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Cheap USB to SPDIF/Optical Converter

RayDunzl

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In order to take my laptop, and UMIK-1, and miniDSP to my audio buddy's house, to take measurements, and demonstrate room correction, I needed to convert USB from the laptop to coax or optical in order to get the log sweep into his now ancient DAC1 via coax or optical.

So, looked around a little, decided on this for $24:

new-MUSE-Z5-HIFI-USB-to-S-PDIF-Converter-USB-DAC-PCM2704-Sound-Card-Optical-Coaxial.jpg



It's USB powered, limited to 48kbs but it works for audible measurement purposes, taking the USB audio data and outputting it via coax or optical .

I haven't tried the analog headphone output nor the RCA jacks yet.

Seems to be a single chip solution inside, TI -PCM2704.

Here are the guts of it:

IMG0078.jpg


And a real review...

Did I mention it comes with a USB cable?

Heat Output: It's two tenths of a degree (F) warmer than the surface it sits on after 24 hours.
 
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Blumlein 88

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I bet you could turn that thing into a giant killer dawg. Slap an Intona, a couple Regens, LPS all the way around, and that baby would sing sweet, sweet music like nobody's business. Top it all off with Mutec 3+ reclocker and you're in business. Slap it altogether in a box and charge 10,000 dollars for it. Tell everyone going more than 48 khz is a mistake, and offer free software to downsample hi-rez into the pure sample rate designed for human ears not prop headed engineers stuck on specs.
 

amirm

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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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I bought the minidsp

I'll keep that in mind should I need different functionality someday...

I expect to use this a couple of times and then forget where I put it.
 

Sal1950

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You guys are gonna give the site a bad name messin with all this cheap lo fi gear. :(
 

Phelonious Ponk

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I'll keep that in mind should I need different functionality someday...

I expect to use this a couple of times and then forget where I put it.

I bought a little box from Trends Audio (well-known for their little T amps) UD-10, back when I first got into computer audio, that takes in usb, puts out optical, coax or AES/EBU. Bus powered or battery powered. Never heard a noise from it, regardless of power source. Did a great job until I went wireless and didn't need it anymore. Cheap, too.

Tim
 
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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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Phelonious Ponk

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Trends UD-10.1 USB Audio Converter
"Burr Brown PCM2704 IC for USB audio conversion" - same chip



6moons gave it a price of $169, another reviewer $149, monoAndStereo blurbed without a price.

You did a little better at $24. :)
 
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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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Here's the analog output:

PC REW Log Sweep -> USB -> RCA out -> 3 foot cable ->preamp -> 25 foot cable -> PC

upload_2016-7-16_14-56-42.png


Looks reasonable to me.
 

Blumlein 88

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Here's the analog output:

PC REW Log Sweep -> USB -> RCA out -> 3 foot cable ->preamp -> 25 foot cable -> PC

View attachment 2344

Looks reasonable to me.
You're not supposed to show it like that. You should use a scale from 0 to 100 db. That way it looks really flat. You will never be able to repackage and market it with graphes like that. Even though it is more or less +/- .1 db from 10hz-20khz.
 

amirm

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You're not supposed to show it like that. You should use a scale from 0 to 100 db. That way it looks really flat. You will never be able to repackage and market it with graphes like that. Even though it is more or less +/- .1 db from 10hz-20khz.
I was wondering what I was looking at until you post that!
 
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RayDunzl

RayDunzl

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I was wondering what I was looking at until you post that!

Ok, here you go. Full range so we get all the detail.

upload_2016-7-16_18-14-0.png


Looks even better than any Mark Levinson measurement I've seen.
 
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