Some time ago I did HDMI jitter analysis and comparison of a few digital devices with moderately sensitive DAC. The article can be found here and its pdf version here. It was written on the basis of highlighting jitter reduction performance of our product, which was reviewed by Amir on this site a while back. So, to make things clear, it as product promotion article but some can find it useful for better understanding of theory as well as practical manifestation of jitter associated with HDMI.
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HDMI to IIS/Coax DoP Converter
- Thread starter amirm
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I hope you are using Roon with those things
Especially ESS-based dacs, which can be viewed as jitter-free or jitter-tolerant.
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So is DUO an acronym then, name of some AV tech/standard/protocol, or just duo (as in two/dual)?
raif71
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LOL...you must have read my post in this thread. To me it was worth the trouble. Yes lots of cable but to solve playing sacd and output it to a DAC with dsd showing, priceless.
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Great read and useful links included. Thanks for that!
Chilli
Member
I've used one of these with a Sabaj a20d 2022 dac. Using the adjustable pll it worked with my apple tv.
I use a different hdmi device now, which has 2 hdmi inputs as I have an android box and an apple tv. And feed the digital to an old HT amp/receiver, which locks on better than my old D50.
I use a different hdmi device now, which has 2 hdmi inputs as I have an android box and an apple tv. And feed the digital to an old HT amp/receiver, which locks on better than my old D50.
I still swear by this thing. Jitter be damned I use two of them in different rooms, to de-embed the digital audio streams from my OPPO UDP-203 and Sony UBP-X1100ES Blu ray audio/SACD players into my Topping d90se DACs, and get a hiccup-free DSD 64 signal from my SACD discs (and a PCM 96-24 bit for Blu ray audio) that sounds fabulous to my ears. It also supports multichannel audio, and with the DSEE Extreme setting engaged on my Sony player, Red Book CDs are upsampled to PCM 88.2, for what that’s worth (probably nothing, but the placebo effect can be euphoric in some situations).
Maybe it’s all for naught, but it’s awfully satisfying to see it all working so nicely, especially since the S/PDIF outputs on all SACD players (save for PS Audio’s blasphemous DirectStream conjob) are all down sampled to 88.2/24 PCM per Sony’s DRM restrictions. Thing thingamajig has given me the only possible route to make use of all the dozens of SACD discs I bought before the streaming era. It’s a very satisfying option for nerds and the OCD-stricken folks like me out there. We are legion…
Maybe it’s all for naught, but it’s awfully satisfying to see it all working so nicely, especially since the S/PDIF outputs on all SACD players (save for PS Audio’s blasphemous DirectStream conjob) are all down sampled to 88.2/24 PCM per Sony’s DRM restrictions. Thing thingamajig has given me the only possible route to make use of all the dozens of SACD discs I bought before the streaming era. It’s a very satisfying option for nerds and the OCD-stricken folks like me out there. We are legion…
Sorry, I cannot see how this extractor with a single SPDIF/TOSLINK/I2S output port can support/extract multichannel DSD, can you please elaborate?
Agreed.
I don't know of a DSD compatible DAC in the last 25 years that outputted 5.1 analog from SPDIF / I2S traditional or HDMI size port.
I Pavel is probably right; I don't know of any device that takes a HDMI DSD / PCM multichannel input stream and de-jitters and converts back to HDMI.
We should test this device with the Eversolo DMP A6 and a Sony Blu-Ray Player UBP-X800M2 to see if it works with HDMI multichannel pass-through inputs and outputs. Would it improve the sound, increase or decrease the jitter?
You cannot get multichannel DSD over S/PDIF, the best you have is 2-channel DoP (DSD over PCM). The only 5.1 multichannel over SPDIF is AC3 bitstream or similar.
To be honest, there is no point doing so. Extract audio from HDMI, de-jitter and embed back to HDMI? You have just came back to square one. HDMI=jitter.
The only solution to multichannel DSD is extract it from HDMI, de-jitter and output via multiple S/PDIF or I2S lines - 3x SPDIF for 5.1 multichannel DSD. That is exactly what our VanityPRO does. There are not that many multichannel DACs (like OKTO DAC8PRO) but you could also gang up 2-4 stereo DACs to achieve the same.
Oy I wanted to use the VanityPro to reduce jitter with the HDMI inputs and outputs of the VanityPro with Apple Music. I thought that was possible.
Well, it is not about being possible or not, but for the reason above it makes no sense. The idea behind dejittering HDMI audio is to get it away from the HDMI realm and use more audio friendly interface down the line. Feel free to PM me with the details of your setup to see if the VanityPRO could help and how.
Ignore me. I was thinking of my Kanex Pro HAECOAX audio extractor I use for de-embedding compressed multichannel audio from my Blu ray player, which is also my SACD player. That one has the toggle on it to switch from 2 channel to multichannel. This box will pass DSD natively from HDMI to I2S for my Topping d90se, which is what I use it for. As you implied I2S is by design two channels only, thanks for catching my transient stroke I had there.
I use this HDMI audio extractor with a Sony UBP X-800 M2 UHD BD player, which also plays SACD/DSD files and DVD-Audio, and a SMSL DO 300EX D/A converter that features top of the line AKM D/A chipset (it's a two IC's implementation with one IC doing oversampling and Delta/Sigma modulation that is passed to the second IC that does actual Digital to Analogue conversión).
The SMSL DO 300EX features a second order PLL jitter reduction IC but It only works with S/PDIF and TosLink inputs, not USB neither I²S inputs.
I Don't know if the AKM chipset used on the SMSL DO 300EX has any kind of jitter reduction capabilitiy like Sabre ones.
