Audio-gd DAC

[skb2018]

Hello
I am S K Biswas, from Kolkata and joined this forum newly. I am an avid music lover.
Currently I am running with Audio-gd R2R 7 DAC with Master 1 pre and Parasound A 23 power with Klipsch RP 280F.
Presently I am playing from laptop USB out through foobar 2000 and I feel the sound quality is not as per my expectation.
I suppose the system should sound much better.
Any suggestion?

 

[Kannan]

not as per my expectation

What is the sound quality you are expecting.

 

[tuff]

Speaker placement and room issues are something you might want to look into.

 

[rikhav]

You need to optimize your operating system on the PC where you run foobar
Or use something like daphile which boots by itself and is already optimized for audio playback

Or use a dedicated audio server streamer the most basic being auralic aries mini / elac discovery. Higher end there are many choices

This is if budget permits

Raspberry pi with add-on Allo card is also not a bad option

 

[MaSh]

Isn't this true for most of us. It's not uncommon for expectations to not match the actual sound of our setups. That's when the upgrade bug bites. It's a viscous circle.

Since it's not always possible, we try to tweak things. How is your foobar setup? Wasapi in play? What's your source and content quality? Speakers are on stands, wall, TV unit, etc? Which interconnects and speaker cables are you using? Are the speakers leveled, toed in, etc?

MaSh

 

[firearm12]

If its a newly setup system, it will require burn in. Audiogd DACs dac take long time to burn in. In my case it easily was more than 300hrs.

 

[skb2018]

What is the sound quality you are expecting.

The sound quality should be well round with deep lows and sharp highs. Vocals are always good with such kind of system. Getting deep lows also but highs are not at all satisfactory specially the sound of high hats which i feel is sweetest of all. If at all it is there it seems to be little distorted and does not not seem to be realistic. A kind of artificial sound. All the interconnects are audioquest XLR and speaker wires also. I am playing FLAC or WAVE files ripped from my own audio CD.

 

[skb2018]

If its a newly setup system, it will require burn in. Audiogd DACs dac take long time to burn in. In my case it easily was more than 300hrs.

Yes. It might be the case. All my system components are new. May be DAC, Amp and speaker all will need some time to burn in.

 

[skb2018]

You need to optimize your operating system on the PC where you run foobar
Or use something like daphile which boots by itself and is already optimized for audio playback

Or use a dedicated audio server streamer the most basic being auralic aries mini / elac discovery. Higher end there are many choices

This is if budget permits

Raspberry pi with add-on Allo card is also not a bad option

Yes. That is a good option with RPI with Allo KALI but KALI will not work my audio-gd DAC, because KALI works with DAC in slave mode and not in master mode. Otherwise I would have surely gone with the setup with Daphile or Rune or Volumio.

 

[rikhav]

You can try Digi signature with RPI

 

[matbhuvi]

+1 to the transport here. Connecting USB directly to laptop will be noisy. And noisy usb does impact the texture of bass and clarity of highs. A simple Shiit wyrd can solve that.

There are better players than foobar as well. Bughead is my favorite. JRiver is one simple option. Slight compromise in SQ when compared to Bughead emperor. But, still better than foobar.

 

[hifitoaster]

+1 to the transport here. Connecting USB directly to laptop will be noisy. And noisy usb does impact the texture of bass and clarity of highs. A simple Shiit wyrd can solve that.

There are better players than foobar as well. Bughead is my favorite. JRiver is one simple option. Slight compromise in SQ when compared to Bughead emperor. But, still better than foobar.

One genuine question, I have not used the Schiit Wyrd before. But, if we have a Y-cable and if we use a cleaner power supply to the DAC (like a Large Power bank) this way, isnt it as good as having a USB isolator? Or still does it do something more than just getting a better power supply.

In my experience, some DACs had some problems on some Laptops. I had tried the Y cable from a Anker power bank to a hifime 9018 dac and had the results like you had mentioned,there was a change but not a huge one, where as on the same laptop, I tried the same on a JDS labs ODAC dac. It did not make any difference with that DAC. But, again I have not used schiit Wyrd, so may be it would have made a difference.

