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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 16, 2011 22:55:54 GMT
As you probably know "computer" as source is not really my thing so here is a question for you experts.... I have just bought a Cambridge Audio DacMagic.... here are the rear connectors www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets/documents/DAC_Magic_rear.jpg ....... I am contemplating connecting it to my Asus Xonar DX soundcard. OK..... I assume what I need is a toslink cable, I then fit a toslink to 3.5mm jack adaptor on one end and connect this to the SPDIF Out on the Xonar DX? The other end of the cable I plug into the toslink input of the DacMagic? Thanks for your help  |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2011 23:10:18 GMT
Hi Mike
My Asus card is working with ordinary SPDIF cable out of it. I pulled the cable out and a red light is emitted so I think its a dual socket - SPDIF and optical.
Syd
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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 16, 2011 23:24:51 GMT
Hi Mike My Asus card is working with ordinary SPDIF cable out of it. I pulled the cable out and a red light is emitted so I think its a dual socket - SPDIF and optical. Syd My Asus XD has a 3.5mm jack.... when I go into the DX audio center and click "SPDIF OUT" (PCM) the red light shines out the back of the jack socket..... SO, armed with this evidence I require a 3.5mm Jack to Toslink adaptor in order to plug the toslink into the SPDIF out of the Xonar DX.... Phew! I need to go and lay down  |
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mrarroyo
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Post by mrarroyo on Feb 16, 2011 23:56:38 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 0:11:15 GMT
As you probably know "computer" as source is not really my thing so here is a question for you experts.... I have just bought a Cambridge Audio DacMagic.... here are the rear connectors www.cambridgeaudio.com/assets/documents/DAC_Magic_rear.jpg ....... I am contemplating connecting it to my Asus Xonar DX soundcard. OK..... I assume what I need is a toslink cable, I then fit a toslink to 3.5mm jack adaptor on one end and connect this to the SPDIF Out on the Xonar DX? The other end of the cable I plug into the toslink input of the DacMagic? Thanks for your help Mike My D2X came with 2 S/PDIF Toslink Optical Adaptors and a thin black optical cable. Alex P.S. I normally use coax S/PDIF, but when I tried Optical I got some weird kind of pumping effect on the volume. The DAC is fine with other Toslink sources. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 0:26:38 GMT
Miguel That shouldn't be necessary with a good soundcard and a decent computer !  I get better SQ via coax S/PDIF than with Toslink. Alex Mike I suggest you try both methods, and see if you can hear any difference with good source material. Alex |
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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 17, 2011 8:17:39 GMT
Yo Alex, This "Gotham" cable looks purpose made for the task.... basically a length of 75R coax terminated with a phono plug at one end and a 3.5mm stereo at the other..... to hell with making my own though, this is obviously the gear that BatMan uses for his listening pleasure Holy flying catfish Robin.... this GOTHAM interconnect is the dog's nads   |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 8:31:57 GMT
Hi Mike,
Please let me know what you think of the DacMagics performance, as i have been giving thought to buying one for myself.
Cheers.
Mick.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 8:45:19 GMT
Yo Alex, This "Gotham" cable looks purpose made for the task.... basically a length of 75R coax terminated with a phono plug at one end and a 3.5mm stereo at the other..... to hell with making my own though, this is obviously the gear that BatMan uses for his listening pleasure Holy flying catfish Robin.... this GOTHAM interconnect is the dog's nads Mike Your Asus card must be different to my Xonar D2X , as mine takes a normal coax lead with RCA plugs, and a supplied adaptor plugs into the same socket, and the supplied Toslink cable then plugs into the adaptor if using optical instead. Alex |
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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 17, 2011 8:47:55 GMT
Hi Mike, Please let me know what you think of the DacMagics performance, as i have been giving thought to buying one for myself. Cheers. Mick. Hi Mick, Will do mate.... it hasn't arrived yet..... seemed sensible for me to get the DacMagic as I can power it with a Pinkie PSU, PLUS it has every input / output you could dream of, PLUS it appears to be exceptionally good VFM, PLUS it seems to be very well put together..... www.headfonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_3727.jpg |
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mrarroyo
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Post by mrarroyo on Feb 17, 2011 11:03:27 GMT
Miguel That shouldn't be necessary with a good soundcard and a decent computer ! I get better SQ via coax S/PDIF than with Toslink. Alex Mike I suggest you try both methods, and see if you can hear any difference with good source material. Alex Alex, I was providing Mike with an option to the coaxial. Specially if he has the DAC and no optical cable. He could use it with the USB cable until the optical cable arrives. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 11:18:32 GMT
Miguel That shouldn't be necessary with a good soundcard and a decent computer ! I get better SQ via coax S/PDIF than with Toslink. Alex Mike I suggest you try both methods, and see if you can hear any difference with good source material. Alex Alex, I was providing Mike with an option to the coaxial. Specially if he has the DAC and no optical cable. He could use it with the USB cable until the optical cable arrives. Hi Miguel I downloaded the manual for the DX card, and unfortunately, there is no coax option, only Toslink. Alex |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 11:19:50 GMT
