Correct, if you adjust for skin depth and other wire factors to equalize the DESIGN, the wire material won’t impact digital. Noise ingress is the DESIGN not the copper or conductor for short reach cables.
Silver coatings on 3-8 GHz coaxial cables, for instance, just improves attenuation at RF to improve the signal to noise ratio. And TEFLON, at extremely high frequencies, has a usefully lower loss tangent, a COMPONENT of the dissipation factor, but isn’t applicable for short reach lower frequency digital cables.Could you use it? Yes. Will it make a difference in BER with short cables? No. Will it cost you? Yes.
Hi @karthick, I am looking for a new AES/EBU cable for a connection not involving the DS Sr. or Matrix. I continue to believe the DS Sr.'s best-sounding input is I2S, and that the best way to access the I2S input is via the Matrix.
Sorry I got it all confused… yes I do use I2S between matrix and PS.
Thanks for clarifying that this experiment you are doing does not challenge the I2S wisdom we have agreed upon…
Hey folks,
I’ve embarked on a new variation of feeding the Matrix (and thence to the DS). I’ve noted some in this forum are trying to isolate the server delivery of the bit stream to the Matrix in order to minimise jitter. My observation is that the upcoming Octave server is PSA’s candidate for the job. In the meantime, I’ve chosen the HQPlayer offering as the intermediary between server and Matrix. One of the offered HQPlayer components is HQPlayer Embedded, a headless version of HQPlayer Desktop. They’ve made a Raspberry Pi version 4 image that includes HQPlayer Embedded so I’ve bought an RPi4 and a HQPlayer Embedded licence and am now feeding the Matrix from that setup. Control is via either HQPlayer Client or the HQPDcontrol app. So far the RPi4 has handled the transfer (from a NAS server) of 44.1/16 up to 192/24 FLAC and DSD128 without issue. The ALSA audio interface in the OS apparently handles the ASIO interface natively. So far, so good.
If this is of interest to readers of this topic then I’ll keep posting updates. If not, I’ll either create a new topic or just keep it to myself
@timm - Not as good; however, my Farad is twice the money as my Sbooster… The Sbooster w/ Ultra is a very nice LPS. I love all (4) of my Farad Super3s and to me it was worth going to the Farad.
I am looking to improve SQ of my set up further.
Current setup:
Lumin U1 Mini->WW Platimum USB->DS Sr
I am looking for your input on the following options I have in mind:
U1 Mini->AES/EBU->DS Sr
U1 Mini->WW Platinum USB-> Matrix SPDIF2->hdmi I2S->DS Sr
Have you tried similar options with a decent streamer as the U1 mini with output flexibilities except I2S and found that using AES not USB OR inserting the Matrix would improve SQ?
I found that an
Aries G1->Wireworld Platinum AES/EBU->DSD
compared to
Aries G1->WWPS7->Matrix with LPS1.2->WWSS7 HDMI->DSD
sounded so very similar as to not be worth all the bother of the second setup. Another set of ears agreed with me. I give the credit to the quality of the Aries G1.
I have two Matrix setups here that I use daily. I don’t own the G1 that I tested.
I did. It too sounded as good. I stopped only as I need the platinum usb for my server. I thought the AES/EBU was ideal, just a tiny, tiny drop from the Matrix route. Easily acceptable.
In your situation I hope you can find a friend who can loan you the gear to test your setup. Only you can be sure…
There are some talk about the Matrix is not having much improvement over straight in with USB cable in the DS. I thought there was a significant difference when I first try the Matrix, so I did another shootout between going straight in with USB cable and adding Matrix and an extra I2s cable. I’m afraid I have to keep the Matrix in the system. Not much of a comparison. The system with the Matrix is way better. It really sounds quite boring with the Matrix out of the system. I am using the Audience FrontRow for USB cable and for I2s WW Platinum S7. Aurender N10 server. Sbooster with the Matrix. I also try going XLR with WW Platinum Eclipse 7 from Aurender to DS straight. The sound is closer to the Matrix, but not quite as good. It still lose a bit of detail in comparison. Also it does not output DSD. I have a lot of DSD material. The sound with the Matrix and these other tweaks brings my digital competitive with my analog, and that’s saying a lot. My analog is a mind blower.
I was not intending to indicate the Matrix was not useful, in my two systems it definitely is.
I was only trying to state that with the Aries G1, it offered very slight improvement. That grants credit to the Aries G1, taking nothing away of what the Matrix can do for OTHER gear. I have OTHER gear.
I periodically experience a gurgling and whirling low level noise when playing DSD files through the Matrix. I asked the HQPlayer developer about this and he thought it could be an I2S clock related issue, which is how I connect the Matrix to my DSJ. He recommends USB. Curious if anyone has experienced something similar? @tedsmith?
It only happens with DSD, not PCM. I can hear it in the quiet parts of songs, or just when a DSD track begins or ends.
Are you doing any processing with HQPlayer when it happens? Clocking issues won’t affect the sound quality on a DS anywhere near that much if a bit perfect test passes. If you can’t pass a bit perfect test you may notice problems more when playing DSD than PCM (e.g. if there’s a slight volume change PCM could still be essentially perfect and DSD could have noticeable sound quality problems.) Also getting quiet signals correct is one of the harder things when converting PCM to DSD (or doing DSD volume changes.)
