Hi All,

I had a problem getting my FF800 to work as a DAC (as opposed to simply an spdif passthrough device).

Neither of the following worked:
1. selecting 'Speakers RME Fireface 800' as the default speakers in Vista and selecting 'Primary Sound Device' in XX
2. selecting 'Speakers RME Fireface 800' in XX

In both of these cases, the sound was still being piped to the soundcard in my laptop (even if when NOT selected as the default device in Vista).

But selecting 'SPDIF Interface RME Fireface 800' did work, as did all the other various analogue and digital outputs.

The solution was to simply disable the in-build soundcard (there seems to be a conflict going on here).

Everything works fine now...

... and 0.9x-5b sounds very good indeed. (I'll post more about the sound when I receive a Weiss AFI1 interface to replace the FF800 very soon.)

Mani.

I have a very understanding brother who is happy to put us (my wife and me) up for a few months until we find 'the house of our dreams'. He's also happy for me to set up my hifi in his living room ...

... might even be able to persuade him to get a copy of XXHE...

Mani

Yes, provided the soundcard isn't changing the data beforehand...


Again, "Yes", if you are including my soundcard as part of the computer.

Can I just make it clear though that I think that the soundcard is at 'fault' here, and certainly not XXHE. But I'm hoping to find out once my system is up and running again.

Mani.

Hi Frank,

When in Master mode, the D70 is acting synchronously, in the sense that the source (CD transport or PC soundcard) is synchronised to it.

The main difference between the D70 and the LessLoss is the latter's use of a SuperClock running at high frequencies. My understanding of SuperClock is that it creates more problems than it solves - from the RME FF800 manual:

"A square wave signal of 11 MHz distributed to several devices - this simply means to fight with high frequency technology. Reflections, cable quality, capacitive loads - at 44.1 kHz these factors may be ignored, at 11 MHz they are the end of the clock network. Additionally it was found that a PLL not only generates jitter, but also also rejects disturbances. The slow PLL works like a filter for induced and modulated frequencies above several kHz. As the Superclock is used without any filtering such a kind of jitter and noise suppression is missing. No wonder Superclock did not become a commonly accepted standard."

Another difference is that the D70 has four PCM1704s, not two like the LessLoss

Mani.

Hi guys,

I need more time to respond to Pieter's post in the way I'd like. But for now, thanks for all your insights Pieter - really interesting (and sensible) stuff...

Mani.

PS. I'm very familiar with the magical properties of Blue-tack!

Hi Pieter,

Wow, you have a lot of experience in this area and I'd really appreciate learning more about your experiences.

Right now, my wife and I are looking at houses to buy - and a criterion of mine is a separate room suitable to turn into a dedicated music/hifi room. It would be really helpful if you could give me your opinion of the following:

1) how large does a room really need to be in order to have electrostatics working at their best?
2) would they work better on a wooden or carpetted floor?
3) how tolerant are they of side-wall and rear-wall placement?
4) how well do you think my Pass Labs Aleph 4 (100wpc single-ended class-A) could drive them?

FYI, I like listening at realistic levels to all kinds of music. Timing and timbre are things that I'm really striving to get right. In this respect, I'm looking for something that can match my Stax headphones, I suppose. I'm not interested in something that will shake the house down (I still have my current system which does this plenty well enough for me).

Looking forward to your reply,

Mani.

I just love the idea of a single driver (with no x-over or box) being driven by a high-quality SS or valve single-ended amp. Simplicity in a nutshell.

I heard the Quad 2905s in a shop and loved them. Has anyone had any experience of electrostatic speakers bring driven like this?

Mani.

Edward,

I slave my RME FF800 to my DAC (i.e. I have a separate 75ohm BNC connector feeding a wordclock signal from the DAC to the FF800). My DAC is not a LessLoss but an Esoteric D70. And yes, XXHighEnd definitely still performs ‘correctly’ in the sense that it sounds great.

But actually, I think that when the DAC is Master, XXHighEnd has less impact on SQ.

What I mean here is that with the FF800 as master (PLL setting on DAC), any adjustments in XXHighEnd are more easily identified as compared to the D70 as master (wordclock out setting on DAC).

This was my impression last weekend when I spent some hours listening to various combinations. I need to do some more listening, but won't be able to until I resurrect my hifi in a week or so.

But in any event, switching to DAC as master provides a quantum leap in improved SQ - IMHO, greater than anything XXHighEnd itself can provide. In this respect, I agree 100% with the LessLoss guys in that the DAC should act as master, with the clock sitting right next to the dacs (though I’m less sure about their views on using a SuperClock, what with the frequencies involved).

When I find a nos dac with wordclock output, I'll give it a go...

Mani.

I'm in the process of moving and have my hi-fi still in boxes. As an interim measure, I placed my Creative PCI soundcard back into my computer...

... and this is what I'm getting.

Can this be right?

Mani.

See http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=481.0

Mani.

Yes, I will repeat the test with a non-HDCD CD at some point. It will be interesting to see if the veiling is there or not with everything set to zero in the mixer (including L/R pans).

But the biggest question that remains on my mind is why the soundcard is changing the data in the first place. And it must be because my DAC doesn't register the HDCD signal with everything set to zero in its mixer.

I can undo any changes that the soundcard is making by changing settings in the mixer. This allows the HDCD signal to be detected... but does this really fix the problem or introduce the veiling effect?

One really important point here is that this has nothing to do with the PC or XXHE. This is purely to do with my transport, soundcard and DAC. The PC is merely being used to change the mixer settings. But the mixer sits in the soundcard (i.e. the soundcard can be used as a standalone unit).

WRT slaving the soundcard to the DAC, what can I say? I would never buy a DAC where I could not do this.

My DAC allows three different settings: 1) PLL, 2) RAM buffer and 3) Wordclock + RAM.

Setting 3) turns the DAC into the Master, with the clock sitting right next to the four PCM1704 dacs. And there is simply no comparison.

Mani.

Peter, do you use the FF800 to send an spdif signal to the nos DAC, or are you using usb?

Mani.

With the DAC acting as Master clock and the soundcard slaved to it???

Mani.

More amazement than enthusiasm... There should have been no difference, and yet there was.

For me, sorting this out seems to be at least as important as tweaking the PC or XXHE.

Mani.

Just to be clear here Peter, on this occasion, I never listened to the RME (or the MOTU). I just used them to send an spdif signal to the DAC.

When I have compared, the D70 trounces both of them...

Mani.