22-May-2017, 10:48
(This post was last modified: 22-May-2017, 11:24 by innuos.
Edit Reason: Replace XLR for AES/EBU for clarity
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(21-May-2017, 16:38)Music or sound Wrote: I was visting Innuos at the HighEnd 2017 and they had a quite interesting display were all their three products (Zen mini, Zen & Zenith) were plugged into identical Dacs (I think Benchmark) with identical USB cables and their were playing synchronously the same music and one could plug in a headphone cable alternating into these DACs to compare the different levels of servers. There was an obvious difference between these products and the Zenith was the best. Additional the was the Zenith SE announced which sounded even better (mostly better power supply). The main problem I have with it is that they are all USB out only and I think it is not the optimal connection mode to Devialet.
Hi! Thanks for visiting us at High End. Basically what we have done there is connecting a Zen Mini, Zen and Zenith, all with the same Chord Company C-Series cables and all well run-in, to 3 Chord Hugo TT DACs via USB. We used a set output on each of the DACs so that they all provide the same fixed volume output. We then used Roon to sync the players on the Mini, Zen and Zenith and used DSP volume on Roon so that the same volume can be kept at the same level on all 3 systems. DSP volume isn't obvously the best option for Hi-Fi but the test is to highlight the differences in sound quality between the 3 systems. We try to demonstrate that even DACs with galvanic isolation on the USB can actually benefit from a much cleaner and well-timed USB output.
We do have customers reporting good results when using a Mutec MC-3+ USB Reclocker, connecting via USB to the Zenith and then via AES/EBU to the Devialet. At the moment, and due to a USB controller incompatibility that we are evaluating with Mutec, the Zenith does require a small unpowered USB Hub to be connected to the USB DAC port of the Zenith so the USB cable connects to the USB hub instead of the USB port on the Zenith. Anyway, may be a good option to try with the Devialet system and then compare to a direct USB connection.
Hope this helps.
Nuno Vitorino
