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MDAC First Listen (Part 00101001)

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It's the latter: £50 down now (via the lakewestaudio.com webpage) + £80 prior to despatch.

Thanks, davidjt. I see that L50 for the development fee.

Are there details somewhere as to what the DETOX unit is expected to do?
Will it function like a REGEN with other enhancements?

Be nice to know more before I drop the dime.
 
Thanks, fusion5.

OK, given what you all know about the operation of the REGEN, can someone (JohnW?) explain to me as a someone with less tech savvy than many of you, why the DETOX might be preferred?

Hope its not a problem but since I am in USA, 120V/60Cycle PS would be needed.

It is being designed by John therefore it will be better ;-)
 
I'm not sure about the I2S port, but the FWC allows us to fit x2 expansions slots on the rear, one's planed for the RF module and the second for the HDMI board - but the expansion slots can be used for other I/O interfaces in the future if required (I'll design them to be universal - who knows what the future holds) :)
ULB - Universal Lakewest Bus
(since apparently everything has to have an acronym)
 
Sorry VERY Very off topic (I'm busy working away on the FDAC PCB) but Wow - you don't see this everyday!

Two truly great British aircraft flying together, with the smaller WW2 Spitfire helping out the larger Cold war era Vulcan!

"This video was filmed on Sept. 5, at Prestwick airport, during the Scottish Airshow 2015 and it shows the last flying Vulcan bomber experiencing a nose wheel failure before landing.

As you can see in the interesting footage (that includes also radio comms on the Tower frequency) the Vulcan performed a flyover then initiated a right hand turn to land on runway 30. However, the nose gear did not extend fully and the V-bomber performed a second flyover before starting orbiting to the north of the airfield.

That’s when a Spitfire of the BBMF (Battle of Britain Memorial Flight) came to help: the WWII plane called up on the radio and asked if there was anyway he could help by giving the Vulcan a closer look from underneath the aircraft.

As the bomber slowed down to below 170 knots, the Spitfire formed up on its right wing and confirmed that the nose wheel was not properly extended."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=600&v=zxshOMFTZdM
 
Amazing footage. I was watching the first Vulcan video and was reminded that at the time of the Falklands war I was walking through Leeds city centre one lunchtime and 2 Vulcans flew over at very low altitude. And then incredibly the commentator mentions how Vulcans bombed the island's runway. It must have been the very same Vulcans that I saw.
 
Sorry VERY Very off topic (I'm busy working away on the FDAC PCB) but Wow - you don't see this everyday!

Two truly great British aircraft flying together, with the smaller WW2 Spitfire helping out the larger Cold war era Vulcan!
Where's an emergency hydraulic pressure system when you need one. :) I personally like the way P-51 Mustang used to do it - "rock it to lock it", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTL8KtJawTQ#t=550

Anyway, back to work. :D
 
John
I've just be musing about the Detox and it seems to me that this could be a very significant product. You'll be aware that there is enormous debate about the best way to render digital music files and people use all sorts of kit to do so, ranging from a R Pi to 2 PCs running specially developed software or one of the many products developed specifically for the purpose. If the Detox is largely successful in cleaning up the signal entering the DAC then all of these approaches will be rendered ( ha ha) equal and the only thing to separate one approach from another will be the user interface. This would be big news I think in the world of computer audio.
 
Hi JohnW What PC transport are you using when testing your dac? Curious if you have been exposed to optimized,fanless PC's with battery or LS supplies and if you have formed any view on them.

Personally I think testing should be performed with a range of ordinary PCs as that is representative of a typical scenario. There are so many variables with PCs and even with an "optimised" one, the OS will still be doing its own thing which you won't have much control over.

I sort of think it's the wrong approach to require a "special" PC to make your dac sound good, the dac should cope with what's thrown at it. That's Not meant to trivialise the potential difficulties in achieving that, but I don't think it is anything that good engineering research and design can't solve.


A secondary question here is, "does my own dac (whatever that may be) significantly benefit from an optimised PC?" Well unfortunately, unless you are john and have the necessary measurement kit and knowledge to look at things such as the clock, it's phase noise etc etc then you will not objectively know. All you can do is spend money on a special PC and see if you subjectively think there's an improvement.............to me unfortunately that's a bit random, subject to the vagaries of the human condition ;) and potentially costly.....

