Musical Fidelity V-Link - My Personal Review

[El Hefe]

So, MF distributor offered me to review this unit as it has just arrived in his stock 2 weeks back. Yes, the unit is actually on the market for a while now but just officially brought into Malaysia.

So what does it do? It basically offer a solution for those USB 48kHz/16 bit limited bandwidth input on any existing DAC, including my M1 DAC.
Its commercial name: 24 BIT 96 kHz ASYCHRONOUS USB TO S/PDIF CONVERTER WITH COAX AND OPTICAL OUTPUT

Connect the unit to yr PC/laptop USB port (using A/B USB cable), it then upsamples it to 96kHz and feed this signal constantly to your DAC via optical or coaxial. Just as long as your DAC coax or optical can receive 96kHz signal and above, you are good to go.

My M1 DAC detects the 96kHz easily as shown in the picture. Then the DAC upsamples it further to 192kHz. Not sure whether this repetitive upsampling is actually good or not. Hehehehe.

So my findings:

Build
As it comes under MF's V series, the built is as expected to be lightweight, mainly to make it affordable. But nothing to complain about. It is however bigger in size than I expected. Light but sturdy with all the connections to be solidly placed and does not wiggle when you try to push in that coax cable in. You have to push your coax cable all the way in before it can output the signal.

The 'Lock' and 'Power' LED however is a tad too bright as you can see above in comparison the M1 DAC LEDs.

Power
No external power supply is required. It takes power from your PC/laptop via the USB cable.

The Session

I did not do any serious comparison apart from an A/B comparison between the following:

1. Laptop connected directly to M1 DAC USB input
2. Laptop connected to VLink and to M1 DAC via coax

Tracks used:

1. La Mer - Kevin Kline
2. Time to Say Goodbye -Andrea Bocelli
3. My Hero - Foo Fighters

First impression of Vlink - Bold and bass heavy. It sorts off amplified the overall digital file.

Volume wise, there is definitely a different between straight USB connection than via the Vlink. At the same volume level on the amp, the Vlink produces a louder sound.

Details however, I cant seem to hear much difference between the two connections above. Maybe because both are upsampled to 192kHz anyway.

I would however give credit to Vlink for creating a livelier music experience. It does inject some air into the digital music. It might just be my mood that night but the La Mer definitely sounded more emotional and the vocals by Kevin Kline sounded so near to me.

Verdict
For the given price, it is to me a well worth upgrading route for PC based music lover with limited bandwidth USB input on their DACs. Or even for DAC without USB input.

For me, I am not a hardcore PC-based music lover. I do stream my music across the house using AE, but I dont really measure their SQ. As long as there is music in the background I am OK.

So, its your pick.

 

[datay]

I've not heard that the V-Link upsamples before, and if the readout on my Matrix Mini-i dac is correct, it doesn't. CD = 44.1kHz, as are most of my flacs, although one is 48, another 96. I am using WASAPI output from foobar. The V-Link does not upsample. It does sound great though.

 

[El Hefe]

That is actually one of the questions in my mind. Does the V-Link upsamples or not.

My MP3 files (48 kHz, 320 mbps) but as it goes through the Vlink and fed into M1 DAC, the DAC shows 96 kHz coming in from the VLink. So I was under the impression that the VLink is upsampling the digital file.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you; a great write up

 

[manicm]

Seems the V-Link is an essential for PC audio.

 

[CustomCable]

Glad to see you managed to get a V-Link El Hefe, good review. The V-Link should be doing no upsampling, make sure that the software your using is not doing it for you. I know a few like Foo will let you output at whatever frequency up to 96kHz you specify effectively. Just turn upsampling off and let the V-Link convert in native form. The V-DAC on the other hand, and the V DAC II will upsample to 192kHz with the V-DAC II having the Asynch technology used in the V-Link. Effectively both in the one box.

Phil

 

[manicm]

Glad to see you managed to get a V-Link El Hefe, good review. The V-Link should be doing no upsampling, make sure that the software your using is not doing it for you. I know a few like Foo will let you output at whatever frequency up to 96kHz you specify effectively. Just turn upsampling off and let the V-Link convert in native form. The V-DAC on the other hand, and the V DAC II will upsample to 192kHz with the V-DAC II having the Asynch technology used in the V-Link. Effectively both in the one box.

Phil

I don't see any mention of the V-DAC II on Music Fidelity's site?

 

[CustomCable]

It's not released yet! If you google "V-DAC II" in google a few things will pop up on it.

Regards

 

[El Hefe]

Phil,

This is the thing that is still mind boggling to me. As mentione in my review, I am not a hardcore PC based audio guy, hence I am just an iTunes user which I dont think outputs 96kHz data and my laptop is a 2008 unit with Windows Vista which has a standard soundcard that comes along with the Asus laptop.

So, I think my laptop only churns out the native file itself which is 48kHz via the USB to the VLink. But the M1 DAC shows that the output from Vlink is 96kHz.

And when my laptop is connected directly to M1 DAC via USB, it only shows 48 kHz.

