I wouldn’t necessarily say, “Paranoid”. Usually, people choose one type of I/O or another - usually because That’s What They Have, and then they try to optimize it, because it’s Cheaper than Buying some new box or other.
Plus there was this whole, “USB Asynchronous” period, Way Back When…oh, Years ago.
As a pro user, I was pretty shocked at how crappy USB turned out to be In The Audiophile Realm, at least, as a means of Playing bits from A to B, as it was very commonly used in some sorts of Pro-ish gear, where the assumption is generally, “bits are bits”. However, as with almost any other protocol, with noodling, it can get to where it doesn’t suck. I compared the inputs on the DSJ and generally liked what USB was able to do (incl. DSD via DoP), despite the fact that I had used SPDIF, coax, FW, etc. for years.
There’s copying stuff from one drive to another, and then there’s Playing Music. I feel strongly nowadays that these are two different things.
Optical was a non-starter for me, as I had adopted DSD from the get go, and it would only do 24/96.
Perhaps. It is is an approach that may have merit. Use what you have even if it isn’t quite right. I tend to do the opposite. If the gear doesn’t work properly out of the box and without a bunch of band aids (cables, clocks etc.) then the gear goes out the door. It is not so expensive to flip gear considering band-aids always leave you in doubt as to how much of the original problem remains.
The gear works (passes audio), but it may not deliver what it is capable of, sonically.
In this case it is not just a piece of gear, but is a choice among protocols for passing digital audio between gear. People are always claiming one means or another is “best”, including Toslink, even though it will only do 24/96 (which is fine if you’re not into hires).
It’s part of the reason Paul created gear that would pass I2S between boxes, as it is what is used within digital devices. Between most devices, I2S is converted to USB, AES/EBU, SPDIF, optical, FW, etc., and then converted back to I2S in the next device.
Yes. The expectation is that the manufacturers of the components are actually quite competent which unfortunately is often not the case with some boutique audio - hence the need for all the band aids to fix what the component manufacturer couldn’t get right.
At first I thought USB sounded “better”, but I seem to be hearing a slight volume difference between USB and the Bridge II on my unit streaming from the same Roon NUC server. The USB seems a tad louder. Any perception of USB on the DS sounding better makes me suspicious as the human brain/ear automatically detects a louder signal as sounding “better” or “clearer”. This makes me think most people hearing differences between the two inputs are making their evaluations without level matching the two inputs. I added the Bridge II after many months of using the USB input only, and outside of USB sounding louder I don’t notice any obvious differences in the quality of audio.
The hope with the Bridge II is that it would sound better than USB. Otherwise, why use the Bridge at all? When I bought the DSJ, my hope was that the Bridge II would have a MicroRendu like effect of separating the noisy MacBook Pro from the DAC resulting in better SQ.
I use Roon/ HQPlayer for USB, and it does sound different than using the Bridge - both sound very good. But I haven’t experienced the MircroRendu or SOTM sms-200 wow factor that I’ve read about on the internet.
I still love the DSJ, but am neutral so far on the Bridge II.
It might sound better in your chain. I can’t claim it does as I haven’t heard your system, source or know what sorts of power-related issues you have at your residence with grounding, etc. that might be helped with the addition of a Bridge II. In isolation with my setup, both inputs sound equally fantastic and I love the DS with either.
From a non-SQ related standpoint there are practical and feature-related advantages to using the Bridge II over USB, but you might not be able to take advantage of all of them depending on your setup. MQA decoding is a big one for many people (not me, however). Personally my Roon ROCK server is finicky with all USB DACs (not just the DS) and will bug out after a few hours requiring a restart of the DAC. I’ve never had that problem with the Bridge II. I also use multiple inputs (my PC uses the USB input) so having an additional digital input that’s not something inferior like TOSLINK is an added convenience.
So much of this is environmental and a lot of it is dependent on your own setup that it’s hard for me to tell you to definitely get a Bridge II over using USB. For me the convenience factors were worth it, but I don’t know about your specific setup.
Let’s not forget controlling the DSD from another room - remoting the player and/or hand-held controller from the hi-fi stack.
After a couple of months trying a couple of hardware streamers, I’m back to the Bridge.
It sounds good enough to my ear, is inside the box using i2s, it gives me a choice of quality player software, and it has been completely stable with multiple players.
Have got a Lumin U1 Mini, disconnected the Ethernet from my DSJ (hence not using the Bridge) and plugged it into the Lumin. Improvements both in SQ and stability for me. Also the DSJ might run a tad cooler now?
I use the bridge II. Source is my computer, 75 ft away, fed by ethernet from FLAC files on my computer running JRiver. Controller is my phone or ipad using jremote. I can control everything from there including volume. I have no issues. DAC feeds the BHK 250 stereo amp, then to my Apogee Duetta Signature speakers. It keeps my system very simple and the sound is excellent, and I have no background noise at all in my listening area. I like the bridge II. I would also add - I recently tried my sonos with coax thru the DAC (to get Amazon Music HD streaming), and the SQ was substantially worse.
I like the bridge in my junior. I use tidal and never worry about the boxes of cds that we’re going to get ripped some day. The mcontrol app ain’t Roon, but I don’t care.
I do not like the Bridge II on my junior, which makes me correct about the entire topic. If I don’t like it, that means it is definitively unlikable and anyone who disagrees is entirely incorrect, wrong, mistaken, misguided and otherwise a nincompoop. These forums would run much better if you all recognized my rightful position of supreme arbiter of all opinions.
I will now sit back and receive the effusive admiration and praise that you all owe me. You are welcome
