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E1DA Cosmos ADCiso Review

Rate this ADC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 3 2.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 15 10.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 128 87.1%

  • Total voters
    147
A little bit different (but similar question): Can I plug the line out of my APT/Holman preamp into it to digitize my LP's onto my computer?

The input impedance of the Cosmos ADC is rather low:

1722121853646.png


The Holman is rated to drive 5k (it's output R is ~330R) and above loads, however, it has been tested with 600R loads and apart from a very slight increase in THD, it performed well. Obviously you will lose about 3dB of gain with such a load and the low end is affected with a greater roll-off.
 
Upon the hint here at ASR that the Cosmos ADC can be ordered at Aliexpress I looked at the price which is 357 EURO for the A grade version. Due to lack of documentation, only 1 channel with low input impedance and 3.5 mm imput jack to me the price is too high. For double the price QuantAsylum offers 2-ch ADC and DAC including measurement sofware plus support. OK, the low distortion performance is not reaching the cosmos ADC. But for many tests it will be usable.
get the quantasylum and add the E1DA APU. You may have to do the math yourself; adding back the proper amount to compensate for the 1khz notch. But it will let you have all the features you want for most DUT measurements and for those that have more range than the QA, at least you can get extended results with THD+N with the APU
 
The input impedance of the Cosmos ADC is rather low:

View attachment 383385

The Holman is rated to drive 5k (it's output R is ~330R) and above loads, however, it has been tested with 600R loads and apart from a very slight increase in THD, it performed well. Obviously you will lose about 3dB of gain with such a load and the low end is affected with a greater roll-off.
Ah, thank you for a bit more information!
 
For a good example of how well the entire E1DA chain works for measurements, here is the SMSL SU-1, which measures better than I could ever imagine an approx. 80 US dollar DAC. The combination of the Cosmos Scaler/Buffer, with the APU pre-amp plus notch at either 1khz or 10khz, with the latest ADC with ISO (I run everything off battery power) really does a nice job with REW. (Multitone as well, but REW allows you to compensate for the 1khz notch in software)
 

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  • SMSL SU-1 APU TEST.png
    SMSL SU-1 APU TEST.png
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Received mine from Audiophonics France. It came without any note where to find further information etc. First testing isn't very encouraging and shows following noise performance at SR = 48kHz, both inputs loaded with just 100 ohm resistors (but with or without did not made much difference):

Noise.png


This an overlay of one measurement when the isolated part is powered by a powerbank and the other from the laptop itself. No difference at all. Quite weird responses, not what I expected.

When fed from my Topping E30II DAC with a 1kHz sine at -9dB FS:

Noise+1kHz.png


So AD performance by itself looks on par. But noise performance rather weird with a strong 1/f content. Do I miss something or just a faulty part?
 
Received mine from Audiophonics France. It came without any note where to find further information etc. First testing isn't very encouraging and shows following noise performance at SR = 48kHz, both inputs loaded with just 100 ohm resistors (but with or without did not made much difference):

View attachment 388002

This an overlay of one measurement when the isolated part is powered by a powerbank and the other from the laptop itself. No difference at all. Quite weird responses, not what I expected.

When fed from my Topping E30II DAC with a 1kHz sine at -9dB FS:

View attachment 388006

So AD performance by itself looks on par. But noise performance rather weird with a strong 1/f content. Do I miss something or just a faulty part?
Please, read the product description here https://e1dashz.wixsite.com/index/cosmos-adc
I guess, your ADC is in the RIAA mode, you can switch that to STEREO or MONO by the Volume slider.
 
Thanks for your reply IVX and for providing that link! Just tested and it happened when volume setting is between 40 an 60. Anything >60 solved the issue. I wasn't aware of a kind of "RIAA Mode". It's working fine now! With REW up to the full 768kHz sampling rate under W10

B.t.w. IMHO any thread about this device on ASR should start with the link given to the product description ;)
 
as you can see, all my posts have the link to our discord channel where tonnes of practical info could be found.
The signatures are not available on the mobile version, so one has to switch to desktop-website.
 
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