I use the second model and also an XLR box.
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Not that it is needed but I have the RCA switcher and also a couple of the XLR as @Shane. They work well for the money and I’ve never noticed any issues with them.
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As i was swapping around an amplifier and DAC combo this afternoon it suddenly “hit me” at how ludicrously difficult or oppositely how much fun this hobby can be depending on the end user and their desires or lack of experience and knowledge of the intricacies of electronics or again the opposite, an in-depth knowledge of electronics and experience in this hobby.
Ideally you take a headphone or speaker which has a certain set of characteristics, abilities and ultimately sound signature and decide you want to listen to it. Then you have to figure out everything from the quality of your power to the last wire connected to that output and hope your chain is transparent enough to allow that output to perform optimally or we do the opposite and add our own color to that output until it pleases us.
This statement doesn’t even take into consideration any outside influences, ie. Room acoustics, ambient noises, time of day and finally your own abilities and physical condition. LOL, i understand now how deep down the path of audiophile nervosa (or whatever you want to call it) we can each fall depending on our character. I never looked at it from this perspective before, forgive the ramblings please, i did not want to create a new topic and this seemed like a good location to drop my musings. 
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I have a dilemma and I would really appreciate any reasonable suggestions how to solve it.
I am considering to pull the trigger on Aqua La Voce S3 which has following inputs:
– RJ45 AQlink (I2S serial bus) – PCM 24 bit / 384kHz – DSD64, DSD128 przez DoP
– BNC coax (S/PDIF) 75 ohm – PCM 24 bit / 192kHz – DSD64 przez DoP
– USB port – PCM 24 bit / 384kHz – DSD64, DSD128 przez DoP
– Optical TOSLINK – PCM 24 bit / 96kHz
I have Shiit Bifrost as my secondary DAC now and I want to feed both of them from my Singxer SU-2.
What would be the best way to do that i.e. which cable to what device?
Second question is what would be the best way to add my wife’s computer. In this case Bifrost would be main DAC but I would like to give her flexibility to use Aqua as well.
Third question: we both have work laptops we use most of the day and we use USB switches to select computers that feeds DAC. There are also other devices connected to that hub like keyboard. I suppose this is not optimal way and would like to see if there are any other options.
All comments are much appreciated, especially to first point.
I do that for my desk speaker setup, it’s fine, there is probably some additional noise on the USB doing that, but it’s probably not enough to worry about, if your not hearing dropouts, you won’t be losing data.
The DAC in that setup occasionally loses connection to one of the machines after I swap to the machine and it wakes up (maybe 1 in 5 times) when that happens I have to power off the DAC, or hot plug the USB, in my case it’s an SMSL SU8, so I can do it with the remote. Toggling the USB again would probably also work.
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Its sounds like you sir need roon.
but realy, for the physical connections use i2s on aqua and usb on BF2 (assuming SU2 has USB out I cant remember for certain). Then use roon for your playback instead of using a direct physical connection from both computers. Plus, tbh, getting noisy computers physicaly unconnected from a chain tends to be a solid move in general
Now, if you need a physical connection for whatever the reason may be I would do it in 2 steps. First, go straight ou of the computers into the switch (and have the switch only be for the dac if possible). Then add in something like an inuota galvanic isolator (these ones are also reclockers IIRC) to make sure you just remove any and all posability of wierd ground loops or anything of the sort. As for hubs, I have seem people seriously swear by the SQ of the IFI iUSB (and it is what I use), but ive never actualy tried testing it against other stuff nor looked into why it may or may not be better in the first place
I am not sure about the roon. I looked into it but it doesn’t support Spotify afak. I have pi4 with volumio and I can use that to feed su-2 but I watch also a lot of YouTube videos and music sets. I tested also briefly swyh-rs and render to volumio. There was some lag so not sure if I use this .
My thoughts for now are usb hub with pc/notebook ->su-2->la voce(bnc)->bifrost(coax)
I am actually not sure if su-2 have both as it has kind of non existing manual.
My wife setup can go directly to usb on both dacs and she will switch manualy dacs in Windows.
I am using it all the time like this without issues. Very rarely i get unrecognised usb device but thats like once a month.
If there is not too much added noise added I am very fine with this. I might try to feed directly to see if I hear any difference.
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He won’t get i2S working on the Aqua, it’s proprietary, a different electrical standard and I’ve never heard of anyone (short of connecting to other Aqua devices) getting it to work.
You’ll need to use BNC or RCA Coax into the Aqua, which leaves you with USB or optical for the Bifrost 2 since it doesn’t have AES.
This may or may not work, it depends on if BNC is single ended AES or SPDIF on the SU-2, on the Aqua it’s SPDIF, and it wouldn’t take an AES connection from the Pi2AES when I tried it, had to swap to the RCA out of Pi2AES to SPDIF in on the Aqua.
Well it seems like this is much more complicated than I thought. I saw FBizzle stating on hfgf " I currently use the SU-2’s AES, BNC, and SPDIF outputs at the same time. " So I thought it should work for my usecase as well.
I seriously hate that i2s isn’t standardized pin out (especially considering every uses the same plug). tyvm for the info. How is the aqua’s USB vs Coax implementation? I usualy expect USB to be better but I feel you just need to ask in this end of the market where wierd shit can happen.
Also, does no one make “adaptor” cables to the right pin out? I feel like ive seen ones for PS Audio → another i2s pinout before. None for aqua?
You should look into how good the coax implementation on the bf2 is. My gut check is that usb straight from a computer (and especially if you use an isolator) would actually be better than coax from su2
This is correct. Spotify will not work with roon. While you can do some real tricky stuff to stream all computer audio if you are wanting to just do complete computer audio to the dac you are right that a physical connection is the way to go as with almost all streaming there will be enough lag to be an issue for video.
Honestly, I think the complication here is purely down to the SU-2s outputs not matching your dacs inputs particularly well. More mainstream high end dacs tend to have a lot more input options that allow for the SU-2 to be used like this
It works if you have DAC’s that will take AES and SPDIF, but your Aqua is I think SPDIF over BNC, not AES over BNC. And I don’t think the Bifrost 2 had AES either.
My Aqua has the optional 3 pin AES board, but I’m currently using SPDIF, because I use the AES into a Dave.
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You are correct here. I was supposed to get different dac that would have aes input. But that failed unfortunately and I found used la voce for solid price but without that aes input. I also bought su-2 prematurely as it was for a nice price and in line with my plan. That obviously changed.
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I might drop an email to aqua how much would the swap to Aes cost but I am afraid it will be too much.
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I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a pretty objectional amount of money, I know the MSB input cards run between $1K and $2K a card. That DAC is $12K, but I wouldn’t be surprised at $500 to $1K.
They probably will sell them separately, they upgrade S2’s to S3’s albeit at a price that barely makes sense.
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Any suggestion how can I determine this for SU-2?
Short of plugging it in and seeing what you get or reading the manual no.
There is very little difference between SPDIF and Single ended AES, but if the DAC is obeying the the standard you’ll get either nothing at all or white noise out if it’s not the right connection.
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Not really no, would not suggest
Depends on the amp design, you can def change it, but you won’t shift a substantial amount from what the amp already offers
Go right ahead
Depends on the amp
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Would the same apply to The King Mk2? Would you consider them similar tier of performance? I thought i remembered you sharing a few thoughts at some point somewhere on The King, but can’t find it anywhere.