svart-hvitt
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Spdif only. No AES-EBU.
I don’t get it; what’s the insistence on spdif?
Almost all consumer equipment supports basic S/PDIF but almost none support full AES/EBU. The latter is not needed for the vast majority of consumers and thus no market demand. S/PDIF could be considered AES3 "light". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF
Almost all consumer equipment supports basic S/PDIF but almost none support full AES/EBU. The latter is not needed for the vast majority of consumers and thus no market demand. S/PDIF could be considered AES3 "light". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF
Can SPDIF and AES3 both handle common sample Rate and Bit Depths i.e. 16bit / 24bit and 44.1KHz, 48KHz, 96KHz or 192KHz ?
This is the simplest USB-AES3 converter I’ve ever come across:
http://www.yellowtec.com/puc2/puc2-lite.html
It fits most budgets.
It's quite a bit more expensive than the Gustard U12 and has fewer features. It's also more expensive than the more feature-rich and reportedly high-performing (such reports are not confirmed) Singxer SU-1.
I'd like to find an inexpensive AES converter with digital volume control for use with the Dutch & Dutch 8C speakers. There are a couple of units available from RME and Lake People.
I've used the Gustard U12 for a year and half, and it's performed fine, despite the minor (and likely inaudible) problems that Amir measured. The drivers are rock solid, latency is low, and the sampling rate display is helpful.
I may blow $400 on a Singxer SU-1 for Amir to measure, though perhaps LarsS can help us there.
I do not view the Yellowtec's fewer features as an advantage, and I don't like that the Yellowtec relies on USB bus power, not because of any sound quality concern but because I have a lot of other gear sucking current from my USB bus already.
Toslink is part of AES3 as wellI do not think AES3 includes optical by default (? -- not my area of expertise, but I thought TOSLINK was strictly S/PDIF and not AES3).
Toslink is considered more jittery than AES3 and spdif. That’s a common «truth» among engineers, including for example Daniel Weiss.Toslink is part of AES3 as well
There is no difference between AES3 and SPDIF on protocol level, the physical implementation differs.
AES3:
Type1 – Balanced (XLR)
Type 2 – unbalanced RCA
Type 3 - Toslink
1 and 2 have a impendance mismatch due to the plug.
AES3id as type 2 but this time with a BNC (75 ohm) termination
There is no difference between AES3 and SPDIF on protocol level, the physical implementation differs.
Toslink is considered more jittery than AES3 and spdif.
Toslink is part of AES3 as well
There is no difference between AES3 and SPDIF on protocol level, the physical implementation differs.
AES3:
Type1 – Balanced (XLR)
Type 2 – unbalanced RCA
Type 3 - Toslink
1 and 2 have a impendance mismatch due to the plug.
AES3id as type 2 but this time with a BNC (75 ohm) termination
Thanks Vincent. I had thought there were some encoding differences between AES3 and S/PDIF but guess I remembered wrongly. I had forgotten about Type 3; the smattering of AES3 gear I have around all uses XLR or RCA/BNC, not sure I have ever used an optical cable for AES, but for all I know there's an optical port on the back and I just haven't used it (been a while).
@svart-hvitt : Adding the optical interface can increase jitter since there is another circuit layer between devices but I see no reason why it should be significant. I suspect it is due more to the consumer-oriented short-range interface so they simply are not expending the design resources and power to clean it up. But, since TOSLINK uses LEDs instead of lasers and cheap plastic cables IIRC, it may just be the intrinsic bandwidth limitation of the interface.