Hi Mike, Please let me know what you think of the DacMagics performance, as i have been giving thought to buying one for myself. Cheers. Mick. Hi Mick, Will do mate.... it hasn't arrived yet..... seemed sensible for me to get the DacMagic as I can power it with a Pinkie PSU, PLUS it has every input / output you could dream of, PLUS it appears to be exceptionally good VFM, PLUS it seems to be very well put together..... www.headfonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/IMG_3727.jpg Thanks Mike, sounds sensible to me, plus, it would be nice to perhaps buy something of British origin again. Looks like i will be needing ANOTHER Little Pinkie then.   Mick. |
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xerxes
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Post by xerxes on Feb 17, 2011 12:54:28 GMT
I would try it with USB as well, you must have a USB cable knocking about, so may as well. I'm very pleased with the noises the HRT Music Streamer makes via USB, although of course with the MS you have no choice but to use USB. Also, having tried a few free media players and not being particularly happy with them I bought a copy of J River Media Centre: www.jriver.com/. I tried it on the free trial period first and I really liked it. I particularly like the fact that you can rip CDs as completely uncompressed WAV files and it correctly identifies and catalogues them so you get the album cover and track listings etc. in the media player, the same way you doe with MP3s in other media players, but which don't seem to cope with WAV files. |
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joethearachnid
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Post by joethearachnid on Feb 17, 2011 18:17:07 GMT
Mike! Can't you read? It CLEARLY says on the back to ONLY use the supplied PSU! Their engineers know best!  From what I've read about the DACMagic it's still something of a benchmark - people will say things like 'It blows the DACMagic out of the water' or 'It's not quite up to DACMagic standard'. It does seem to be generally agreed that the USB input is pretty rubbish, though, so I think that going for S/PDIF is going to be the best option. Looking forward to your impressions. -JoetheArachnid |
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Post by dicky on Feb 17, 2011 20:02:48 GMT
Ok, a question open to the floor ........
........ my BluRay 'upsamples' DVDs and the video *appears* to be better than DVD quality. Could this be true - or is it Emperors' New Clothes'?
So here's the question; if you feed something like this DAC from a regular CD coax output, does the upsamled DAC output sound better? Presumably, the additional information/resolution is interpolated - it's not *real*.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 20:26:40 GMT
........ my BluRay 'upsamples' DVDs and the video *appears* to be better than DVD quality. Could this be true - or is it Emperors' New Clothes'? So here's the question; if you feed something like this DAC from a regular CD coax output, does the upsamled DAC output sound better? Presumably, the additional information/resolution is interpolated - it's not *real*. [/quote] Dicky Yes, it is true where the video quality is good enough to start with. Many of the upscaling methods were based on an original method by Faroudja. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FaroudjaYour presumption is correct,although methods to achieve this vary considerably. The upsampled DAC output can also sound better. One of the reasons is the removal of the "brick wall" filter used with normal CD playback to get rid of higher frequency processing artifacts, and the use of more gentle filters at much higher frequencies. As an example, although the Musical Fidelity X-DAC V3 is capable of up to 24/96 resolution, everything is upsampled to 24/192. Although the X-DAC V3 can not directly play 24/192 material due to it's 24/96 limitation, it still gets upsampled again to 24/192, which I believe approximates the original 24/192 .wav file better than if it wasn't upsampled from 24/96 again. Alex |
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Post by dicky on Feb 17, 2011 20:56:58 GMT
So the effect of upsampling is simply to push the processing errors further away from our hearing range - the /96 or /192 being the frequency in kHz. The 24/ is the number of bits (resolution) which may infact be unchanged from the CD original output?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 21:16:09 GMT
So the effect of upsampling is simply to push the processing errors further away from our hearing range - the /96 or /192 being the frequency in kHz. The 24/ is the number of bits (resolution) which may infact be unchanged from the CD original output? In the case of CD, the file would be resampled from 16 bits to 24 bits with players like the X-DAC V3 . Actually, the errors you mention are higher frequency artifacts due to digital processing. |
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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 17, 2011 21:41:00 GMT
Alex, are you now saying I can't use the "Gotham" interconnect on the SPDIF out of my DX and only the optical?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 17, 2011 21:59:38 GMT
Alex, are you now saying I can't use the "Gotham" interconnect on the SPDIF out of my DX and only the optical? Mike Assuming that I downloaded the correct manual, it appears that you have Optical Out, but no provision for coaxial S/PDIF. However, I only gave the manual a quick glance. Alex |
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Post by PinkFloyd on Feb 17, 2011 22:04:21 GMT
Great Anybody want to buy a metre length of brand new "gotham"? |
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mrarroyo
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Post by mrarroyo on Feb 18, 2011 0:28:42 GMT
Alex, I was providing Mike with an option to the coaxial. Specially if he has the DAC and no optical cable. He could use it with the USB cable until the optical cable arrives. Hi Miguel I downloaded the manual for the DX card, and unfortunately, there is no coax option, only Toslink. Alex I know, I never spoke of a coaxial only of optical and usb. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2011 0:45:01 GMT
Hi Miguel I downloaded the manual for the DX card, and unfortunately, there is no coax option, only Toslink. Alex I know, I never spoke of a coaxial only of optical and usb. Miguel Like Syd, I assumed that Mike's Asus card was similar to ours with both Optical and coax S/PDIF.The downloaded .pdf shows that it isn't. Alex |
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I get better SQ via coax S/PDIF than with Toslink.
