Jkeny Modified Hiface

[Will]

I've had the pleasure of using this device since last Saturday, thanks to Syd, so I thought I'd do a review of it, as a transport in it's own right.

I've never really thought that a USB based device could work well, as it was being forced to do something that was not native to it (that of passing data at 24/192 sample/bit rates) and had to rely on custom drivers.

I was wrong.

I initially compared the hiface (from my laptop, which was not optimised for music playback) to my Arcam Alpha CD player as transport, feeding into my Buffalo 32s dac. What became quickly apparent is that the modified hiface is an definite, solid improvement on the CD player, and not in a subtle way.

At the bottom end, bass is extended and textured. On some recordings that sounded bass light, there is more weight apparent now, without it sounding overblown.
Vocals and instruments are placed with better focus, leading to some revelations in what you are listening to. Part way through listening to the track Lateralus, by Tool, I became aware that the drummer was playing the cymbals using a (stiff) brush, before switching back to a drumstick (apologies for my lack of drummer terminology!) I wasn't straining for differences, in fact I was web browsing at the time, but I became aware of it. It is not as apparent when using the cd player.

Next, I compared the hiface to the spdif out of my Asus Xonar DS, which is a cheap little sound card. Now, again my PC is not setup for audio, but when I built it, I went for low noise. All the 120mm fans are mounted on rubber isolators/run at low speed, and the harddrives mounted on rubber isolators. This time the differences between the two were less apparent, although the hiface still came out slightly ahead. The differences are in the degree of difference, rather than 'this one is better at doing this or that'

Using the hiface is simple. You can leave it connected up to it's charger, and just flick the switch to turn it on, which brings the batteries into play, and disconnects the unit from the charger. Once you finish listening, just flick the switch, and the batteries start charging.

I do have one question. How much is the cd transport that will better these computer based transports?

[Deleted]

Will,

Thanks for that, good information.

On the transport side of things I believe Alex has compared his, modified PC drive for recording and Corsair USB pen for playback, against some pretty high end transports that proved themselves lacking.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2010 21:35:54 GMT @cjarchez said:

Will,

Thanks for that, good information.

On the transport side of things I believe Alex has compared his, modified PC drive for recording and Corsair USB pen for playback, against some pretty high end transports that proved themselves lacking.

If anybody wants a 16GB FAST Corsair Voyager GT for storing their very best .wav files (or heaven forbid, "lossless" files) so they can take them to friends places for demos, then check out the attached link.I have ordered one.
Alex

cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270484992264

[jkeny]

Thanks Will for posting your impressions.

Agreed that Alex's vibration control & solid state storage approach will improve any playback method from a PC including the SPDIF from the Asus card. These approaches will also improve the modified Hiface SPDIF out.

At the risk of being seen as self-promotional - Will has a MK1 modified Hiface & it's now in MK2 version which is a sonic upgrade & has an internal battery charger. If you find this post too commercial please delete it, I'm on unsure ground!

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2010 22:14:03 GMT @sandyk said:

Oct 16, 2010 21:35:54 GMT @cjarchez said:

Will,

Thanks for that, good information.

On the transport side of things I believe Alex has compared his, modified PC drive for recording and Corsair USB pen for playback, against some pretty high end transports that proved themselves lacking.

If anybody wants a 16GB FAST Corsair Voyager GT for storing their very best .wav files (or heaven forbid, "lossless" files) so they can take them to friends places for demos, then check out the attached link.I have ordered one.
Alex

cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270484992264

That's a great price folks, I've just ordered one too. I recently bought another 16GB USB pen, a "Platinum" which is about the best you can buy off a shelf here and cost 20%more. Claims to be high speed but writing speed is a tad tiresome. I'll be very interested to see how much faster the Corsair GT is

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2010 22:27:14 GMT jkeny said:

Thanks Will for posting your impressions.

Agreed that Alex's vibration control & solid state storage approach will improve any playback method from a PC including the SPDIF from the Asus card. These approaches will also improve the modified Hiface SPDIF out.

At the risk of being seen as self-promotional - Will has a MK1 modified Hiface & it's now in MK2 version which is a sonic upgrade & has an internal battery charger. If you find this post too commercial please delete it, I'm on unsure ground!

I see no harm in a bit of clarification. The waters can get a bit muddied on the use of the word "transport".

For me transport is an item that records onto storage or plays back from it. I'd rather call the Hiface an "interface" as its name suggests.
Just my tuppence worth.

[jkeny]

Just to clarify as it seems my post is open to mis-interpretation:

Alex's approach as I said will improve the recording onto & playback of audio from a PC .

My post was meant to read that all playback methods will improve equally - SPDIF from Asus card & SPDIF from modified Hiface or any other playback method. It seems to me that Alex's approach addresses reduction of power supply perturbations caused by vibration, spinning disks, fans, etc.

My modified Hiface addresses how the signal stream is handled after it gets out of the PC environment.