Hopefully the detox will render all this moot.
 
John
I've just be musing about the Detox and it seems to me that this could be a very significant product. You'll be aware that there is enormous debate about the best way to render digital music files and people use all sorts of kit to do so, ranging from a R Pi to 2 PCs running specially developed software or one of the many products developed specifically for the purpose. If the Detox is largely successful in cleaning up the signal entering the DAC then all of these approaches will be rendered ( ha ha) equal and the only thing to separate one approach from another will be the user interface. This would be big news I think in the world of computer audio.

Unfortunately I suspect there will still be a subjective aspect to this which people will Still argue the toss over....;)

Also, I see there is a lot of work for john in acquiring all the measurement info to demonstrate the beneficial effect. He has demonstrated the usb packet noise can be cleaned up, now we need to see how it improves the clock and any other secondary issues, and ultimately see what effect that has on the audio output.

Btw I'm not saying that because I don't believe there is a benefit (I have signed up for the detox) I just think without the hard evidence the whole subject is still in the very dodgy territory of hifi subjectivity.
 
Personally I think testing should be performed with a range of ordinary PCs as that is representative of a typical scenario. There are so many variables with PCs and even with an "optimised" one, the OS will still be doing its own thing which you won't have much control over.
I sort of think it's the wrong approach to require a "special" PC to make your dac sound good, the dac should cope with what's thrown at it. That's meant to trivialise the potential difficulties in achieving that, but I don't think it is anything that good engineering research and design can't solve.
A secondary question here is, "does my own dac (whatever that may be) significantly benefit from an optimised PC?" Well unfortunately, unless you are john and have the necessary measurement kit and knowledge to look at things such as the clock, it's phase noise etc etc then you will not objectively know. All you can do is spend money on a special PC and see if you subjectively think there's an improvement.............to me unfortunately that's a bit random, subject to the vagaries of the human condition ;) and potentially costly..... Hopefully the detox will render all this moot.

I would disagree with so many of your comments and think you are really far off the mark but it is good you have put them out there because it nicely frames where you are coming from.

My question was to JohnW and will put it again, What are you using for a transport and have you experienced or experimented with any improvements to that unit if it is a PC? The efforts in the transport are all aimed at the same result that JohnW is hoping to bring with his Detox. Personally moving from a laptop to a linear/battery powered stripped out fanless pc it has brought very noticeable positive improvements to my system. This would be using a variety of dacs ranging from chord hugo,Lampizator, eximus DP1, Meitner and JK's ciunas.
 

Thanks fusion I had read that but noted his comment "but seeing the OS / CPU "Process" modulation comes as no surprise and opens a whole bag of hurt..."

Would be curious to see what measurements JohnW's testers would give if the transport was optimized hence my question has he ever explored that route.

BTW noted his comment also about music players but I would disagree with that given my own experience. But it is a slow road here. If engineers like John get interested in exploring these possibilities it will bring potentially benefits to all.
 
Unfortunately I suspect there will still be a subjective aspect to this which people will Still argue the toss over....;)

Also, I see there is a lot of work for john in acquiring all the measurement info to demonstrate the beneficial effect. He has demonstrated the usb packet noise can be cleaned up, now we need to see how it improves the clock and any other secondary issues, and ultimately see what effect that has on the audio output.

Btw I'm not saying that because I don't believe there is a benefit (I have signed up for the detox) I just think without the hard evidence the whole subject is still in the very dodgy territory of hifi subjectivity.

Why not spend the time money and effort exploring better ways entirely of getting data to a DAC? After all, we are talking relatively paltry amounts of data - why use something that seems to be as inherently flawed as USB to transmit it?
 
Why not spend the time money and effort exploring better ways entirely of getting data to a DAC? After all, we are talking relatively paltry amounts of data - why use something that seems to be as inherently flawed as USB to transmit it?

It's very simple. The variables are too great. USB isn't inherently flawed, it is what it is - it's the dac that's flawed for not dealing with the issues it may throw up.

In any case, unless you think it's likely someone is going to invent a new optical computer audio interface and get it universally adopted, we are stuck with USB and we are stuck with the way pcs operate and the issues that throws up.

