Musiland Monitor 01 USD

[leo]

First impressions of the Hiface, well I'd forget farting about with that Musiland the Hiface is way better imo so far

[jkeny]

Very good Leo - I will be farting around with the HiFace shortly (external PS & I2S out) and comparing it to the tricked out Musiland

[leo]

Don't get me wrong, the Musiland is quite ok and even better after mods but I'm finding stock Hiface way ahead
Piano sounds a little electronic with the Musiland, sounds more like a proper piano with the Hiface, theres more depth to the sound, better focused

For a hundred quid these things are very good, thats not to say its the best out there but for a sane price its hard to fault

Only niggle I have is that its like a USB pen in that it sticks out of the USB socket, a heavy spdif cable plugged into this thing could fracture the USB plug or socket joints, I'd want to add at least a short USB extension cable

[insomniac]

Dec 18, 2009 2:43:57 GMT @sandyk said:

Dec 18, 2009 2:22:27 GMT insomniac said:

That's bad news Alex

Were the computer and CD player both fed to the same DAC via SPDIF during the comparison? Do you recall the model of soundcard/s and CD player used?

Dave
My friend David normally uses an Asuss Xonar SC and LG BluRay writer in his main PC., but this was from a laptop via USB for convenience, with no more on it than necessary. I will PM you a copy of the listening test reults.
Alex

Cheers Alex, PM received... interesting reading.

[insomniac]

Dec 19, 2009 15:46:13 GMT leo said:

Don't get me wrong, the Musiland is quite ok and even better after mods but I'm finding stock Hiface way ahead
Piano sounds a little electronic with the Musiland, sounds more like a proper piano with the Hiface, theres more depth to the sound, better focused

Sounds promising Leo, keep us updated

For a hundred quid these things are very good, thats not to say its the best out there but for a sane price its hard to fault

Any word on how the (cheaper?) RCA socket version fares vs the BNC?

Only niggle I have is that its like a USB pen in that it sticks out of the USB socket, a heavy spdif cable plugged into this thing could fracture the USB plug or socket joints, I'd want to add at least a short USB extension cable

Good point! Valter is running his on an extension cable with no negative effects so probably a safer bet. Which brand/model/length of USB cable will/won't/might sound best tho?... another can of worms waiting to be opened right there ;D

[leo]

Thanks Dave.

75R BNC out to 75R BNC input is the best , if your dac is RCA input then I'd go for the RCA out version (unless you swap the RCA socket on the dac to BNC) , keep em the same, having 75R BNC feeding an RCA input defeats the object of using proper 75R plugs/connectors.

Regarding the USB extension, I don't have one here at the moment but do intend on trying one, one thought is that the voltage supply to the Hiface could easily be tapped into by hacking the lead, this way you can isolate it from the noisy USB supply and feed it an external supply.
I'd keep the lead as short as possible anyway tbh

[insomniac]

Dec 20, 2009 22:38:58 GMT leo said:

Thanks Dave.

75R BNC out to 75R BNC input is the best , if your dac is RCA input then I'd go for the RCA out version (unless you swap the RCA socket on the dac to BNC) , keep em the same, having 75R BNC feeding an RCA input defeats the object of using proper 75R plugs/connectors.

Cheers Leo, that makes sense. I would prefer the 75R throughout but currently have a mixture of socket types on different gear. That was one of the things I liked about the Musiland though... the choice of three outputs increased its versatility in this type of setup.

Regarding the USB extension, I don't have one here at the moment but do intend on trying one, one thought is that the voltage supply to the Hiface could easily be tapped into by hacking the lead, this way you can isolate it from the noisy USB supply and feed it an external supply.
I'd keep the lead as short as possible anyway tbh

I have a couple of spare short shielded USB extensions kicking around here... PM me if they are any good to you and I'll pop them in the post tomorrow.

[Deleted]

I would prefer the 75R throughout but currently have a mixture of socket types on different gear. That was one of the things I liked about the Musiland though... the choice of three outputs increased its versatility in this type of setup.

Dave
I believe there are usually far greater gains to be made in SPDIF implementation in other areas, before resorting to genuine 75R BNC sockets everywhere. However, you really need a 100MHZ (or better) CRO, to fully optimise this area.
Alex

[leo]

For the Musiland Its worth adding the ferrite and Oscon on the input USB DC source (As recommended by Thorsten) I tried it as a cheap mod and heard a difference straight away.
I also noticed I have Musiland KS as an option in the output of Foobar2000, it sounds quite different to the Musiland ASIO, worth comparing imo

With a few simple tweaks the Musiland really is quite ok tbh especially after sorting the output gain

[leo]

Dec 21, 2009 23:49:43 GMT insomniac said:

Dec 20, 2009 22:38:58 GMT leo said:

Thanks Dave.

75R BNC out to 75R BNC input is the best , if your dac is RCA input then I'd go for the RCA out version (unless you swap the RCA socket on the dac to BNC) , keep em the same, having 75R BNC feeding an RCA input defeats the object of using proper 75R plugs/connectors.

