That’s the distinction I’m trying to zero in on. My Roon Core is a PC (NUC really). They all are.
Presumably Qobuz’s servers are noisy. Amazon’s too.
I know I’m taking this to an absurd degree, but to highlight the conundrum.
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Yeah but those things are just the record of the 1s and 0s. The streamers / ddcs read that and thats the point things can differ.
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This is exactly what I meant.
I originally started with a PC/laptop/phone. I even used the SotM reclocker as well. Strangely, the thing that gave me the a-ha moment was a DAP. It was only mid-ranged. It wasn’t the best. It had apps, bluetooth, wifi, plenty of additions that can lead to compromises on the sound quality. A more dedicated DAP such as the P6Pro reinforced my hypotheses. Of course, it had a better engineering on-board DAC, but it was built with only sound reproduction in mind. No mumbo-jumbo.
As you mentioned Andy, we are all pulling hairs over if this or that is worth it or even what is it what we’re even chasing. Again, it sounds silly and inconvenient, but a server/streamer was built with goal of best sound reproduction. As some of us mentioned on other threads here, it sounded like we just got another DAC upgrade. In fact for my case, I heard the upgrade from my server much sooner than my Lampi upgrade.
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Good response @Souldriver and @Veritas. Thanks! Serious food for thought…and listening! I’ve set up my PI2AES (with it’s two power supplies) in easy reach of my XSPDIF so I can easily plug the I2S from one to the other. I also set the clock from stream to local to use the wavedream’s clock in order to take clock quality out of the equation some. I’ll let you know what I hear!
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Tbh, it’s a really hard sell and I am not intending to try to convince you in that direction. I’m just trying to share my experiences.
I totally get the use-case for DDCs in the traditional sense. Most of us want to multitask. Connected to our PC, do our work, and listen to some serious HiFi at the same time.
In most server cases, it’s a dedicated listening space. We’re shutting everything off. Sitting down. Critically listening or just destressing. Roon helps us expand to multiple outputs, but for me, my main listening happens in my listening room (living room). Again, hard sell. Pretty niche.
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Maybe I do not have the “best ears” out there, but I just recently added the Matrix Xspdif2 to my setup and I noticed a small but definite change in what I am hearing. Going from Pc to Matrix via usb then to Pontus 2 via I2s then XLR to Bryston Bha 1. Clearer, snappier and tighter sounding to this old guy! This Pc also is no slouch on a scale of 1 to 10. Using Amazon HD in “Exclusive mode” also makes a difference and only seems to clean it up better adding to the overall.
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I too use that in your exact same configuration: PC → Douk via USB and then Douk → Soekris via coaxial.
And it looks like we got the same impression. The improvement is there but it’s not as massive as it was said to be.
Although, when I was setting up the Soekris I first tried it directly via USB connected to the PC and then via coaxial using the Douk, and I almost immediately said “yeah something’s different”: everything sounded a bit more “precise”, especially the cymbals, but…I only did that one time and no serious testing was done. So yeah, I too would probably fail a blind test, or at least I think so. Might do that one day.
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Well it’s not a black and white get out of the PC when I say get out of the PC, I mean get out of the PC sending your audio signal out through a USB port.
The PC as a Roon Core and or library store is okay because in that case all the PC is doing is sending the digital file out over Ethernet. …and that’s why we go through the machinations we do to clean up that path. 
but it’s not introducing the same USB PLL jitter and 5V noise.
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All I’m saying is avoid a direct connection to your PC’s USB or spdif port, they are incredibly noisy devices, DDC is a start Streamer works etc etc.
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The Amanero in the Pacific is modified,(clocks replaced)
Lampizator claim the JL is better, but they also provide an external clock for that, they’ll upgrade mine do a not terrible cost, but I’m not sure I want to ship it to Philadelphia, but I’d bet the primary reason for the change was the number of support calls they got that required the amanero board be reflashed. It’s at the point if you ask Lampizator US anything about the USB, they just send you reflashing instructions. The firmwares don’t work across OS’s which is problematic.
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No that’s an actual clock that get’s provided to the DAC, and is divided down to create the audio clock.
But external clocks can provide 2 things on a DAC, the first is synchronization across components, usually used in a studio setting, or on something like the dual mono DAC setups.
Or just a “better” quality clock, if it’s a just a flat say 10MHz clock, it’s probably not better than the clock in the DAC, because most higher end DAC’s use two clocks, one for 44/88/176 and one for 48/96/192 and deriving both from the same source will probably increase jitter.
I don’t know specifically what the DCS clocks do, but it’s clearly designed to be a better external clock signal.
