Why does my CD player sound better than my streamer

[unsleepable]

This is only a guess as I know nothing about the Hugo.

But could it just be a case that they prefer optical because it has the advantage of electrically isolating the unit from the source (which is usually a computer if USB is being used). This means it's less likely to get damaged if something goes wrong with your computer.

Through USB you get 5V, and from 0.5 to 5A. I guess it should be possible to fry a small chip with that… But you would really have to put your mind into it. And the Hugo charges on 12V.

So of course not. The reason is because of the sound quality.

 

[Vladimir]

1) If you have a USB powered device, you may use a multimeter and find that the voltage rails and current through USB coming from PCs and especially laptops are not consistent over a certain length of cable. When you have small variations in mains power say 220V to 230V, it's not a big deal. But from 4.5V to 5V, that is a big deal (10%). To solve this you can cut off the 5V rail (or isolate the pin with small piece of electricians tape) and the ground wire and connect the 5V rail to an external linear regulated PSU with 5V and up to 5A of current (or 1.5A for USB 2.0). This means the amplifier will always get accurate 5V and high current reserves. You can push it loud and run headphones like a boss. The opamps will love you for doing this.

If you don't want to splice any cables, a clean solution is to get a powered USB hub and power it with a decent regulated LPSU and connect it to the PC with USB cable that has the 5V rail and ground isolated with a peice of tape.

2) If you have a separately powered USB device, isolate the 5V and ground rails on the USB jack coming from the PC and just leave the signal rails. If your external PSU adapter is stock switch mode generic chinese phone charger, replace it with a nice linear regulated power supply and drive it like a boss.

3) Always have 28AWG/24AWG shielded USB cable. The shorter, the better.

 

[SteveR750]

1) If you have a USB powered device, you may use a multimeter and find that the voltage rails and current through USB coming from PCs and especially laptops are not consistent over a certain length of cable. When you have small variations in mains power say 220V to 230V, it's not a big deal. But from 4.5V to 5V, that is a big deal (10%). To solve this you can cut off the 5V rail (or isolate the pin with small piece of electricians tape) and the ground wire and connect the 5V rail to an external linear regulated PSU with 5V and up to 5A of current (or 1.5A for USB 2.0). This means the amplifier will always get accurate 5V and high current reserves. You can push it loud and run headphones like a boss. The opamps will love you for doing this.

If you don't want to splice any cables, a clean solution is to get a powered USB hub and power it with a decent regulated LPSU and connect it to the PC with USB cable that has the 5V rail and ground isolated with a peice of tape.

2) If you have a separately powered USB device, isolate the 5V and ground rails on the USB jack coming from the PC and just leave the signal rails. If your external PSU adapter is stock switch mode generic chinese phone charger, replace it with a nice linear regulated power supply and drive it like a boss.

3) Always have 28AWG/24AWG shielded USB cable. The shorter, the better.

Is there any benefit in upgrading from the standard wall wart to a linear PS for a mains powered DAC? Are there options other than a ridiculously priced £200+ for a DAC from that only cost £300?

 

[SteveR750]

Depends what kind of phone charger came with your DAC. If it spews badly rectified and badly filtered AC » DC, you may get noise and unlinear voltage in your DAC. Might be audible, it might not be. Again, it depends on the phone charger.

It's the standard one that came with the DM+. I have no idea what it's output profile looks like, nor the means to measure it. Unless an better PSU could be had for £50 or thereabouts I'll not bother.

 

[Vladimir]

Depends what kind of phone charger came with your DAC. If it spews badly rectified and badly filtered AC » DC, you may get noise and unlinear voltage in your DAC. Might be audible, it might not be. Again, it depends on the phone charger.

I recycled an old LPSU from my Commodore 64. 5V at 1.5A for my USB 2.0 DAC, running in Class A. Cost = £0.

 

[SteveR750]

I can, but I know it's from the laptop, as it vanishes when I unplug its PSU. The ground lift helped massively, it's far from intrusive. Connected optically it is silent.

 

[Vladimir]

You can just use optical and problem solved. I have only USB connection on my USB powered DAC and I had to address the issue.

 

[Vladimir]

Turn your amp half way, without any music playing. If you can't hear noise from your speaker tweaters at 0.5m distance, don't bother changing anything.

 

[SteveR750]

You can just use optical and problem solved. I have only USB connection on my USB powered DAC and I had to address the issue.

I would, but USB 2 sounds much better to me.

 

[Vladimir]

In what mode do you play your tunes via JRiver? I use ASIO drivers for my DAC. Do you use WASAPI or Kernel streaming?

 

[steve_1979]

This is only a guess as I know nothing about the Hugo.

But could it just be a case that they prefer optical because it has the advantage of electrically isolating the unit from the source (which is usually a computer if USB is being used). This means it's less likely to get damaged if something goes wrong with your computer.

Through USB you get 5V, and from 0.5 to 5A. I guess it should be possible to fry a small chip with that… But you would really have to put your mind into it. And the Hugo charges on 12V.

So of course not. The reason is because of the sound quality.

It's only 5V provided everything is working correctly. Which is not necessarily always the case with computers.

Admittedly it's a very rare issue but it has been known for things to go catastrophically wrong with USB connections (usually with DIY built PC's).

If I ran a HiFi company I'd tell people to use optical just because it will potentially reduce the chance of damaged/returned products. Using optical rather than USB is also incredibly unlikely to have any effect on the sound quality so it makes sense from a manufactures point of view.

 

[SteveR750]

In what mode do you play your tunes via JRiver? I use ASIO drivers for my DAC. Do you use WASAPI or Kernel streaming?

In USB 2 mode I use the Cambridge ASIO driver. When I was using in optical WASAPI Event Style, but this is not supported by the DM+

The XS DAC also sues the same driver, and it's much better in this mode. The Chord Qute was pretty average in USB, better in optical. The NAD C390D was better in USB, but again needed it's proprietry ASIO driver installing. I had an Audiolab M Dac for a week or so too, but can't remember which mode I found to be best. Wasn't impressed with it at all, most dull sounding piece of kit I have heard for a long time.