Cheers Leo, that makes sense. I would prefer the 75R throughout but currently have a mixture of socket types on different gear. That was one of the things I liked about the Musiland though... the choice of three outputs increased its versatility in this type of setup.

Regarding the USB extension, I don't have one here at the moment but do intend on trying one, one thought is that the voltage supply to the Hiface could easily be tapped into by hacking the lead, this way you can isolate it from the noisy USB supply and feed it an external supply.
I'd keep the lead as short as possible anyway tbh

I have a couple of spare short shielded USB extensions kicking around here... PM me if they are any good to you and I'll pop them in the post tomorrow.

Thanks for the offer Dave, I have to pop over to Maplin sometime either tomorrow or the day after so if I can't get one from there I'll let you know

[insomniac]

Dec 22, 2009 0:50:26 GMT leo said:

Dec 21, 2009 23:49:43 GMT insomniac said:

Cheers Leo, that makes sense. I would prefer the 75R throughout but currently have a mixture of socket types on different gear. That was one of the things I liked about the Musiland though... the choice of three outputs increased its versatility in this type of setup.



I have a couple of spare short shielded USB extensions kicking around here... PM me if they are any good to you and I'll pop them in the post tomorrow.

Thanks for the offer Dave, I have to pop over to Maplin sometime either tomorrow or the day after so if I can't get one from there I'll let you know

No worries Leo

[insomniac]

Dec 22, 2009 0:46:35 GMT leo said:

For the Musiland Its worth adding the ferrite and Oscon on the input USB DC source (As recommended by Thorsten) I tried it as a cheap mod and heard a difference straight away.
I also noticed I have Musiland KS as an option in the output of Foobar2000, it sounds quite different to the Musiland ASIO, worth comparing imo

With a few simple tweaks the Musiland really is quite ok tbh especially after sorting the output gain

Nice, I will try the Thorsten mods soon and report back. I haven't tried the KS vs ASIO drivers but shall give that a go too. The ASIO driver is nice and responsive when used for monitoring within audio mixing software, even when playing back multiple streams. There is very little lag when jumping from cue point to cue point.

[Spirit]

Dec 18, 2009 1:53:35 GMT @sandyk said:

Going by recent experiences with USB from a laptop, I think it may also be worthwhile to use a reasonable soundcard with SPDIF Out.

This being usb from laptop, into the benchmark?
The benchmarks usb input isn't up to much (in comparison to what the musiland and [the even better] hiface ouput)

I don't think the problem lies in the usb being from a laptop, or that it's usb at all... more that the implementation of the usb input on benchmark is rubbish

Don't make me send the buffalo+hiface down to you too ;D

[Deleted]

Mar 13, 2010 2:39:20 GMT Spirit said:

Dec 18, 2009 1:53:35 GMT @sandyk said:

Going by recent experiences with USB from a laptop, I think it may also be worthwhile to use a reasonable soundcard with SPDIF Out.

This being usb from laptop, into the benchmark?
The benchmarks usb input isn't up to much (in comparison to what the musiland and [the even better] hiface ouput)

I don't think the problem lies in the usb being from a laptop, or that it's usb at all... more that the implementation of the usb input on benchmark is rubbish

Don't make me send the buffalo+hiface down to you too ;D

Phil
Have you actually listened to a Benchmark USB DAC ?
When 3 people tested it here, we found that the manufacturer's claims appeared to be most likely justified, as we heard very little difference between it used via USB or SPDIF from my PC. However, it was cleartly outperformed by my X-DAC V3 via SPDIF when a comparison was done in my main system via the Oppo. Perhaps it is more due to the DAC itself not living up to all the hype ? I found it interesting that despite being only days old, the next day my friend had it apart and fitted better opamps.

Don't make me send the buffalo+hiface down to you too

Let's see how it compares with Jeff's SC DAC before you get too carried away?
Alex

[Spirit]

Mar 13, 2010 3:03:03 GMT @sandyk said:

Phil
Have you actually listened to a Benchmark USB DAC ?

Nope. Have you listened to a hiface?

When 3 people tested it here, we found that the manufacturer's claims appeared to be most likely justified, as we heard very little difference between it used via USB or SPDIF from my PC. However, it was cleartly outperformed by my X-DAC V3 via SPDIF when a comparison was done in my main system via the Oppo. Perhaps it is more due to the DAC itself not living up to all the hype ? I found it interesting that despite being only days old, the next day my friend had it apart and fitted better opamps.

Where did I say anything about DACs? I was merely talking about the effects of different transports.
So the benchmark has a rubbish dac after its (rubbish) usb transport. Whoop de do.

The point is that you were equating the rubbish sound from a usb dac, to what usb transport is capable of, which imho, is silly

Let's see how it compares with Jeff's SC DAC before you get too carried away?
Alex

Happy to feed the SC DAC too from the hiface when I get one ;D