Devialet Chat

Try UPnP. It's clearly better than Roon - both RAAT and AIR.

@Vivialet Do you use DHCP or a fixed IP address for the Devialet?

I'm using a fixed IP, first to the Devialet, now to the Zen.

I still wonder if adding some DDC between the Zen and the Devialet can bring an improvement. On goldensound.audio you can find some jitter and noise measurements for the Zen and lots of DDC#s (Mutec, Audio GD, Singxer, ...). The measurents of the Zen look much better that the Mutec MC3+ USB while the Audio GD DI20 HE looks much better than the Zen. So I wonder if the Mutec is really an improvement over the Zen directly into the Devialet or if an Audio GD is a worthwhile improvement...

@confused: can you describe the difference between the Zen direct and with the Mutec ? I really wonder how a device with more jitter can be an improvement. Or maybe the measurements on this goldensound site are incorrect ? Or there is more than noise and jitter...

(02-Aug-2022, 13:17)Vivialet Wrote: [ -> ]Or there is more than noise and jitter...

This...


One more example:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum...ler.35498/

I tried HQPlayer which was doing a better upsampling as the M Scaler (at least in a comparison I found) and there was not really a difference to the Roon upsampling. Maybe because the Devialet is limited to 24/192. An M Scaler needs a DAC with 384KHz or DSD256 capability.
I have also a lot of music in 24/44 or 24/96 in the meantime where upsampling is not that effective anymore.
I think the signal quality is making a bigger difference than upsampling, at least in my experience. And the signal quality of the M-Scaler does not look good...

(02-Aug-2022, 13:17)Vivialet Wrote: [ -> ]I still wonder if adding some DDC between the Zen and the Devialet can bring an improvement. On goldensound.audio you can find some jitter and noise measurements for the Zen and lots of DDC#s (Mutec, Audio GD, Singxer, ...). The measurents of the Zen look much better that the Mutec MC3+ USB while the Audio GD DI20 HE looks much better than the Zen. So I wonder if the Mutec is really an improvement over the Zen directly into the Devialet or if an Audio GD is a worthwhile improvement...

@confused: can you describe the difference between the Zen direct and with the Mutec ? I really wonder how a device with more jitter can be an improvement. Or maybe the measurements on this goldensound site are incorrect ? Or there is more than noise and jitter...

Note that for a while now I have only used my MC3+USB together with the Mutec REF10.

If we are talking about the standalone Mutec MC3+USB (similar to that tested by GoldenSound), I do not think it offers much of a sound quality difference with a Devialet Pro.

When I had my D800 Expert, I used a microRendu with the MC3+USB, and subjectively I found this offered an improvement over AIR. This situation changed when I upgraded to the 1000 Pro. With the Pro I found that the microRendu with the MC3+USB and AIR sounded pretty much the same. Maybe it was a fraction better with the MC3+USB, but there is very little in it.

I have never actually tried the Zen versus the Zen + "standalone" MC3+USB, in my case the MC3+USB is used together with the Mutec REF10.

Although based on things I have tried in the past, sound quality with the Mutec MC3+USB is very similar to that with Ethernet CI Board. The Zen Stream direct to the Devialet also sounds very similar to Ethernet to the CI board. So I suspect adding an MC3+USB in the chain with the Zen will not offer much. Indeed, if we go with the GoldenSound measurements, adding the Mutec in the chain might actually be very slightly detrimental to the Zen's performance.

(02-Aug-2022, 13:17)Vivialet Wrote: [ -> ]I still wonder if adding some DDC between the Zen and the Devialet can bring an improvement. On goldensound.audio you can find some jitter and noise measurements for the Zen and lots of DDC#s (Mutec, Audio GD, Singxer, ...). The measurents of the Zen look much better that the Mutec MC3+ USB while the Audio GD DI20 HE looks much better than the Zen. So I wonder if the Mutec is really an improvement over the Zen directly into the Devialet or if an Audio GD is a worthwhile improvement...

@confused: can you describe the difference between the Zen direct and with the Mutec ? I really wonder how a device with more jitter can be an improvement. Or maybe the measurements on this goldensound site are incorrect ? Or there is more than noise and jitter...

Based on the measurements of the Mutec, it may be inferior to the ZS alone, but newer better measured DDCs like the Singxer SU-6 should be better.

One thing that hugely affects the sound is the USB cable, and the best cable I've used is the Fibbr Alpha optical USB cable which provides complete optical isolation.

The next best tweak is to use a USB power injector like the ifi iDefender to isolate USB ground and insert clean 5V into the DDC or DAC USB input. I was previously using this combination with an Audioquest Diamond USB cable, but the Fibbr Alpha USB is far better (and much cheaper).

You need to be careful of the ZS's USB Audio driver support for the DDC.

I have a friend using the ZS with the Singxer SU-6 and it works well. The Singxer works with generic USB Audio drivers in Linux/Windows/MacOS. The Audio-GD uses a different USB chipset which may not work with the ZS. I'm actually surprised the Devialet USB works with the ZS since it also needs proprietary drivers for Windows at least.

(03-Aug-2022, 13:22)Confused Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-Aug-2022, 13:17)Vivialet Wrote: [ -> ]I still wonder if adding some DDC between the Zen and the Devialet can bring an improvement. 

Although based on things I have tried in the past, sound quality with the Mutec MC3+USB is very similar to that with Ethernet CI Board. The Zen Stream direct to the Devialet also sounds very similar to Ethernet to the CI board. So I suspect adding an MC3+USB in the chain with the Zen will not offer much. Indeed, if we go with the GoldenSound measurements, adding the Mutec in the chain might actually be very slightly detrimental to the Zen's performance.

I have similar findings. The 1000 Pro's CI streamer sounds very good. It was difficult to improve the sound with my Singxer SU-6 alone. Special care had to be taken for the USB cable to the DDC, and the output AES / SPDIF cable to the Devialet.

In my case I felt the sound via DDC was better only after I switched to the abovementioned optical USB cable, and for the AES/SPDIF cable to the Devialet, I actually find Toslink to have a great overall sound, and am now using an AES XLR cable with the ground lifted. In my system's USB chain I've gone the route of trying to achieve 'maximum galvanic isolation' between devices.

Hi Confused,
I also have the 1000 pro, the Zen sounds much better compared to the Ci board. Both using the same Ethernet connection via OCXO switch and optical.
A friend with a 440 pro is of the same opinion. I had 2 stacked Mutec MC3 USB with the REF 10 which was not really better as the CI board for my taste.
Maybe I did something wrong with the Mutecs, wrong clock cable, who knows. But the Zen alone gives the best SQ so far...