Okay guys, time to talk 24/192 with the Touch with EDO plugin. Thank you Triode - amazing plugin/kernel!
Results: 14365 What I find impressive here is the fact that TosLink to the Essence 1 worked at 24/192!!! In fact, that picture of the Touch in Part I playing the 24/192 John Coltrane's "Blue Train" was through the TosLink (you can see the 192kHz LED lit up on the Essence 1). This is why I'm very impressed by the components used in the Touch; kudos to Logitech and ASUS! Over the years, this is the first time I've been able to play 24/192 for hours without obvious clicks/pops/disruptions even with an inexpensive plastic cable. To show the TosLink result above wasn't a "one-off", here's a series of 4 runs with the TosLink done over about 2 hours - notice the inter-test reliability. 14364 Like with the 24/96 tests, the RCA cable is showing its limits even more with measurably increased noise floor (10 dB worse!) from the lack of shielding and possibly data errors as the speed of data transfer doubles. Another interesting phenomenon is that even the shielded coaxial cable has a measurably higher noise floor compared to the TosLink by about 2dB! Would an expensive coaxial cable improve this? Possibly if the shielding is good. Another observation with this test is that the noise level, dynamic range, and stereo crosstalk are all WORSE than 24/96. Every piece of equipment here from the E-Mu, to Essence 1, to Touch are running at max. specifications so the system is running at it's limit. Furthermore, I suspect there may be issues with the RightMark benchmark itself. For example, it doesn't seem capable of measuring the frequency response beyond 50 kHz even though I know from other tests that I can play an 80kHz signal from the Touch -> Essence 1 -> E-Mu and successfully record the signal (I don't think this limitation would affect the other measurements though). Here's the THD graph showing the increase in noise with the coaxial interface - el cheapo RCA is looking bad here: 14366 Conclusion: 1. Thanks again to Triode for the EDO plugin/kernel. It works beautifully and in my system with TosLink working, the Touch measures within 1-2 dB in terms of noise level, dynamic range, and stereo crosstalk compared to a direct USB connection to the DAC for 24/192 playback! 2. If you can get the TosLink to work, you've set yourself free from electrical noise with "galvanic isolation" of the Touch and DAC. Again, the fact that I could get TosLink 24/192 to work reliably between the Touch and Essence One really is impressive and speaks well of the equipment. 3. A recurring theme in these tests is that of ELECTRICAL NOISE. Coaxial cables need good shielding! Like I said before, I'm not sure what to look for to know if jitter is a problem, but it's *very* obvious in the measurements when noise creeps in and deteriorates the noise floor. 4. 24/192 does not measure as well in my system as 24/96. Writers like Lavry and xiph.org have already eloquently documented their opinions against 24/192 and I guess I can echo their concerns with the gear I'm using for these tests... Firstly, between 24/96 and 24/192, the difference is ultrasonic; do we demand high-end SLR digital cameras to also capture ultraviolet light? (Sure, you might want to do this for specific scientific reasons.) Secondly, other than a handful of albums usually from smaller labels like 2L, Reference and Linn, I have rarely come across truly native 24/192 (or 24/176) recordings. IMO, it also makes no sense to buy stuff like DSD64 converted to 24/176 such as many of the HDTracks offers. That's all for now... Probably take a break from all this testing for the next few days :-). +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Filename: 24-192_THD.jpg | |Download: http://forums.slimdevices.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=14366| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Archimago's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2207 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=97950 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
