Looking for a DAC for the Squeezebox Touch

Earlxtr,

Thanks for sharing your communication with the vendor. Same as you I do not want to pay a few hundred bucks for a DAC and then find that I need to spend another couple of hundred to be able to fully take advantage of it. Too bad there is no way to audition this .

I don't know, guys. I have no vested interest in neither answer, but reducing jitter at the source makes sense to me. The way Cees answered the question seems he might be referring to no device needed to lower the jitter introduced by the Octave, why is very low indeed. But I believe the issue at hand is jitter included in the signal supplied to the Octave. Another designer, Steve Nugent from Empirical Audio, is constantly saying he believes reducing jitter at the source (before the DAC) is the single most valuable thing in digital audio - I know, he sells a USB to SPDIF converter, but he also sells asynch USB DAC.

When several users consistently report improvements using USB-to-SPDIF converters, and the better regarded converters consistently outperform the lesser converter+Octave combos...I tend to believe there is something to it.

As far as the Touch (the original subject of the thread) + Octave, in a couple of months I expect to start reading reports about Empirical Audio's yet-to-launch Synchro Mesh placed in between, which is exactly aiming the jitter at the source issue. We'll see what users have to say!

Such interesting times in digital audio! Enjoy!

The manufacturer (Metrum) states that no matter what source is being feed to it, it reduces the jitter to <40ps. (otherwise the 40ps claim is pointless and they would not consider a jitter reducer a waist of money). I would think they know their own DAC better then anybody and would know what would make it sound better.

Since each word of data arrives every 1/44,100 seconds or 22676ps (for redbook material), 40ps is a 0.176% possible variance, which is extremely low. Even if you feed it with a lower jitter source it would likely not improve the actual jitter of the DAC.

IMHO, you can Google "The ten biggest lies in audio" and add reclockers to the list, at least for the Octave.

Earl

Yeah, you are probably right. Bunch of fools hanging around here taking the time to try different USB to SPDIF converters, then taking the time to share their findings with the rest of us. And gets worse: it's group thinking too, as they all tend to agree!

You might want to educate yourself about what jitter is. I don't think a DAC can reduce what jitter is being fed. Might have ways to mitigate the nasty effects of a jittery signal it receives, but can't reduce it. DACs do introduce their own share of jitter, though, and I believe that is what 40 ps is. But you can believe what you'd like...you are likely thinking I'm a fool already! :-)

My squeezebox touch died over the weekend. The logictech logo appears only and then shuts down after about 2 minutes. I unplugged it but it did the same thing again. Instead of looking for a dac, now I need a music server also. So I decided to step away from the Touch and purchased a almost new Olive 04hd music server here on agon. It's an all in one system (Cd ripper, music server and dac with both analog and digital outputs) so I don't need the Welbourne power supply I purchased and the separate 500gb powered hard drive. Anyone interested in purchasing the Welbourne power supply let me know. I'll throw in the hard drive also.