. If you have to have a fan you can by fan filters

Then line the case as best you can with this non conductive product for emi / rfi absopbsption and reflection loss (lots of details on another forum of how best to use this stuff)

2. Power - using these types of cases limits your options anyway but you really want to power the computer from a Linear Supply - something like this is ideal ( I was the first person to have one of these, it was designed for me, Sean has then made it available to buy, mine has worked perectly for years now) - but spec'd to your needs i.e. rails and voltages. He can help you, he helped me and we did it from scratch.

This powers the CPU directly into the CPU 4 Pin on the mobo and into a Pico PSU - I would buy this unit for that

You can have this Linear Power Supply be multi rail - I have one 12 v rail for cpu, one 12v rail for the pico psu (this plugs into the motherboard atx 12 pin slot) I then have a dual rail of 12v and 5v as the Asus Essence ST Sound card needed both. The more rails the price increases but its neat powering the whole computer from the same supply. Mine is a beast with Massive Kendeil Capacitors - about 22000 UF of capacitance more than a lot of power amps - it will run my I7 based pc pretty much full power but its never had to

3. Use an SSD as your OS Hard Drive - smaller the better. Also using one to store your music is better also than a normal HD

These are worth the small price tag for your SSD amazingly

3.1 - Power to your SSD Drives - I strongly advise to power your SSD's Especially the OS SSD from its own 5V Power supply - cheaply from something like a terdak linear power supply from ebay, another Linear from Custom HiFI Cables - or from a battery based supply. JCat Batteries are great but no longer available I dont think I have 2 of them.

4. Music playing software - everyone has their favourite - for me there is no going back from JPlay using Ultrastream - with JPlay 6.2 and Minimserver as the library JPLay stands on its own- the timing improvement of the music is addictive - free demo avilabe for this and very clear and easy instructions to set it up

5. Bios optimisations - you want to run the computer using as least power as possible so underclocking the cpu etc, and disabling a lot of options etc You can find info on this on another forum.

6. Operating System optmisations - I dont know what OS you are running - Computer Audio Design has some free scripts for win 8 and 8.1 you run to shut down many windows or mac services so Windows runs purely barebones. These are free and the difference they make is huge - I had to undo these the other day and my system was unlistenable until I had run the script again. This works because the PC is purely dedicated to audio. There is an undo script to put everything back to how it was but once you have done it most things dont work so bear that in mind.

Two Others Fidelizer and Prosess Lasso - I would consider these now - each on their brings a benefit but all 3 for me is where its at.

7. Cables Usb and Sata - I wont go into this but once you have done the above this is the next thing to try. I personally would stay clear of the usual cable suspect Chord QED etc. There are some boutique sellers like PPA and Pachanko that you can buy from here also that put a lot of work into these, all hand made, to me much better

There are lots of other things you can do as well - this is just some very basics - you can get a lot of really useful info on other forums where people really well document what they have done. This is all long before the signal gets to upgrades on the USB Interface.

If you think what you have done i.e. Ifi and JitterBug has been an improvement wait until you do some of the above.

There will be a lot of negative comments on all this there always is but if you try these let us know how you get on. All the best