Just connected my LCD-2 and they sound terrible - ?

[galactic soap]

G'day Everyone,

I'm running the following combination and the sound is absolutely rubbish:

-LCD 2 rev 2
-Cambridge Audio DacMagic
-Matrix M:Stage

The LCD-2 and DacMagic arrived in the last 24 hours to my utter excitement. I picked them up from the post office, finished work, picked-up a power-supply for the DacMagic and hurried off home. I couldn't wait to connect it all and spend the rest of night in bliss. Only I didn't experience that at all.

Here's the configuration I was running:

Windows 64 Bit Core i7 Rig > Foobar > LCD-2 rev 2 > M:Stage > via RCA's > DacMagic > via USB > Windows 64 Bit Core i7 Rig

I experienced the following sound:
-Plenty of interferance
-No clarity
-Muffled Bass
-Static like highs

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I tried to isolate the issue I best as I could and did the following:

1) Plugged my LCD-2 into my home audio receiver and the sound was fantastic, in fact I lost myself for a minute and had to pull myself out of the chair - that's exactly what I had hoped for with my desktop rig. So LCD-2 isn't an issue.
2) Swapped the RCA's with some different ones - no change
3) Swapped the USB cable to a different USB port - no change
4) Swapped the USB cable with another one, and tried a different port - no change
5) Ran the same configuration noted above, but plugged in my DT 250 - slight improvement in clarity, however a generally sub-par experience compared to the DT 250 running out of my standard audio out in my sound card

I'm not sure what to do now. I'm based in Sydney, and the following ideas popped into my head:

1) Try and connect with a local member to see if I can isolate the issue to either the DAC or the AMP
2) Post here to see if there's any other ideas
3) Buy a USB>SPDIF converter and connect to the DAC via optical cable. However this seem's unecessary.

I've also tried the following configuration:

1) Matrix M:Stage running at 0db impedance and 20 db impendance - no discernable difference

Lastly the DAC tells me it's incoming sample rate is 44.1 - even when playing 720 FLAC via Foobar - I wonder if that's an issue?

2) The aftermarket powersupply I picked up for the DacMagic has the following measures:
INPUT: 100-240V 50/60Hz 0.4A
OUTPUT: 12V 1.5A

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Soapy

[Riverback]

It could be the aftermarket power supply.

[bioxeed]

Have you tried the MStage + headphones from another source? Sounds like it's either the DAC or the MStage that's the issue from what you've said and feeding the MStage from a different source seems the easiest way to find out which is the issue.

[aster]

This may be dumb, but try connecting the M-stage directly to your computers onboard and give that a listen, if it turns out the same, it may be the power supply or M-stage

[BusinessEvolution]

I was going to suggest the same as aster.

Does the dacmagic require a driver for the usb to go to full 24/192mhz?

[unanimous]

Does the dacmagic require a driver for the usb to go to full 24/192mhz?

IIRC you can't get 24/192 from USB due to bandwidth restrictions - only from optical?

[flognuts]

what happened to the dacmagics original power supply?

Spdif > usb

Download WASAPI plugin for foobar and bypass the windows sound, select wasapi from the source menu in foobar setup

[Benno1988]

Ok mate, I just hooked up a USB Dac to my PC too, heres some stuff you'll need to do.

Get the WASAPI plugin for FOobar. Get it from the Foobar site. Cut n paste the .dll into the components folder.

Go into Preferences, Output and select WASAPI (insert DAC name here). Go Configure.

You'll need to play around with the Exclusive/Shared tick boxes if they are there and the Buffers. USB Dacs seem to need a much lower buffer than default. I put mine as low as I could, 50ms. This made ahuge difference. Went from freezing audio, with crackling, popping to smooth playback.

Give that all a go first.

[BusinessEvolution]

Does the dacmagic require a driver for the usb to go to full 24/192mhz?

IIRC you can't get 24/192 from USB due to bandwidth restrictions - only from optical?

