Aqua dac thread, La Voce / La Scala / Formula xHD / LinQ

Sovrce Gear
21

now thats a good news. can I than use coax from SU-2 to bifrost?
also any BNC cable 75 ohm works or is there something to be carefull about?

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22

Thatā€™s correct

Yes, but Iā€™d make sure to get a decent sounding bnc cable. To start out with Iā€™d personally consider a dh labs d750 given your system

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23

Just to double back on this in case you dont know @Salguson, length matters a lot for digital cables. Ideal length for BNC is generally said to be 1.5m to minimize internal reflections (that can cause jitter and even packet loss)

EDIT: I want to point out shorter is much more of an issue than longer here.

24

Thanks for pointing that out. I tend to have all gear within the 1 meter from each other(sort of) so I should be within the range. The only exception is usb form which I know is not ideal.

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25

FWIW, USB doesnt have the reflection issues stuff like BNC does. So long as your cable is in spec (and if you have like a 20ft run that will be expensive to get) you should be good afaik

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26

To clarify, Itā€™s a minimum length of 1.5m for SPDIF/AES cables.

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27

lol. I just edited my post to include that info. realized it wasnt clear after rereading what I wrote

28

thanks @Polygonhell @Draaly for clarification. learning all the time here. I will look for proper length :slight_smile:

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29

Any alternatives to this one? Might be hard to get in correct length and with correct connectors in EU.

30

Hmmm a lot of the other cables I like under 200 end up being hard to get outside the us or more expensive lol.

I like things like the black cat cable silverstar 75 mk ii, voodoo cable reference digital cable, cerious graphene extreme digital, are all good spdif cables under 400 that are worth looking into. Going a bit cheaper there is the mad scientist heretical digital but they only use bnc adapters (which is fine but I think diminishes the nice connectors they have on there stock)

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32

Oh, manā€¦Iā€™ve got a 1 meter BNC cable arriving tomorrow. Dang it! :laughing:

33

1m is fine, just donā€™t go smaller, thatā€™s when you run into audible issues imo

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34

I wouldnā€™t worry about it, the issue if it really is one is at best a marginal effect. And for a correctly constructed cable d]should be none existent.
The argument goes that given the speed of transmission in a wire, the the second ā€œbounceā€ (see below), can arrive at the point where logic level is being transitioned, and that can impact the timing of the transition.
In what are termed transmission lines which SPDIF cables are, impedance mismatches in the chain result in reflections (bounces) at each end. The reason it still technically matters even with a correctly impedance matched cable, because most DACā€™s and sources wonā€™t actually go to the effort of impedance matching the logic before the receiver in the component.

This is all very logical and ā€œrealā€, but itā€™s really hard to know just how much impact it can really have, the PLL in the DAC will clean it up, it can only have an effect of logic level transitions etc etc.
Itā€™s also something a source can clean up by providing faster logic level changes.

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35

Thank you both for putting my worry into context!

BTW, repeatedly putting fear into context, like you both just did, is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Itā€™s the treatment for many mental health issues like OCD, Anxietyā€¦and now Audio Nervosa!!

Iā€™ll try to forget about it then. :grin:

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36

So i am still in very early stages of knowing this dac and I am waiting for cables to arrive to organise the whole setup in a way I want but I am pretty impressed by the change this dac made. I mostly use my burson and fostex combo but man this chain sounds great to me. Hard to explain the difference but all sounds more crisp and vivid. I guess I like that analogy with picture resolution upgrade.

@M0N being curious, what would you flag as a weak point in my chain now? Does it make sense to upgrade amplifier in the future or for my current collection it is ok and step up in cans would be priority? I am thinking about getting supercharger for my burson in the hope of minimize the noise floor.

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37

Either the amp or the headphones, for which one you want to go for first will basically depend on how attached you are to your current cans, if you already really like them and donā€™t want to change anything then an amp upgrade makes more sense. If you are ok with changing things up more then headphone upgrades make more sense

Iā€™d get the supercharger to give a nice boost to your system and go from there

38

So i donā€™t plan to get rid of my fostex for closed backs and I donā€™t even see something closed that would be step up for closed. There is Stellia and not much else I can think of.

But I had a session on clears this weekend and it left me unimpressed. I am sure my chain is not optimal for them but that made me thinking about upgrading open backs. I would probably sell some of the headphones I have to fund the upgrade. I was looking into Susvara as a possible way but I am open to suggestions.

So both ways are in the play. Optimize more the chain to get the best of my current lineup and prepare for upgrade in cans or upgrade the cans and optimize afterwards. I am in no rush just probably trying to figure out what explore, read and search for deals.

Will get the supercharger as a first step, small bday present.

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39

Thereā€™s no real upgrade to the fostex, so if you like those just stick with them and boost with source gear lol

Gotcha gotcha

:+1:

40

FOSTEX GANG :call_me_hand:

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41

Hell yeah. Those are :pinched_fingers::pinched_fingers:

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