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AVForums Super Veteran
As a self-confessed sceptic where audiophoolery is concerned it's long irked me when people make claims of day/night differences, veils being lifted etc. achieved by switching out a wall wart for a linear PSU, changing USB transports or doing both.
Cases in point:
- I've seen many discussions where switching out the wall wart powering a USB transport purportedly markedly improves sound quality
- similarly, where a DAC's USB port is powered by the incoming USB cable it's been reported that a linear PSU independently powering the USB port again significantly improves proceedings.
- some guys slapped together a custom SOC board, called in the marketing guys claimed it's 'USB optimized for audio', borrowed open source software efforts without acknowledgement, had it blessed by Jesus and sell it for $700. For perspective the ODROID sells for $39.
I should soon be armed with a purpose built linear PSU that measures extremely well (and better than any I've seen selling for the price of a decent DAC) and I'll be running a number of tests with it, including:
- powering my ODROID-C2 which serves as a USB transport
- powering the DAC's USB port.
For first run I'll use the Joty and Sennheiser HD800 to see whether there are any obvious audible differences I can detect. Thereafter I'll try the same on my main setup.
If I can get access to the right equipment I may even compare DAC output with and without the LPSU. Should be interesting...
Later on, if I can get my hands on a blessed audiophile USB I'd like to measure what comes out of the business end of a DAC when using the ODROID and compare that with what is produced when the USB has Jesus' stamp of approval.
Following that I'm hoping someone is brave enough to accompany their audiophile music sever to my place, again to measure what comes out of the business end of the DAC compared with what's produced using my stock mini-itx.
Cases in point:
- I've seen many discussions where switching out the wall wart powering a USB transport purportedly markedly improves sound quality
- similarly, where a DAC's USB port is powered by the incoming USB cable it's been reported that a linear PSU independently powering the USB port again significantly improves proceedings.
- some guys slapped together a custom SOC board, called in the marketing guys claimed it's 'USB optimized for audio', borrowed open source software efforts without acknowledgement, had it blessed by Jesus and sell it for $700. For perspective the ODROID sells for $39.
I should soon be armed with a purpose built linear PSU that measures extremely well (and better than any I've seen selling for the price of a decent DAC) and I'll be running a number of tests with it, including:
- powering my ODROID-C2 which serves as a USB transport
- powering the DAC's USB port.
For first run I'll use the Joty and Sennheiser HD800 to see whether there are any obvious audible differences I can detect. Thereafter I'll try the same on my main setup.
If I can get access to the right equipment I may even compare DAC output with and without the LPSU. Should be interesting...
Later on, if I can get my hands on a blessed audiophile USB I'd like to measure what comes out of the business end of a DAC when using the ODROID and compare that with what is produced when the USB has Jesus' stamp of approval.
Following that I'm hoping someone is brave enough to accompany their audiophile music sever to my place, again to measure what comes out of the business end of the DAC compared with what's produced using my stock mini-itx.