Most optical controllers are limited to 24/96, only in the past five years or so have better optical controllers come out that support 24/192mhz, mainly due to advancements in clock control and jitter correction in the past few years.
USB2 has between 1-2 times the bandwidth of optical. The problem for a long time, until the past few years, was that there was no hardware standalone solution that do more than 24/96 for USB for a long time, largely because it doesn't actually make that much of difference to the human ear after that point. Its the current popular marketing trend to allow higher rates through asynchronous usb connections which currently require drivers on the computer, is less prone to jitter BUT has less ability to correct for jitter. There is a new dac that is coming out that claims to offer 24/192mhz via usb without using asynchronous communication however it also could/is be a gimick. Quite a few just have a spdif to usb converter installed.

From all the reading I have done, high end optical such as high end toslink, is marginally ahead of USB connections, or in blind tests no different. USB can be worse in particular with laptops with poor power supplies, there was an article I read recently where there was crazy amounts of jitter being introduced. These days jitter doesn't really matter except when there is a huge problem. In blind tests from early in 00s they found people could only hear jitter when it was around 10-20ns, these days even cheap equipment may only produce 2-4ns of jitter and good equipment >1ns.


I've only seen one dac coming out that claimed to use usb-3 and it was uber expensive like >4k USD, and it was probably just a gimick too.

Jan Meier explained why the stagedac only had 24/96mhz via usb, and that was because it would cost thousands of dollars to licence drivers ($10k min) and a couple of thousand more to hire a technician to tune the drivers to produce good sound at 24/192mhz, also even then it wouldn't improve what we can actually hear. Ouch I just had a look at dacs support 24/192mhz usb input, the prices are not cheap.

Does the ASUS essence one support real 24/192mhz usb input? Their website sort of implies it does but it doesn't mention it directly. That could make it one of the cheapest USB 24/192mhz solutions available?

[Drubbing]

I highly doubt any of your cables are to blame, unless were damaged. also unlikely.

Why did you buy a power supply, DM should have come with one if I remember. Check the CA website to see if what you got was compatible.

720 is a video resolution sample rate, why is your audio FLAC file in this format? 44.1 is the standard sample rate for CD audio.

Unless any of the above address it, I think it's probably a foobar issue, as benno suggests.

[Benno1988]

Please, call me Ben.

I would definately start with getting the PC side of things working. ONce you've properly implemented WASAPI, then you can rule out Windows colouring the sound as the culprit.

I remember getting my AD900's. I was on iTunes at the point. Plugged them in, had a listen. Sounded like shit with extremely tinny and bright treble. Did some research, realise its best to avoid windows or itunes touching the sound, went to Winamp with a Kernel Streaming plugin. Instantly 100x better.

[theeyealtering]

720 is a video resolution sample rate, why is your audio FLAC file in this format? 44.1 is the standard sample rate for CD audio.

i think this guy must be confusing sample rate with bit rate.

Flac often has a bitrate around 720kbps for CD audio quality files, they would have a sample rate of 44.1khz. Your computer wouldn't be able to play files with a sample rate of 720khz. In video 720p is the number of pixels vertically making up the image.

[Drubbing]

720 is a video resolution sample rate, why is your audio FLAC file in this format? 44.1 is the standard sample rate for CD audio.

i think this guy must be confusing sample rate with bit rate.

Flac often has a bitrate around 720kbps for CD audio quality files, they would have a sample rate of 44.1khz. Your computer wouldn't be able to play files with a sample rate of 720khz. In video 720p is the number of pixels vertically making up the image.

That's what I was getting at. But lossless and FLAC can have much higher bitrates too.

[theeyealtering]

That's what I was getting at. But lossless and FLAC can have much higher bitrates too.

Sure, its variable. It just means the averaged amount of bits it took to encode the audio losslessly.

[dion]

The power supply you got. Is it fairly small, compact and light or big, chunky and heavy?

I'd say it's the first as linear power supplies are banned in Australia, yet not plupack transformers (go figure). So light and small is switchmode.

Given its probably a cheap and nasty piece of crap, that could definitely explain some if not all of your symptoms. Without being familiar with the original power supply, I'd say it is either supposed to have a linear PS, perhaps even regulated or a good quality switchmode, although I doubt it as they're frowned upon for audio use.

If Im right it will be that essentially the circuitry is not designed to handle the noisy/dirty power from a switchmode PS and that is the result.