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Generic Budget USB to AES Converter Review

Rate this USB to AES Converter

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 98 83.8%
  • 1. Waste of money (piggy bank panther)

    Votes: 16 13.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 3 2.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    117
That's either a defective GLM brain, RF remote, remote battery or truly massive EM/RF interference going on... But yes, the QoL issue is understandable.

A hardware hack would work too, in addition to what I already mentioned. The GLM brain expects a logarithmic pot for the physical volume control (exact value depends on age of unit, but 10k ohm will work), so instead of the GLM protocol / MIDI, one could just figure out a way to feed it a suitable resistance. :)
I wish they just at the very least, release an official android/iOS app with glm
 
I wish they just at the very least, release an official android/iOS app with glm
They couldn't do that (wirelessly) without new hardware or an always-on pc/mac in between, as the brain has no other host connection besides USB and the RF remote is a very simple one (not BT or WiFi); If there is an always-on pc/mac in the picture though, MIDI over WiFi is a thing; I use an Android tab as a DAW mixer console.
 
They couldn't do that (wirelessly) without new hardware or an always-on pc/mac in between, as the brain has no other host connection besides USB and the RF remote is a very simple one (not BT or WiFi); If there is an always-on pc/mac in the picture though, MIDI over WiFi is a thing; I use an Android tab as a DAW mixer console.
Yea sorry, I did mean a new hardware module that can be connected to wirelessly from both the desktop GLM and also mobile device. Or alternatively if they want to keep usage of the existing device, a dongle or receiver that can connect to a GLM port.
 
Everything gets resampled and you lose resolution. Very simply put, the lower the output volume, the bigger the digital steps between levels in the signal become; Will one notice it or not is another question.
The complaint was about missing volume control in the digital USB-AES bridge. The resultant stream from AES would be identical, if the volume division were performed by the USB host or by the USB-AES microcontroller in the digital bridge.
 
Everything gets resampled and you lose resolution. Very simply put, the lower the output volume, the bigger the digital steps between levels in the signal become; Will one notice it or not is another question.
You are aware there are no steps in the analogue waveform, aren't you?

Quantisation from resampling is, if correctly done with dither a fairly benign noise similar to tape hiss, but at much lower level. More importantly, if you can't hear this noise at full (digital) volume in the quiet parts of the track then you also can't hear it when the volume is (digitally) reduced, because the noise does not get larger - only signal gets smaller.
 
You are aware there are no steps in the analogue waveform, aren't you?

Quantisation from resampling is, if correctly done with dither a fairly benign noise similar to tape hiss, but at much lower level. More importantly, if you can't hear this noise at full (digital) volume in the quiet parts of the track then you also can't hear it when the volume is (digitally) reduced, because the noise does not get larger - only signal gets smaller.
Yes, we're oversimplifying things and let's leave it at this: A good digital volume control implementation shouldn't be audible, but a bad one will be.
I definitely wouldn't trust the $10 brick - let's not entirely lose track of the thread here - to do it properly.

If I can drop an extra processing step it's gone; SAM monitors will shuffle the bits all over anyway and can handle the volume control, so leaving it to them. As a bonus, never any output level surprises, regardless of the source. Mine boot up at -40 or -50 dB (unless The Pot is attached) and group configs usually add another fixed -10 dB or so to cut the max output level.
 
A good digital volume control implementation shouldn't be audible, but a bad one will be.
Digital volume control is trivial - just a plain operation of division. If done at the same resolution as that of the samples, then the difference compared to some int32 or even int64 can be only at the LSB (due to rounding errors), it's simple math to check.
 
They seem to talk about it a wee bit here for wiim

And I believe rme also does it?
 
So I changed my Budget USB to AES Converter :
I switched to the D10S, I didn't notice anything audible;
I just did it for the doubt
I have the $17 dongle and Xing AF200 ($100), no differences can be heard through my Genelec 8351b. To me, they are exactly the same with no issue at all.
 
They seem to talk about it a wee bit here for wiim
The argument of no loss when doing the volume control at 32 bits does not consider the real resolution of the DAC which is below 24 bits. Signals below that drown in noise.

But the same happens in analog volume attenuation - weaker signals inevitably have lower S/N ratio. But a good analog circuit would have the noise lower than the complicated DAC.
And I believe rme also does it?
That is a combination of volume control in digital domain (dividing the samples by a fixed number) and analog domain (changing gain of the analog circuits behind the DAC). Such method cannot be performed by a digital device only.
 
I have the $17 dongle and Xing AF200 ($100), no differences can be heard through my Genelec 8351b. To me, they are exactly the same with no issue at all.
Yes. just a rare problem with the aliexpress AES converter. But in 99% of the time no problem But having seen the ASR measurements I preferred to change. Even if I don't hear any difference. It's psychological.
 
Signals below that drown in noise.
While true, if the noise is inaudible, then so will the signal be at the drowning level, even if the noise were not there.


But a good analog circuit would have the noise lower than the complicated DAC.
Not really. The typical limit of SNR in a DAC is from the analogue electronics - not the "complication". Well designed dacs, as well as well designed analogue volume control are simply operating near the limit of what is possible in the analogue domain. As can be seen when we compare measurements.

Simple fact is if the DAC created noise is inaudible with no attenuation - and I've never heard it even in cheap dacs - it will still be inaudible with any level of digital attenuation.
 
@antcollinet : I absolutely agree about the inaudibility.

Recently I needed to fix an old CD player I use in my workshop (from 1987), one channel was noisy with weak signals. I burnt a few attenuated-sine tracks onto CD-R. At 3bits of the 16bit CD format I could not see any sine shape on my scope (drowned in noise of the player). At 5bits I could hardly discern the shape on the scope, but could not hear the tone. At 8 bits resolution I could hear the weak tone. Of course no noise to hear. My workshop gear is low-fi and listening volume low too, but the (for me) inaudible signal was only at -10 bits, still a very long way down to real resolution of modern DACs :)
 
That's either a defective GLM brain, RF remote, remote battery or truly massive EM/RF interference going on... But yes, the QoL issue is understandable.

A hardware hack would work too, in addition to what I already mentioned. The GLM brain expects a logarithmic pot for the physical volume control (exact value depends on age of unit, but 10k ohm will work), so instead of the GLM protocol / MIDI, one could just figure out a way to feed it a suitable resistance. :)

Is the receiver for thr remote in yhe speakers or in the GLM control unit?
 
Apparently jitter it when it can be heard, it's just background noise. So if I don't hear background noise = no audible jitter?

Jitter if it can be heard sounds like distortion not noise.

But you don't have audible jitter, because modern electronics doesn't suffer from jitter effects to an audible degree.
 
Jitter if it can be heard sounds like distortion not noise.

But you don't have audible jitter, because modern electronics doesn't suffer from jitter effects to an audible degree.
even the converter tested on this OP? ^^

index.php
 
even the converter tested on this OP? ^^

index.php

Well in this review there seems to be ongoing debate about whether this is jitter, or un-dithered down conversion (truncation) from 24 bits to 16 bits.

But in either case:
more than one person has said they can't hear anything wrong with the sound.
All components are below -90dB, and are down below -110dB (inaudible) at the most sensitive part of our hearing (around 3 or 4 kHz)
 
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