The fact is that with the combination of Sony UBP X-800 M2 and SMSL DO 300EX, with this HDMI audio extractor in between, I get some unexpected results, I elaborate: I²S input sounds the best to me despite this input on the DO 300EX bypasses the PLL jitter reduction. S/PDIF output of this HDMI audio extractor sounds fine, either with PCM at Red Book or 96/24 and 192/24 resolution and DSD 64 from SACD's or DSD files (from my ripped SACD's) output as DoP. Still, I²S sounds better than S/PDIF despite It passes through the PLL jitter reduction and I²S doesn't. Weird...
I also connected the Sony's UBP X-800 M2 S/PDIF output to the DO 300EX S/PDIF input playing PCM at Red Book and 96/24 and 192/24 resolution s, same here, the PCM digital data passes through the PLL jitter reduction, and still playing the same PCM material, I²S input sounds best.
How can this be possible?
S/PDIF Signal passes through a jitter reduction IC, I²S doesn't, but I²S sounds better than S/PDIF. Maybe the PLL jitter reduction IC on the DO 300EX doesn't perform very well.
The SMSL DO 300EX features a second order PLL jitter reduction IC but It only works with S/PDIF and TosLink inputs, not USB neither I²S inputs.
I Don't know if the AKM chipset used on the SMSL DO 300EX has any kind of jitter reduction capabilitiy like Sabre ones.
The fact is that with the combination of Sony UBP X-800 M2 and SMSL DO 300EX, with this HDMI audio extractor in between, I get some unexpected results, I elaborate: I²S input sounds the best to me despite this input on the DO 300EX bypasses the PLL jitter reduction. S/PDIF output of this HDMI audio extractor sounds fine, either with PCM at Red Book or 96/24 and 192/24 resolution and DSD 64 from SACD's or DSD files (from my ripped SACD's) output as DoP. Still, I²S sounds better than S/PDIF despite It passes through the PLL jitter reduction and I²S doesn't. Weird...
I also connected the Sony's UBP X-800 M2 S/PDIF output to the DO 300EX S/PDIF input playing PCM at Red Book and 96/24 and 192/24 resolution s, same here, the PCM digital data passes through the PLL jitter reduction, and still playing the same PCM material, I²S input sounds best.
How can this be possible?
S/PDIF Signal passes through a jitter reduction IC, I²S doesn't, but I²S sounds better than S/PDIF. Maybe the PLL jitter reduction IC on the DO 300EX doesn't perform very well.
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Hi Everyone
Problem Statement: proliferating short audio dropouts with this de-embedder.
Using this exact HDMI audio de-embedder also with the Sony UBP X-800 M2 UHD BD player, but then I feed into the Topping D70s MQA DAC:
Sony HDMI Video Out to a cheap small screen for disc operation,
HDMI Audio Out to the HDMI In of the extractor,
then from the IIS Out to the IIS In of the Topping.
Cabling is with reasonable, short HDMI 2.1 cables. The de-embedder is powered with a 5 V USB charger.
In principle, this worked perfectly for me, I really like what I hear from my quite substantial collection of SACDs or Audio Blu-Ray discs.
It "worked" because I'm struggling now with the following:
I have this set-up since 2 years now. At some point, the audio started to drop out for 0.5 to 1 or 2 seconds for SACDs and for audio BDs using the above connection - not so, when I take the audio from the Coax Out of the Sony. But then the whole setup would be pointless. For me, at least.
First rarely and after longer listening sessions (after 2-3 discs), then the dropouts gradually proceeded to occur earlier (as early as after 20 min) and ever more frequently, until up to every 5 to 10 sec. This behavior has massively build up over the last 12 months or so, that feels really weird to me. The dropouts are real "dropouts", not "pauses", the piece of music dropping out is just missing. There is no clicking, popping, or other noise. At some point I even noticed that the screen did not receive the (start screen) picture from the audio BD for about 1 sec.
-Did someone observe something similar building up with these de-embedders?
-Would it be conceivable these cheap boxes deteriorate over time?
-Anyone having other suggestions for trouble shooting?
Any advice is highly appreciated, thank you!!
Problem Statement: proliferating short audio dropouts with this de-embedder.
Using this exact HDMI audio de-embedder also with the Sony UBP X-800 M2 UHD BD player, but then I feed into the Topping D70s MQA DAC:
Sony HDMI Video Out to a cheap small screen for disc operation,
HDMI Audio Out to the HDMI In of the extractor,
then from the IIS Out to the IIS In of the Topping.
Cabling is with reasonable, short HDMI 2.1 cables. The de-embedder is powered with a 5 V USB charger.
In principle, this worked perfectly for me, I really like what I hear from my quite substantial collection of SACDs or Audio Blu-Ray discs.
It "worked" because I'm struggling now with the following:
I have this set-up since 2 years now. At some point, the audio started to drop out for 0.5 to 1 or 2 seconds for SACDs and for audio BDs using the above connection - not so, when I take the audio from the Coax Out of the Sony. But then the whole setup would be pointless. For me, at least.
First rarely and after longer listening sessions (after 2-3 discs), then the dropouts gradually proceeded to occur earlier (as early as after 20 min) and ever more frequently, until up to every 5 to 10 sec. This behavior has massively build up over the last 12 months or so, that feels really weird to me. The dropouts are real "dropouts", not "pauses", the piece of music dropping out is just missing. There is no clicking, popping, or other noise. At some point I even noticed that the screen did not receive the (start screen) picture from the audio BD for about 1 sec.
-Did someone observe something similar building up with these de-embedders?
-Would it be conceivable these cheap boxes deteriorate over time?
-Anyone having other suggestions for trouble shooting?
Any advice is highly appreciated, thank you!!
Dennis_FL
Addicted to Fun and Learning
I saw on another site that someone had trouble when he used a different power supply than the one that came with the unit.
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