External clocks aren’t universally loved, Robb Watts will tell you they are always worse than the one in his DAC’s, and I believer Paul at PS audio doesn’t put much stock in them either,
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The server only matters if it’s actually connected directly to something turning the bits into sound.
My server isn’t electrically connected to anything I use to listen to music. The connection to my pacific is via a 25ft optical ethernet cable, so no way for electrical interference to reach it, and the NS1 is connected via wifi.
I mean you can start worrying about the amount of RF noise they stick in the environment, or the noise it pushes back onto the power but realistically you can’t control that in any useful way.
What serving the bits to a streamer really shouldn’t matter, unless there are significant errors in the digital stream (there aren’t), it’s messing with the stream of bits in some way (it shouldn’t be) or some path for electrical noise exists to the devices actually making the sound.
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I guess I’ll throw my 2 cents in here. I went from a Douk U2 pro to a CMD-17 to a Gustard U18 and had a couple others inbetween that I ended up not keeping (SU-1, SU-2 and SU-6). I started with a Gustard X16 DAC and found it kinda lackluster. Clean, sure, but dynamically fairly weak with sub bass accuracy sticking out to me as fairly sloppy. After initially getting a U2 Pro and using the I2s input on the Gustard the difference to me was immediately noticeable. Deep deep sub bass went from being bass, nothing different than I’d ever heard before, to being able to distinctly hear the ups and downs of the notes very clearly, soundstage accuracy and imaging were VERY noticeably improved. At that point I was hooked so I decided to get an upgraded version of the U2 Pro called the CMD-17 with Crystek clocks in it and at the same time got a LPS for the DDC and holy shit the leap in clarity and background noise was honestly shocking and at that point I actually felt like I had separated my signal noise completely and didn’t think it could get much better. So I did what any unreasonable person would do, and got an SU-1 and it was kinda a letdown. Wasn’t as good as the CMD-17, but definitely was better than the U2 Pro. Got an SU-2, and it was roughly on par with the CMD-17 but with a touch more noise which I’m guessing was because it wasn’t being powered by its own LPS. Got rid of the SU-2, got an SU-6 and while it was slightly better to my ears than the CMD-17, it wasn’t nearly worth the price difference to me (~$130 vs $750(?)). More recently, I picked up a Gustard U18 and holy shit it was like jumping from USB to the CMD-17 all over again and idk if it’s something to do with Gustard isolating power really well comparatively or just an all around better design but for the $450 I paid for it, it was sooooo worth it. I feel like I’m getting all I can out of the X16 at this point but it helped me nail down a DDC of a reasonable price and I’m not upgrading my DAC until most likely a Wavelight/Wavedream down the road I think. Maybe once I get a more capable DAC, I’ll dive down the rabbit hole of DDCs again, but I’m pretty satisfied with the U18 for now.
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If nothing else i needed a long cable run today. My DDC takes my USB and allows me an AES out which has no issues on a 10 foot run. 
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Hey @Pokrog, i didn’t know you were also here in this forum!
Which version of the CMD-17 did you get? I see they have:
Standard Version: SCTF crystal oscillator
Upgrade Version A: Gold-plated TCXO
Upgrade Version B: 2pcs Femtosecond CCHD-957-25
Upgrade Version C: 2pcs Femtosecond CCHD-575-25
It is not a big investment so i may try to upgrade my U2 as well, maybe then the difference will be clearer to me.
Oh also, what about this LPS for the DDC? Do you have a link?
So I definitely rather spend the money on a streamer over a DDC.
Any thoughts on minimum spend or examples of streamers that can keep me from needing both?
They’re not mutually exclusive, you can do both!
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Oh there’s a “now” hidden there… I’m in the camp of figure the big stuff first. I’m sure a good enough streamer can make the DDC incremental enough there’s no rush for it
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I got the 957, I believe it’s supposed to have lower phase noise and the 575 was just designed to be a more compact but slightly less capable version, but I could have that wrong.
I have a cheap POS and it works great lol, but it’s also only powering the DDC. Some Aliexpress BS with a Telema transformer upgrade option. Wasn’t all that willing to spend real money on the CMD-17, though honestly I feel like there could be more to be had from a better power supply.
I never really gave the CMD-17 a real thorough coax test so I honestly have no idea how it performs compared to the I2s, all I know is that I tried the coax a couple times on a couple cheapie DACs I bought out of sheer curiosity that didn’t have I2s and it was pretty solid, though I felt like I was getting a better jump in performance from USB to I2s. Not sure if it’s because of clock referencing in I2s or something but it seems to be better on at least the CMD-17. I wouldn’t be surprised if actual high end DDCs have less of a gap though but I don’t know enough to speak on it.
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If we ever create a compendium of sticky’s, @Polygonhell ‘s posts from this thread should definitely be included.
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