We are addressing completely different issues - Alex's being signal storage & retrieval - mine signal handling.

I hope this clears things up? I hate the English language (or maybe it's my ability to use it)!

Edit: As Alex says "What you get out of the HiFace is still limited by the quality of the actual rip. You can improve things, but you can't fix it all up completely after the horse has bolted out of the open gate."
I hope everybody understands that I was never trying to claim otherwise! I would go further & recommend a minimal PC configuration like a FitPC slim (Passively coled) using a Linear supply to power it - this is probably the cleanest neatest PC config I can think of. Unfortunately no longer available.

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2010 22:47:44 GMT @cjarchez said:

Oct 16, 2010 22:14:03 GMT @sandyk said:

If anybody wants a 16GB FAST Corsair Voyager GT for storing their very best .wav files (or heaven forbid, "lossless" files) so they can take them to friends places for demos, then check out the attached link.I have ordered one.
Alex

cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270484992264

That's a great price folks, I've just ordered one too. I recently bought another 16GB USB pen, a "Platinum" which is about the best you can buy off a shelf here and cost 20%more. Claims to be high speed but writing speed is a tad tiresome. I'll be very interested to see how much faster the Corsair GT is

Chris
I can DL high res files directly to my Corsair Voyager GT, even rip 24/192 DVD-A directly to it, without noticing it being any slower than with HDD, although it could possibly be.I tried the 24/192 to a generic USB pen and it took 20 times longer !!!
The 24/192 that I ripped to the generic USB pen was noisy sounding on playback too.
Alex

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2010 23:12:17 GMT jkeny said:

Just to clarify as it seems my post is open to mis-interpretation:

Alex's approach as I said in the post will improve the recording onto & playback off a PC of audio.

My post was meant to read that all playback methods will improve equally - SPDIF from Asus card & SPDIF from modified Hiface or any other playback method. It seems to me that Alex's approach addresses reduction of power supply perturbations caused by vibration, spinning disks, fans, etc.

My modified Hiface addresses how the signal stream is handled after it gets out of the PC environment.

We are addressing completely different issues - Alex's being signal storage & mine signal handling.

I hope this clears things up? I hate the English language (or maybe it's my ability to use it)!

Edit: As Alex says "What you get out of the HiFace is still limited by the quality of the actual rip. You can improve things, but you can't fix it all up completely after the horse has bolted out of the open gate."
I hope everybody understands that I was never trying to claim otherwise!

Agreed
Do both things well, and you will wonder why people spend huge amounts of money on VERY expensive SACD/CD players.

[Will]

On the transport side of things I believe Alex has compared his, modified PC drive for recording and Corsair USB pen for playback, against some pretty high end transports that proved themselves lacking.

Yes, that's sort of what I was getting at in the last sentence. £300 won't get you a CD transport that will better the current USB/sound card SPdif outputs. You can go as hairshirt as you want with the implementation as you want (PSU's/Dampening/SSD etc) which will improve things considerably, but the start point is already far ahead of CD transports.

This also ignores the fact that the increasingly popular high-res music downloads cannot be played on CD, in there original state.

[jonclancy]

I'm being a bit thick here!!

Can you rip some wavs to a Corsair GT and play them via the hi-face into your DAC? Or would you need another interface (like a Mac)?

Cheers

Jon

[Deleted]

Oct 23, 2010 17:32:46 GMT jonclancy said:

I'm being a bit thick here!!

Can you rip some wavs to a Corsair GT and play them via the hi-face into your DAC? Or would you need another interface (like a Mac)?

Cheers

Jon

Hi Jon
Sure can ! Or via SPDIF from your soundcard if your PC doesn't need a HiFace.
Alex

[mrarroyo]

Here are a couple of cheap ones in 16GB and 32GB.

cgi.ebay.com/NEW-RE-AUDIO-PORTABLE-16-GB-USB-2-0-FLASH-THUMB-DRIVE-/390254286558?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item5adcf7d6de#ht_4742wt_1141

cgi.ebay.com/SanDisk-Cruzer-32GB-USB-2-0-Flash-Drive-BRAND-NEW-/250714606153?pt=PCC_Drives_Storage_Internal&hash=item3a5fc14a49#ht_500wt_1156

[jonclancy]

Thanks Alex!

What controller do people use? Software, hardware? Oops, sounds like I am interested, and of course (with a million old CDP here) I am NOT!

[jkeny]

Just a note: The review of the modified Hiface has finally arrived enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/1110/m2tech_hiface_evo_dac.htm
It compares the M2tech Evo & the Halide Bridge to the JKHiface. Remember this is the MK1 version that is being reviewed so the battery comments don't apply & are somewhat incorrect for the MK1 anyway!

[Deleted]

John
Great review.
Let's hope the message isn't lost on some of the sceptics.
Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any mention of controlled DBTs.
Alex

[jkeny]

Thanks Alex,