Bottlehead Forum
Bottlehead Kits => Crack => Topic started by: John EH on October 12, 2014, 12:32:49 PM
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I've got to be honest. I always thought my Crack with Speedball was missing just a tiny bit of something. My set up is this
Mac Mini > Fiio E17 DAC USB > Crack >Sennehiser HD650
Just for fun I hooked up the Fiio E17 to Optical instead of USB. What an across the board improvement, at least in this setup. I know the jury has always been out on what's better, USB or Toslink SPDIF however I think it varies DAC to DAC, system to system. In this implementation it just works.
In the interest of upping the game a hair more I just ordered a Schiit Bifrost with Optical only and going to play around with that.
What say other users? Optical or USB as your source AS IT RELATES TO THE CRACK ONLY?
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Nice bit of kit. The big advantage of the optical connection is it isolates the computer from the DAC electrically. The other alternative is a USB isolator, but they wont work with every DAC out there.
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Nice bit of kit. The big advantage of the optical connection is it isolates the computer from the DAC electrically. The other alternative is a USB isolator, but they wont work with every DAC out there.
I still have my USB plugged in to power the E17 which I suppose I could unplug and let the battery do it's thing but I'm one of those guys I hate to have to try to think about stuff like that.
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I think each connection type have its supporter.
1. Optical - Impossible to have electrical interference between dac and amp, but there are two optical-electrical conversion which might increase jitter.
2. Coaxial - Opposite of optical connection
3. USB (async) - This is usually considered as good because the signals are synced using the dac's clock
4. USB (sync) - The dac derive the clock from the signal. Not as good as USB (async). I think your FiiO is USB (sync) which is more susceptible to jitter.
For me, I use coaxial and I don't see a huge difference with different types of connections.