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

[Jake72]

no..they don't. unless you are talking about a shitty design from 1982.

all competent dacs in the past 5 years or so will be indistinguishable(benchmark, grace, forssell, mytek, crane song, weiss, prism, dad, steinberg, lynx). nobody, i mean nobody will pass any DBT showing otherwise.

jitter audibility---
30,000ps for sighted and 250,000ps for blind.

yep! thats the point! the one that audiophiles miss by a country mile..


http://www.stereophile.com/content/l...r-measurements

Like the Centrance DACport, which I reviewed in June, Logitech's Squeezebox Touch offers excellent audio engineering with no sign that it has been compromised to reach its low price point. This is especially commendable when you consider that, in addition to its audio circuitry, the Touch includes a Linux-based server complete with touchscreen display. I am amazed that all this can be done for $299.99.—John Atkinson

Thanks, that's an interesting review even though I don't understand what some (maybe all!) of the measurements and graphs mean!

I'm wondering what you would qualify as the cheapest 'competent dacs' I could buy or would that be the touch itself though in your review you did say the analogue out could be bettered. I would hate to buy an expensive external DAC and end up feeling like I had wasted my money.

jitter audibility---
30,000ps for sighted and 250,000ps for blind.

That's lots and lots of jitter that just can't be heard by a human right?

[lake_eleven]

No and "No" .
Server decoding can actually be helpful for lossy formats, an mp3 decoder like lame works and sounds better than the onboard options this effect is not always audible on all mp3's btw so no panic . But for lossles formats like FLAC no way !
However if you use ALAC or AIFF Touch can be buggy and some files like 24/96 won't work properly .
If you have droves of 24/96 ALAC or aiff files you might set those to server decoding, just to make them work in all circumstances ( if they work sound is the same here to )

I currently have LMS -> Advanced -> File Types -> all decoders except PCM disabled. Do you think setting them to LMS defaults is a better option?. I have 30% FLAC, 50% WAV and 20% 24/96 materials.

[garym]

I currently have LMS -> Advanced -> File Types -> all decoders except PCM disabled. Do you think setting them to LMS defaults is a better option?. I have 30% FLAC, 50% WAV and 20% 24/96 materials.

yes...use the defaults. And in the meantime, I'd convert all the WAV files and 24/96 (if not FLAC) to FLAC, and tag them well.... LMS and Squeezeboxes work very well natively with FLAC files. If you are paranoid about FLAC files and lossless compression, dbpoweramp can now do "uncompressed" FLAC as an option, so you have the benefits of FLAC file format and standard tagging with no compression applied.

(p.s., however you should NOT be paranoid about FLAC lossless compression, but there are a few folks that believe "old wife's tales" from the old days of digital....)

[darrenyeats]

Although I use Benchmark DAC1 HDR this costs a bit. For me, it makes sense because I want all its bells and whistles, not the least what I think of as a "proper analogue volume control" with remote. The measured performance is good.

If you are after just a DAC then I recommend researching the Cambridge Audio DAC Magic Plus. The measured performance is reportedly very good, better even than the Benchmark if you compare them as DACs. See http://kenrockwell.com/audio/cambrid...magic-plus.htm. And it's not expensive.

I think measurements can be over-simplifying (but still illuminating) for loudspeakers but very useful and valid for line level equipment like DACs and preamps whose job is, I believe, simply to mimic "straight wire".
Darren

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2

[Willakan]

The jitter thresholds being quoted here are a little too high. The 1998 study from Benjamin and Gannon established that when the program material was specially chosen jitter as low as 30ns could be distinguished under ideal conditions with specially chosen musical content and jitter of a variety most likely to be audible.

That said, a more recent 2005 study which used random jitter found the threshold to lie at several hundred ns...

Either way, this is vastly more jitter than produced by even semi-competent products.

[lake_eleven]

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.

John,
I have placed my order for HRT Music Streamer II+, hence very interested to learn the changes to your system with HRT. I have:
- Installed EDO
- Installed TT3.0 over it
- Changed priorities in TT file to Logitech default
- Made the changes suggested by SBGK on the various .lua files
- My buffer setting in the .lua files are 4200
- Disconnected screen
- Removed Toslink on SBT

You are also suggesting kernel settings change. Can you share what the kernel changes are?. Also what buffer size is best.

[JohnSwenson]

John,
I have placed my order for HRT Music Streamer II+, hence very interested to learn the changes to your system with HRT. I have:
- Installed EDO
- Installed TT3.0 over it
- Changed priorities in TT file to Logitech default
- Made the changes suggested by SBGK on the various .lua files
- My buffer setting in the .lua files are 4200
- Disconnected screen
- Removed Toslink on SBT

You are also suggesting kernel settings change. Can you share what the kernel changes are?. Also what buffer size is best.

The kernel settings I'm talking about are part TT3.0, they are automatically there when you install TT3.0. I just did some experimentation turning different optimizations on and off and found that the kernel ones made the most difference, and that several settings that made a big difference to analog out made no difference that I could tell with the HRT.

John S.

[lake_eleven]

Anyone experienced EDO adding digital glare to 16/44 files?

[AlexM]

Not in my case... Quite the opposite in fact!.

I am not using EDO in conjunction with TT3.0

Regards,
Alex

[guidof]

Anyone experienced EDO adding digital glare to 16/44 files?

Not in my case either.

I'm using EDO+TT3.0+SBGK's settings, with excellent results.

Guido F.