I have seen claims that the power supply has been upgraded, but I have not details. |
Elboroth2 - The references that I have seen must refer to the internal power regulation. I agree there is no external power. As I said, I have no real details, just some one line references that I have seen. |
Realremo - do you have a reference? What I have read is that the galvanic isolation may just mean that the signal is isolated when Toslink is being used. I don't think it does anything for other interconnects. It would be nice to know if it has galvanic isolation in addition to the Toslink. |
Realremo - thanks for the clarification. I thought it was too good to be true at that price. |
I believe Lars Audio is the finished product part of a DIY company named Gigawork. Do you know if the galvanic isolation is built in or just refers to the optical connection? I cannot find any information other than the ebay ad. Note this is a Honk Kong based company. |
Timlub - thanks for the info. So, just to be clear - there is gavlanic isolation on the ground and on the data lines? Any idea why it does not do 88 and 176? Is is possible they only have one clock in there? This looks like an interesting option to V-Link and HiFace, although I would like to have the 88 KHz output. It is not common, but there are certainly high rez downloads at 88 KHz.Thanks. |
Timlub - looks like the Cmedia CM6610 USB interface chip does not support 88 or 176 KHz, so that is the limitation. |
Thanks Timlub. One of the hotly contested issues, among a small number of people, is that noise from the PC can get into the USB converter through the ground and then into the DAC and potentially influence the electronics and thus the sound. Can you check to see if their is any continuity between the ground on the USB connection (pin 4) and the ground on the S/PDIF output? That would confirm that nothing is getting through to the DAC on the ground. It is great that it allows an external power supply at this price. Any experience with this versus the HiFace? Thanks. |
Thanks. I am not sure I believe that theories about noise on the grounds, but it cannot hurt to try breaking the loop. I know my HiFace is not ground isolated. On the $5,000 Classe CP 800 preamp/DAC with USB input, they tried to galvanically isolate everything put could not because of electrical codes in the US. As a simple converter from Asia, this may not be as much a problem. Some people open up the USB cable and cut the ground to be sure the ground is isolated. Tom |
Thanks Tim. Good to know. Musical Fidelity is claiming isolation, but only because of Toslink. My HiFace is clearly not isolated. Maybe I will one of these a try. Or maybe I will just cut up a USB cable. But I do like the idea of external power. Thanks. |
Elberoth2 - does it isolate both the data lines and the ground? |
Elberoth2 - the question remains, does it isolate the ground? Any idea? I find nothing in their literature. Thanks. |
From the 6Moons article, it looks like there was galvanic isolation on the original HiFace. I missed that originally. Thanks Elberoth2 for pointing that out. Since my original one does have ground continuity from the USB to RCA, I would guess that the new one does also, but I cannot be sure. |
Thanks Tim. I did notice that they stopped selling the product. Now I know why. But I will continue to keep an eye on them. |