For example, you will build a "hifi" PC and joe x will build a "hifi" PC. I guarantee they will both do different things wrt RF, data jitter etc and you as an end user will still be none the wiser as to what's actually happening, but you will have an opinion on the sound of course..............not to mention joe y who doesn't know how to build a "hifi" PC is stuck without a solution.

The only logical thing to do is identify what the issue is and deal with it at the dac so that it is consistent regardless of what the PC is doing.

I appreciate there are "tweakers" out there who enjoy playing with this sort of thing, but I think most would prefer to just plug their PC or laptop or Pi into the dac and it just work with maximum and consistent performance as far as is reasonably practicable.
 
I would disagree with so many of your comments and think you are really far off the mark but it is good you have put them out there because it nicely frames where you are coming from.

My question was to JohnW and will put it again, What are you using for a transport and have you experienced or experimented with any improvements to that unit if it is a PC? The efforts in the transport are all aimed at the same result that JohnW is hoping to bring with his Detox. Personally moving from a laptop to a linear/battery powered stripped out fanless pc it has brought very noticeable positive improvements to my system. This would be using a variety of dacs ranging from chord hugo,Lampizator, eximus DP1, Meitner and JK's ciunas.

Why are they off the mark? The only place I am coming from is solving an apparent problem in the most logical way that will benefit the most people in the simplest way.

I also guarantee if john demonstrates the mechanism and the effects that this USB data modulation has that other designers will take note. Excellent work to do that will benefit everyone. Sorry but whilst fannying around with a PC may bring some of the benefits, and it will only bring some of them, it isn't the solution or anything that really moves the situation forward.

See my comments above.
 
Here's the thing - it makes far more sense to prevent the noise mixing with data signal at the transmitter than to try to remove it from the signal at the receiver once mixed with the signal.

This is why JW is proposing to use 3 devices in series in his Detox - it's why people report that a second Regen in series provides more improvement to the sound

The question is - even though prevention should be more effective, is it technically easier to prevent than to cure? Once computers are built with just digital in mind, then this noise will always be an issue unless someone builds one to account for this.

But some computers are better than others in this regard & it really doesn't make sense, if you are serious about an audio computer, to use any ol' POC PC that you have & expect a Regen or Detox to clean up the emissions

Tony is correct - it's quiet easy to address some of these noise issues at source & many have done this already & know the benefits that it brings. Unfortunately they can't all be address as the base design is too far away from the ideal. I too would be interested in any measurements that JohnW does using different computers & indeed different USB cables.

It seems to me that many people are at the same stage with USB data signals as they were with USB power - the USB audio device should be able to handle anything thrown at it. It took a number of years for some on here to change their notion that USB Vbus power was "fit for purpose to power audio devices" so I guess this is following the same trajectory?
 
Here's the thing - it makes far more sense to prevent the noise mixing with data signal at the transmitter than to try to remove it from the signal at the receiver once mixed with the signal.

This is why JW is proposing to use 3 devices in series in his Detox - it's why people report that a second Regen in series provides more improvement to the sound

The question is - even though prevention should be more effective, is it technically easier to prevent than to cure? Once computers are built with just digital in mind, then this noise will always be an issue unless someone builds one to account for this.

But some computers are better than others in this regard & it really doesn't make sense, if you are serious about an audio computer, to use any ol' POC PC that you have & expect a Regen or Detox to clean up the emissions

Tony is correct - it's quiet easy to address some of these noise issues at source & many have done this already & know the benefits that it brings. Unfortunately they can't all be address as the base design is too far away from the ideal.

It seems to me that many people are at the same stage with USB data signals as they were with USB power - the USB audio device should be able to handle anything thrown at it. It took a number of years for some on here to change their notion that USB Vbus power was "fit for purpose to power audio devices" so I guess this is following the same trajectory?

This is simply not the case. Your implication is that some are in denial about this. Your "special" PC will not solve the problem of USB packet jitter, it will not stop rf coming out of the PC.

More to the point, joe ordinary will have no idea if or how much the problem has been addressed, indeed if it even has, by building their "special" PC.

Precisely How has tony identified that he has cleaned up these issues? I thought john had only just identified and measured them?

There was a time when jitter in spdif was a significant issue, however once identified solutions were designed. It isn't a generally problem these days and can be measured and quantified.......except if you are Acoustic Research of course ;).
 
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