Crowdfunding for Hardware Testing?

[amirm]

So one of the things I like us to do in this forum is to objectively investigate merits of the countless audio tweaks out there. You may have seen my testing of Audioquest and Regen USB devices. I bought the former and Michael the latter.

To the extent such tweaks are cheap, I am willing to spend my money buying them. But as they get expensive, and some very much do, that prices them out of my budget. Being the kind of person who hates selling things online, I can't just take the depreciation either.

So question is, does it make sense for us to set up some kind of fund to do this testing where members contribute? Or alternatively as Michael did, someone who needs such a device or is good at reselling them can volunteer to buy and then loan it to me for testing?

What makes sense to do here?

 

[NorthSky]

Shoot the device you have in mind, and let's check first who had tested it. If no one, let's contact a dealer who would lend you one.
It's very easy; leave him a collateral, then send it back after testing for full refund of your collateral.

Not only it makes sense but that's the way we love to do it in actual business use; and it builds stronger relations...no bias, just the facts as they are under analysis by the honest tester...you. ...And free publicity for the dealer and the product...manufacturer. ...Everyone loves Raymond.

 

[Mivera]

If you could test the "Superstream" unit on WBF powered by LPS and isolated by fiber, vs direct connection to a general purpose computer that would be great. Best thing is it's all off the shelf budget commodity items.

 

[dallasjustice]

The totalDAC USB cable has a passive filter. I will send it to you to see if it makes any measureable difference on any DAC. PM me the address to send it. I'm okay with you taking it apart if you can put it back together again. The real experts wet their pants over this cable.
http://www.totaldac.com/USB_cable-eng.htm

 

[amirm]

If you could test the "Superstream" unit on WBF powered by LPS and isolated by fiber, vs direct connection to a general purpose computer that would be great. Best thing is it's all off the shelf budget commodity items.

If you send me everything I can test it.

 

[amirm]

The totalDAC USB cable has a passive filter. I will send it to you to see if it makes any measureable difference on any DAC. PM me the address to send it. I'm okay with you taking it apart if you can put it back together again. The real experts wet their pants over this cable.
http://www.totaldac.com/USB_cable-eng.htm

This makes a great first project! PM sent.

 

[amirm]

Shoot the device you have in mind, and let's check first who had tested it. If no one, let's contact a dealer who would lend you one.

No dealer selling such tweaks would ever loan me one Bob. What is in it for them?

 

[Opus111]

The real experts wet their pants over this cable.

I'm already drooling to see what's inside that box.

 

[Mivera]

If you send me everything I can test it.

Do you have a 12-24v DC low noise supply? And a 5-9V low noise supply?

 

[amirm]

Do you have a 12-24v DC low noise supply? And a 5-9V low noise supply?

Sure. I have my lab power supplies and one from Europe that was sent to me to power the Regen.

 

[Mivera]

Sure. I have my lab power supplies and one from Europe that was sent to me to power the Regen.

Okay it would save from me having to ship power supplies as mine are quite bulky. But my NUC is just the SBC out of the case. The IFI would be a great DAC for the test as it's DSD compatible, has a DSD direct bypass mode as well. But do you have a computer that has a quad core I7 processor?

 

[amirm]

I have a quad core i7 but it is the last generation chip-set. I don't mind upgrading it though so that should not be a concern (depending a bit on timing).

 

[Mivera]

I have a quad core i7 but it is the last generation chip-set. I don't mind upgrading it though so that should not be a concern (depending a bit on timing).

Well if you can do PCM upsampling to quad DSD with Hqplayer with whatever you have it will be fine. You can test that before I even ship anything. The I7 4790 has no problem, but your skylake I5 should be able to handle it as well.

 

[amirm]

Sure I can run the test. And the i5 server is available also as you say.

 

[Mivera]

Sure I can run the test. And the i5 server is available also as you say.

Okay perfect. I will send the NUC 3815 SBC, USB stick with the Audiolinux OS, 2 fiber media converters with mini GBIC units, 5 meters of fiber cable, and a SMPS to power the FMC that's connected to the router. All you will need is the server computer, router, low noise supply for the NUC side FMC and low noise supply for the NUC.

But didn't you say that SBooster supply added noise in your testing?

If you send me the address to ship to to [email protected] that would be great. I'll box it up and ship via UPS tomorrow. You will have the package by Thursday.

 

[Mivera]

Hi Amir,

I didn't make it to ship that stuff today. I will tomorrow. But I was thinking, I have this Chinese USB to AES/EBU/SPDIF/I2S bridge I bought a few months back and haven't even tried it yet.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Melodious-M...gital-Audio-Interface-110v-230v-/161855711602

A lot of guys on the headfi forum were raving about it and modding it so I thought I would buy one for fun. Seems very well built for the price. Maybe I can send it along as well and you can test it against the Berkeley? It can even do quad DSD out of the I2S port.

However they did come out with a newer version since that's even better of course.

http://www.shenzhenaudio.com/melodi...khz-dsd-xmos-usb-digital-audio-interface.html

 

[amirm]

No hurry and yes, if there are other gadgets of interest, I am happy to test those too.

 

[Mivera]

No hurry and yes, if there are other gadgets of interest, I am happy to test those too.

Ok I'll send it along.

Ohh you better not say that. It could turn into a full time job for months testing all the trinkets I have

Where can your AP gear measure jitter from? Can it measure jitter from I2S outputs?

 

[amirm]

It can measure jitter over S/PDIF and AES/EBU but its ability there is limited. The mode I use is with analog capture of the output of the DAC which is what matters at the end anyway.

 

[Mivera]

It can measure jitter over S/PDIF and AES/EBU but its ability there is limited. The mode I use is with analog capture of the output of the DAC which is what matters at the end anyway.

Okay I thought I would throw in my Amanero and you could compare the I2S jitter vs the I2S jitter from the bridge. But if you can't do it no big deal.