 

[matbhuvi]

One genuine question, I have not used the Schiit Wyrd before. But, if we have a Y-cable and if we use a cleaner power supply to the DAC (like a Large Power bank) this way, isnt it as good as having a USB isolator? Or still does it do something more than just getting a better power supply.

A power bank should work well too. Wyrd is more of a convenience. And it is not that expensive. It did make big difference on my noisy PC. I am currently using Gustard U12. That is purely to get to aes input of my DAC (Shiit Yggdrasil). There are more converters to do reclock and reduce jitter. iFi iPurifier3 is pretty good one at budget. Note that this irrespective of the power line. That's one thing i am yet to try out.

 

[bornfi]

Try to get away from USB or introduce Schiit Eitr.

 

[dheerajin]

If you are familiar with computer internals..you can build such thing...according to some ..it is better than all the expensive streamers available in the market...go to the end of page of the below link for NUC build with LMS ....
https://www.computeraudiophile.com/...y-improve-the-sq-of-computer-audio-streaming/

 

[Kannan]

There are two issues with laptop USB port.
The jitter in the data part and noise in the power part.
A good DAC will address the jitter part but not the noise even though the DAC maybe self powered.
The ALLO and other brand transports address this part in particular. They provide a USB port with the noise factor down.
I have extensively used PC/laptop as transport, but after switching to the ALLO USBridge, there has been no turning back.

 

[skb2018]

A power bank should work well too. Wyrd is more of a convenience. And it is not that expensive. It did make big difference on my noisy PC. I am currently using Gustard U12. That is purely to get to aes input of my DAC (Shiit Yggdrasil). There are more converters to do reclock and reduce jitter. iFi iPurifier3 is pretty good one at budget. Note that this irrespective of the power line. That's one thing i am yet to try out.

How is the performance of Gustard U12 Matbhuvi? Is it really worth adding to the system? I used Schitt Eitr that I am having and there is no perceptible difference. I have ordered one Singxer SU 1 from which I am planning to use I2S output.

 

[skb2018]

There are two issues with laptop USB port.
The jitter in the data part and noise in the power part.
A good DAC will address the jitter part but not the noise even though the DAC maybe self powered.
The ALLO and other brand transports address this part in particular. They provide a USB port with the noise factor down.
I have extensively used PC/laptop as transport, but after switching to the ALLO USBridge, there has been no turning back.

Thanks Kannan. I will definitely give a try to Allo USBridge.

 

[matbhuvi]

How is the performance of Gustard U12 Matbhuvi? Is it really worth adding to the system? I used Schitt Eitr that I am having and there is no perceptible difference. I have ordered one Singxer SU 1 from which I am planning to use I2S output.

If Eitr is not helping then, i doubt wyrd is going to help. I used Gustard U12 to use the best input for my DAC. Not sure it has improved anything. But, definitely there is no downsides.

 

[amit11]

Hello
I am S K Biswas, from Kolkata and joined this forum newly. I am an avid music lover.
Currently I am running with Audio-gd R2R 7 DAC with Master 1 pre and Parasound A 23 power with Klipsch RP 280F.
Presently I am playing from laptop USB out through foobar 2000 and I feel the sound quality is not as per my expectation.
I suppose the system should sound much better.
Any suggestion?

Foobar and jriver never sounded musical in my setup. As few have mentioned its bcos of non-perfect usb / noisy usb, settings of audio driver and bypassing windows driver etc.

That being said, in same mediocre setup i had installed Roon demo version and for first time music from laptop had sounded musical. So you may try Roon demo which is for few days. It may not be to your taste but definitely one step up if not the best.

I dont use laptop though for music, these were just past experiments after hearing high praises about each of the those softwares. Apart from the hardware, i have always experienced that the player (software in the case of computer and laptop) or an App in case of mobile/ipad matters the most. Same reason when windows was launched in the past , people used to listen using computer attached speakers via winamp software rather than windows player software.