Triode's USB 24/192 plug in - sound quality impressions

[AlexM]

Dear All,

I am temporarily using a Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100 as a loaner while my modded 840c is off for repairs. I installed Triodes's superb USB plug-in, and am happily running in USB 2.0 high speed async mode.

Playback seems very clean, and relatively free from HF hash that gives listening a tiring quality. The sound is quite 'analogue', although not the last word in bass power or fine detail. I'm quite impressed with this little DAC so far - seems like quite good VFM, and sonically on a par with the the HRT Music Streamer II+, which is the only other USB DAC I have tried.

I have also noticed that the CPU utilization on the SBT stays at around 20-24% when playing 24/88 FLAC files, so plenty of headroom for 24/192 FLAC playback, if not WAV (previously noticed this increased CPU utililization signifcantly, so have turned it off on the server).

What have you tried Triode's app with, DAC-wise, and what do you prefer in terms of SP/DIF or USB, both for red book audio, and 96/192 digital files?.

Regards,
Alex

[SBGK]

Think you will find that as the Touch is bit perfect that nothing can change the sound quality, have you tried room compensation software eg Inguz, moving your speakers or physical room improvements to stop sound reflections ? These are all better solutions than any physically impossible voodoo magic imaginary improvements oft discussed in these parts.

[magiccarpetride]

Think you will find that as the Touch is bit perfect that nothing can change the sound quality, have you tried room compensation software eg Inguz, moving your speakers or physical room improvements to stop sound reflections ? These are all better solutions than any physically impossible voodoo magic imaginary improvements oft discussed in these parts.

One person's improvement is another person's degradation.

[JohnSwenson]

I have a HRT Music StreamerII (not the +), it works very well with Triodes plugin and a hub. Adding TT3.0 significantly improves the sound, with this combination it's getting astonishingly good. (it's not the best, my homebuilt DAC still blows it away). The II with TT3.0 is sounding better than several other way more expensive S/PDIF input DACs I have. (except for my own design -- I'm not biased am I?)

I had to do a little work to get TT3.0 to work with it, I had to set the buffer to over 5000, and I had to change some of the priority settings. The esiest way to change the priorities was to just turn them off all together. I didn't have time to figure out which one caused a problem.

I tested the screen off part of TT3.0 and it didn't make any difference so I left the screen on. The part of TT3.0 that seemed to make the difference was the kernal settings, when I implemented just them I got the same sound improvement.


John S.

[Triode]

I have a HRT Music StreamerII (not the +), it works very well with Triodes plugin and a hub. Adding TT3.0 significantly improves the sound, with this combination it's getting astonishingly good. (it's not the best, my homebuilt DAC still blows it away). The II with TT3.0 is sounding better than several other way more expensive S/PDIF input DACs I have. (except for my own design -- I'm not biased am I?)

I had to do a little work to get TT3.0 to work with it, I had to set the buffer to over 5000, and I had to change some of the priority settings. The esiest way to change the priorities was to just turn them off all together. I didn't have time to figure out which one caused a problem.

I tested the screen off part of TT3.0 and it didn't make any difference so I left the screen on. The part of TT3.0 that seemed to make the difference was the kernal settings, when I implemented just them I got the same sound improvement.


John S.

Note that the app changes how the buffer setting is defined - so you will need to edit the EnhancedDigitalOutputMeta.lua rather than the standard file to change buffer setting. I'm interested if the kernel idle option makes any difference wrt to the kernel tuning?

[lake_eleven]

... The part of TT3.0 that seemed to make the difference was the kernal settings, when I implemented just them I got the same sound improvement.
John S.

Can you give the details on how implement the kernel settings alone in TT3.0

[guidof]

For the last few days, I've been listening to my main system (see sig below) with EDO+TT3.0+buffer=20000+SBGK's priorities of 03-25-12.

My impression is that there is an improvement in sound over the SBT+TT3.0 alone, very much along the lines of the improvements from plain SBT to TT2.0 and 3.0. More realistic tonal balance, better S/N ratio (blacker blacks), more detail more easily perceived, more three-dimensional and airy sound stage.

The improvements are fairly subtle, but easily perceived upon listening to familiar recordings of a wide variety of music -- at least to my ears and on my main system.

Of course, I have no way to attribute these impressions to any one of the above mods. But I'm grateful for the combined results and happy to post them in reply to the OP's request.

Guido F.

[BrynClarke]

I had to do a little work to get TT3.0 to work with it, I had to set the buffer to over 5000, and I had to change some of the priority settings. The esiest way to change the priorities was to just turn them off all together. I didn't have time to figure out which one caused a problem.

John S.

John, for us Linux illiterates, could you share how? I have Furutech GT40 DAC since Monday. (USB 2.0 Fullspeed UAC 1 (adaptive) limited to 24/96). Before Monday I was on analogue out from SBT. TT3.0 worked fine. The GT40 came, I factory reset SBT, installed EDO 0.4, all fine with GT40. But when I put back TT3.0 on top, sound is completely garbled. tt -r, all fine again, (though not sure it yet sounds better than my tweaked Marantz CD transport).
In a different forum (Audio Asylum) soundcheck asked if you'd read the post and could offer any advice with setting priorities which he thought might be the issue. TT buffer setting seems not to work on top of EDO - stays at 20000. Not sure if this is relevant. All advice/suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks in advance
Bryn

[SBGK]

John, for us Linux illiterates, could you share how? I have Furutech GT40 DAC since Monday. (USB 2.0 Fullspeed UAC 1 (adaptive) limited to 24/96). Before Monday I was on analogue out from SBT. TT3.0 worked fine. The GT40 came, I factory reset SBT, installed EDO 0.4, all fine with GT40. But when I put back TT3.0 on top, sound is completely garbled. tt -r, all fine again, (though not sure it yet sounds better than my tweaked Marantz CD transport).
In a different forum (Audio Asylum) soundcheck asked if you'd read the post and could offer any advice with setting priorities which he thought might be the issue. TT buffer setting seems not to work on top of EDO - stays at 20000. Not sure if this is relevant. All advice/suggestions gratefully received.

Thanks in advance
Bryn

I posted some settings at the end of the defunct TT3.0 thread, that a number of people are using EDO with TT3.0. PM me if you want more details.

[TheOctavist]

I have a HRT Music StreamerII (not the +), it works very well with Triodes plugin and a hub. Adding TT3.0 significantly improves the sound, with this combination it's getting astonishingly good. (it's not the best, my homebuilt DAC still blows it away).

I tend to respect your opinions, but differences between DACs are miniscule at best(even between the greatest of all time(the Pacific Microsonics Model 2) and the benchmarks, myteks, etc. so seeing you say one dac "blows another away" makes me wince in pain.


it does not get any better than perfect measurements(the touch DAC measures exceptionally well) so no DAC could "blow it away" objectively. subjectively....I dont see how either.