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HDMI Audio to USB Conversion?

gvl

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Unless you want to upgrade your sound, than there is (and so i did, and thanks God I did)

You got the sound using that board, fine. How do you know it's an upgrade? By using I2S the quality of the resulting sound much depends on the quality of the clock signal and who knows how stable the clock out of this board is, for all we know you may end up with gobs of jitter related issues on the DAC analog output. The upgrade is in your head, at best there is no degradation compared to USB. If you can talk Amir into testing this board with your DAC you can send them in to know for sure.
 
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fabien32

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The all point of this is that there is no conversion at all. So it shouldn't affect the clock. And I can hear clearly that the sound is better (as you say it's in my head maybe, but what's really interesting to me is, how do you know for a fact that it's only in my head? when you, never heard, listen or did any testing on this card what's so ever?! Maybe it's in your head too)
 
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fabien32

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The only advantage (sound wise) I have noticed with the USB is, when playing 32bit 384khz vs 24 192khz, and even then the low frequencies are not as good. It's very subtle but it's there.
 
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somebodyelse

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The all point of this is that there is no conversion at all. So it shouldn't affect the clock. And I can hear clearly that the sound is better (as you say it's in my head maybe, but what's really interesting to me is, how do you know for a fact that it's only in my head? when you, never heard, listen or did any testing on this card what's so ever?! Maybe it's in your head too)
If you read up on HDMI audio clock regeneration you'll find out about the practical problems with the clock. I'm glad you're happy with the result you've got, but please avoid misinformation on the technical side.
 
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fabien32

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If you read up on HDMI audio clock regeneration you'll find out about the practical problems with the clock. I'm glad you're happy with the result you've got, but please avoid misinformation on the technical side.
I read a lot believe me or not. An there's no misinformation from my place
 

somebodyelse

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I read a lot believe me or not. An there's no misinformation from my place
In that case I must have misinterpreted when you said:
The all point of this is that there is no conversion at all. So it shouldn't affect the clock.
This is incorrect for the HDMI link from your laptop to the audio extractor board. That link packetizes the audio data and sends these packets in the horizontal and vertical blanking periods of the video data. There is no audio clock in the HDMI signal - the receiver needs to reconstruct it from the video clock and cycle time stamp. Doing this without significant jitter is tricky enough that papers are written about methods of doing it, and it shows in the jitter measurements of AVRs' HDMI inputs - I don't think we've seen a good one yet. John Dawson of Arcam covers their approach to this here starting on page 21 while Oppo cover it here. To be fair most of them get to 'probably inaudible' on jitter, and don't have exemplary jitter on their other digital inputs either.
 
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gvl

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^^ That's why if you want to play on the dark side and use I2S you should at least invest in a decent purposely built async USB DDC instead of some primitive eBay HDMI audio extractor.
 

linuxfan

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fabien32, I'm open to new discoveries and unconventional wisdom, so I'm happy and encouraged with your results ... but I've been around in hifi for many years, so I'm also suspicious of your results. It simply doesn't ring true that a high-jitter/non bit-perfect signal chain will sound better than a low-jitter/bit-perfect signal chain.

However I'm still keeping an open mind on this issue at this point, and I'm wondering if there are some additional contributing factors involved.
Can you give me some further information, please:

1. Can you give examples of the audio files you played? Artist, album, ripped from CD, hi-res download, etc.

2. When playing a 44.1kHz audio file, what is the sample rate displayed on the D90 front panel? 44.1kHz or "48kHz" ?
Do you have any 88.2kHz audio files, or any 176.4kHz audio files to try? What sample rate is displayed for these?

3. Are you listening via a JDS Labs Atom? What are your headphones?
 

fabien32

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fabien32, I'm open to new discoveries and unconventional wisdom, so I'm happy and encouraged with your results ... but I've been around in hifi for many years, so I'm also suspicious of your results. It simply doesn't ring true that a high-jitter/non bit-perfect signal chain will sound better than a low-jitter/bit-perfect signal chain.

However I'm still keeping an open mind on this issue at this point, and I'm wondering if there are some additional contributing factors involved.
Can you give me some further information, please:

1. Can you give examples of the audio files you played? Artist, album, ripped from CD, hi-res download, etc.

2. When playing a 44.1kHz audio file, what is the sample rate displayed on the D90 front panel? 44.1kHz or "48kHz" ?
Do you have any 88.2kHz audio files, or any 176.4kHz audio files to try? What sample rate is displayed for these?

3. Are you listening via a JDS Labs Atom? What are your headphones?
Lots of questions, I'll answer in details when I can. But basically I tried few different ways and audio sources when i connected the d90 to the HDMI to iis. I used Tidal, SACD, FLAC, youtube, Dj Traktor 3 even Spotify. I'm using a pre amp with crossover from Rockville (ppa20) then it's connected to the Atom JDS and to my hyperx cloud alpha or to my km750 who i connect my jamo 8. The range on the d90 with (the card) is between 44.1 to 192khz. What I have noticed is on all the platforms the bass is better only when i play a higher resolution (32bit 384khz) the sound stage is a little bigger but the bass is still not as good (the only thing that really bother me is, that on tidal, when i switch between songs, there's some tiny noise in the beginning)
15961008560173693928067608314241.jpg
 
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BDWoody

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fabien32

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Yes, but when you play a 44.1kHz source, does the D90 display "44.1kHz" or "48kHz".


The Jamo S801?

Usually the software take over the rate, only on mqa mode the d90 display different rate. Traktor and amarra luxe for example upscale everything to a fixed rate. When i set Tidal for example to disable software decoding of MQA, The rate is changing from 44.1 to 48 depending on the track . Otherwise It plays the rate that I set up.

My speakers are the Jamo classic 8

P.s- I think I fixed the problem that I had with Tidal when I was switching songs. I just plugged a 5v ac(a good one)
 
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linuxfan

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Usually the software take over the rate
Ah, upsampling is possibly why you are getting good results via HDMI.
But there are surely applications on your laptop which will output 44.1kHz sources at (native) 44.1 kHz output - in fact I see in your photo in post #71 the D90 displays "44.1kHz" though, in that particular situation I see you have connected via USB.
The reason I ask is that I suspect your HDMI interface will not allow a true 44.1kHz output - that's the nature of most HDMI interfaces ...
but the point is moot.

I see that your playback equipment and software are somewhat musician/studio/stage oriented. Component matching for such a system may be quite different to matching components for classic hifi gear. I have a feeling the HDMI signal chain may be adding a particular characteristic to the audio, which sounds good to you with your particular playback equipment, not dissimilar to how the FX-Audio tube preamplifier adds a particular characteristic, also;
https://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/fx-audio-6j1-tube-preamp-a-31-wonder.848535/

It sounds to me this is a case of "horses for courses".
 

fabien32

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Some songs are 44.1 and other 48. I can make a video if you like?
The photo i sent was just to show my gear
 
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fabien32

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So you're saying the D90 will show "44.1kHz" via HDMI?
Not only saying, I made a video for you to prove it. but apparently it's too big(237mb) . I can upload it via hugefiles service if you really want?
 

linuxfan

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There's no need to quote my post when your reply immediately follows mine - it makes the forum messy.

No, I don't need to see a video - your word is good enough for me. I think you have an HDMI interface than is better than most. I may buy one of those eBay HDMI extractors to try out, myself, some time.
But I still think my comments about your HDMI signal chain adding some form of character to the sound remain relevant.
 
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