No worries thanks and enjoy your new gear!
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I tried it without the PSU and there is sufficient power from the iPad for the 3.
I think the SQ takes a little bit of a hit off of bus power. The stage seemed a tad smaller, and overall the sound was a touch thinner. It’s not night and day, but it’s noticeable.
I think it’s similar to when I switched out usb cables from stock (though interestingly the cables seem to have made a bigger difference).
I also for fun tried it with the iFi iSilencer in the chain (attached to the iPad). It actually affected the sound negatively making it a bit muffled sounding to my ears.
I guess the clock and filters work sufficiently enough that the anc in the iFi dongle has a slightly negative impact.
I went with the 3 over the Singxer because of the positives experience I had with the 2, and from some of the reviews I’ve seen regarding Singxer it can potentially add some coloration to the sound where the 3 is thought to be neutral.
I also chose it over the Red because of the completely separated PSU (the X-SPDIF 3 + Elite PSU are equal in price to the Red). I’d still like to compare it to the Red if I get a chance.
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Was this still using the power output from the iPad? Maybe not enough juice to run it all.
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I tried it with the Elite powering the 3 (didn’t think to try it without).
It’s interesting because when not using the 3 and going usb direct to the Mojo2 it sounds better with the iSilencer in use. My guess is that it’s cleaning up some noise from the iPad, but with the 3 already doing that there’s some sort of incompatibility.
I’m not sure, I just noticed that there seemed to be some high frequency roll off, and it sounded a little blunted. I generally don’t mind that, but it seemed a little much.
I’m curious what upgrading the power cable on the Elite would do. I know of some folks that have done it with a Supanova with positive results (with DACs), but I’m not sure if it’s worthy return ($500 for a Supanova).
I think a usb cable upgrade would make more sense.
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If I’m gunna have one nice USB cable and one worse one, should I put the nice one before or after the USB reclocker?
I’d try it both ways because there’s no hard rule when it comes to digital in/out. We know how it ends, you’ll get a second nice cable at some point because that’s the hobby. I’ve seen difference with it upstream but I’d guess that the downstream might make more of a difference, (flavor enhancer) but like I said, try it both ways.
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Tbh I’m expecting to sell the red and not worry about it before that happen
This was such an expensive conundrum for me, and such an OCD dilemma that I finally purchased an entirely different streamer to avoid the double USB cable issue. It also further allowed me to cut a DDC and USB cable out of the equation completely afterwards 
In all truth when I did require the use of dual USB cables between my streamer and USB regen. I was unable to accurately discern any noticeable differences in SQ, good, bad or simply different. Both cables were always quality but had substantial cost differences. I did not put extra effort into A/B tests. The OCD alone made my eye twitch more than I care for simply because of the disparity in the cables alone. 
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So changing a USB cable upstream from a DDC can have a very noticeable change to both tone and stage. Tried today a WW Starlight 8, a Cardas Clear, a Mad Scientist Black Magic and an FTA Calisto. All different and I can honestly say that it would be listener preference that would make the decision because none of them sounded bad downstream, just noticeably different.
I’d have to come back to this experiment in a month or so to really make a determination as my DAC is still far from settled in the burn in process and that will determine so much of the decision.
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I used a $100ish (4 years ago) LPS from some Chinese manufacturer with my XSPDIF-2 and it made a noticeable improvement vs. just using USB for power and data. Bass was much tighter/punchier and there was better clarity with a better sense of realism.
Moving up to an iFi Elite pretty much did the same thing, but even more. Noise floor is silent. There is no hiss no matter how high I turn the volume up now (there was with USB and the Chinese LPS). Better staging, better detail retrieval…just better performance all around. It’s everything that the X-SPDIF 2 does well, but even better due to less noise.
I think that throwing an iFi Elite on an X-SPDIF 2 is worth it. But if 3/5 the price of the item is too much, getting any external PSU of decent quality should make a noticeable improvement over USB power.
EDIT: if you’re interested, I’m willing to part with that Chinese LPS for say, $60 shipped (assuming you’re in the US). It’s 5V, though, so it’ll only work with the 2 since I believe the 3 is 12V now.
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Oh thanks I was just curious I don’t have any of them. My digital front is going through massive downsizing so I’m not really sure what I’ll need but I’ll figure it out over the next few weeks, thanks for offering!
Hi,
Anyone aware of reclockers/DDC that will input AES?
Denafrips Hermes/Gaia and the Mutec MC-3 are known to me but wondering if there are others that I havent come across yet.
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The totaldac d1 digital will
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It does, I missed that! A bit out of my price range at the moment but thanks.
The audiobyte hydra hub does as well iirc, most other stuff I can think of is more in the pro realm and wouldn’t be good value for a hifi setup
If it can also be coax spdif that can give more options (not that much more though)
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Not a common ask. Out of curiosity what are you doing with it?
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It could be depending upon how I may ultimately use it. Kind of a thought experiment at the moment.
CD transport with AES/Coax out.
Idea would be to run transport and streamer to reclocker/DDC then AES to dac.
Streamer can coax or USB out.
Would a BNC work?
(You could also use it with COAXIAL with an adapter)
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NADITBNCM--neutrik-naditbnc-m-bnc-to-xlr-aes-ebu-converter
Interesting device but Im just looking for options that will result in more direct connections between components. Most of these devices are USB input oriented, for understandable reasons, so the options are pretty limited if I decide to add a DDC.
Yeah, definitely gonna be a niche product. Maybe peruse the pro audio sites.