So, where does the upsampling to 96kHz happens if its not the Vlink? Puzzling it is to me whom is quite an IT illiterate.

Glad to see you managed to get a V-Link El Hefe, good review. The V-Link should be doing no upsampling, make sure that the software your using is not doing it for you. I know a few like Foo will let you output at whatever frequency up to 96kHz you specify effectively. Just turn upsampling off and let the V-Link convert in native form. The V-DAC on the other hand, and the V DAC II will upsample to 192kHz with the V-DAC II having the Asynch technology used in the V-Link. Effectively both in the one box.

Phil

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

My MP3 files (48 kHz, 320 mbps)

you were actually comparing mp3 files? I see you have a nice rig so I think you shouldn't have any problems distinguishing mp3 from lossless. just tu give you an idea of what you're missing, unless you already know. 320 kbps mp3 is, well, 320 kilo bits per second. with CD quality wav (16 bit, 44.1 kHz sampling rate) it's roughly 1.4 mega bits per second of data stream. so with a 320 kbps mp3 file it's roughly 1/4th of information originally stored in wav file. with 24 bit 96 kHz wav it's roughly how much? 4.5 mega bits per second? you should definitely check this unit out with losses files IMO.

BTW; it's mp3 320 kbps not 320 mbps. even DTS-HD Master audio is just "mere" 25 mbps of data

 

[El Hefe]

Hehehhe u caught me there. Yes I think I need to wait at least another 10 years before I get to listen to a 320 mbps song.
I do actually have half of my digital music in lossless in which the M1 DAC shows a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. When I was reviewing M1 Dac alone, yes there was a different between lossless and MP3. But for this Vlink, I didnt bother to do that. It was just to see how Vlink improves/changes the music characteristics compared to direct USB hook up to M1 DAC.

I am still looking for the answer on whether Vlink upsamples or not.

My MP3 files (48 kHz, 320 mbps)

you were actually comparing mp3 files? I see you have a nice rig so I think you shouldn't have any problems distinguishing mp3 from lossless. just tu give you an idea of what you're missing, unless you already know. 320 kbps mp3 is, well, 320 kilo bits per second. with CD quality wav (16 bit, 44.1 kHz sampling rate) it's roughly 1.4 mega bits per second of data stream. so with a 320 kbps mp3 file it's roughly 1/4th of information originally stored in wav file. with 24 bit 96 kHz wav it's roughly how much? 4.5 mega bits per second? you should definitely check this unit out with losses files IMO.

BTW; it's mp3 320 kbps not 320 mbps. even DTS-HD Master audio is just "mere" 25 mbps of data

 

[Anonymous]

Have had a MF v link for some months now. Incredible audio quality!! Just started to use wireworld ultra violet usb. Am also unashamed to be in the camp that can hear the quantum leap in rendition , (Andrew Everard) Awesome There is much more to this just moving 0 & 1, than a lot of you truly understand. My ears are the proof of the pudding!

 

[CustomCable]

Not sure on this one to be honest El Hefe, the V-Link should not be doing anything to the audio apart from converting it with very little jitter. One thing to check would be the audio properties in the Laptop and see if all of the boxes are ticked 44.1/48/96/172 etc. I would then consider running Foobar and wasapi.dll as you will definately know then what is being sent out from your laptop. Foobar will offer better quality than iTunes as the kernal loading wasapi.dll will bypass most pre-processing in the laptop that windows may want to do.

Regards

 

[El Hefe]

Aahhhhh Phil,

I am caught again. Too much hard work there with the wasabi oooopppsss wasapi I mean. As mentioned, I am not a hardcore PC based music lover nor that I IT savvy.

I think the conclusion is that the V-Link does provide a solution to thoe limited USB connections on laptops and DAC.

 

[KevH]

Does anyone know what the beef is between MF and What-hifi?

I heard that they gave MF a bad review and MF refused to send them anymore kit.

Eitherway it would be nice to see some MF reviews back in the mag, i've missed them.

 

[quadpatch]

320 kbps mp3 is, well, 320 kilo bits per second. with CD quality wav (16 bit, 44.1 kHz sampling rate) it's roughly 1.4 mega bits per second of data stream. so with a 320 kbps mp3 file it's roughly 1/4th of information originally stored in wav file.

It's not fair to compare mp3 to WAV because the MP3 is not loosing all of that original data. It's much more fair to compare MP3 to lossless which can vary from 600-1000kbps. So really an MP3 is loosing between 1/2 - 2/3 the detail - as pedantic as that is, WAVs are a different format.

Audio compression is very much like image compression. Lossless RAW files from cameras are able to compress to very much the same ratio while still being able to decompress back to the original bit-perfect file. Compressing a jpg a 1/4 of the uncompressed file only shows noticable degradation if you zoom in to the pixels massively or try to reprocess it over and over again a few times - also very similar to audio. Also worth noting is that our eyes more sensitive than our ears. In both cases detecting the differences is more down to training than simply appreciating.

I love lossless as much as the next guy (all my music is) but in a double blind test I bet a heck of a lot more of us would be caught out than we would like to believe.