Intona USB 3.0 Isolator Review

[MC_RME]

I have it. It gets extremely hot and caused my interface gui to hang occasionally, something that's incredibly rare. It did take care of the noise though.

The Babyface runs bus powered. All you need is a power supply for the Babyface, then the isolator stays cold and the Babyface will no longer become unstable due to too low supply current.

 

[jivex5k]

The Babyface runs bus powered. All you need is a power supply for the Babyface, then the isolator stays cold and the Babyface will no longer become unstable due to too low supply current.

This worked, I can return my modius now. Thanks!

I'm still curious what causes this to happen, and how it would be eliminated at the source. It's related to my GPU somehow but maybe the noise is just low enough to not be audible with the GPU removed.

 

[antcollinet]

I see. Would the fact that I remove the GPU and the noise disappears rule out a ground loop?

I still get the noise running balanced interconnects throughout.

RME babyface XLR -> Cayin HA-6A XLR -> 4 pin XLR out -> ZMF Atrium

No, the GPU can be the source of ground noise. However, the fact you have a completely balanced analogue chain makes me less confident of the ground loop diagnosis - if they are genuinely balanced.

Do you have an optical output from the PC you could try to the RME in place of the USB?

 

[jivex5k]

No, the GPU can be the source of ground noise. However, the fact you have a completely balanced analogue chain makes me less confident of the ground loop diagnosis - if they are genuinely balanced.

Do you have an optical output from the PC you could try to the RME in place of the USB?

Yep, running the optical out from my motherboard eliminated the noise as long as the RME was not powered via the PC.

- Also running the RME off my laptop, whether the laptop is plugged in or not, eliminated the noise as well.

The problem is solved now with the dc power into the babyface and the Babyface USB with the topping hs02 in the middle, and subjectively id say sounds better vs running the toslink optical to the Modius E, but objectively I question that. I did a very unscientific blind test with a friend using the laptop to check toslink to modius vs RME directly to the amp and couldn't tell the difference.

It is a different DAC, but I question my ability to tell the difference. Anyway that saves me an extra 140 bucks and my brain tells me it even sounds better which is nice.

Still, it would be nice to know how to solve the actual source of the noise without removing my gpu vs filtering it out in the chain.

 

[paudio]

Yep, running the optical out from my motherboard eliminated the noise as long as the RME was not powered via the PC.

- Also running the RME off my laptop, whether the laptop is plugged in or not, eliminated the noise as well.

The problem is solved now with the dc power into the babyface and the Babyface USB with the topping hs02 in the middle, and subjectively id say sounds better vs running the toslink optical to the Modius E, but objectively I question that. I did a very unscientific blind test with a friend using the laptop to check toslink to modius vs RME directly to the amp and couldn't tell the difference.

It is a different DAC, but I question my ability to tell the difference. Anyway that saves me an extra 140 bucks and my brain tells me it even sounds better which is nice.

Still, it would be nice to know how to solve the actual source of the noise without removing my gpu vs filtering it out in the chain.

Certain devices just cause noise and one of the devices in the chain after the RME are grounded which means there is an additional path to ground. Thus you have a ground loop. PC's have tons of stuff going on in them so ideally one just isolates all that crazy hardware from their audio hardware if their audio hardware is grounded.

 

[jivex5k]

Certain devices just cause noise and one of the devices in the chain after the RME are grounded which means there is an additional path to ground. Thus you have a ground loop. PC's have tons of stuff going on in them so ideally one just isolates all that crazy hardware from their audio hardware if their audio hardware is grounded.

Interesting, so the noise is taking another path to ground when I connect my amp to my PC through the RME.

If I'm understanding correctly it seems like it would be extremely difficult to eliminate the noise at the source itself due to the nature of the PC, both in the complexity and the concentration of so many different electrical components.

You know what's funny though, my bottlehead crack never had the noise, perhaps the HA-6A is just much more sensitive to noise.

 

[paudio]

Interesting, so the noise is taking another path to ground when I connect my amp to my PC through the RME.

If I'm understanding correctly it seems like it would be extremely difficult to eliminate the noise at the source itself due to the nature of the PC, both in the complexity and the concentration of so many different electrical components.

You know what's funny though, my bottlehead crack never had the noise, perhaps the HA-6A is just much more sensitive to noise.

Well what device has a grounded power plug? Looks like maybe both of them. Lots of devices have a ground lift for XLR as well. Will be grounded on just one side.

 

[jivex5k]

Well what device has a grounded power plug? Looks like maybe both of them. Lots of devices have a ground lift for XLR as well. Will be grounded on just one side.

Yeah the amp and the PC have grounded power plugs.

 

[antcollinet]

Yeah the amp and the PC have grounded power plugs.

I'm tempted to worry if one of your XLR cables is faulty.

 

[jivex5k]

I'm tempted to worry if one of your XLR cables is faulty.

I'm using brand new mogami XLR for everything and the headphone cable is equally new, just got the headphones a couple weeks ago.

 

[Sokel]

PC noises must be made by magic.They are not ground loops,that's confirmed in diy audio by various tries,it's just noise that couples with everything in it's path,specially CPU and GPU noise but also fans,etc.

The only solution is either luck (luck is on the Gigabyte side as I have seen,either that or they take better care) or galvanic isolation,to me that is a must in a proper DAC.

 

[jivex5k]

PC noises must be made by magic.They are not ground loops,that's confirmed in diy audio by various tries,it's just noise that couples with everything in it's path,specially CPU and GPU noise but also fans,etc.

The only solution is either luck (luck is on the Gigabyte side as I have seen,either that or they take better care) or galvanic isolation,to me that is a must in a proper DAC.

It's not like I have some cheap DAC though, it's RME. That's what threw me off about seeing all the comments saying "just get a better DAC".

 

[Sokel]

It's not like I have some cheap DAC though, it's RME. That's what threw me off about seeing all the comments saying "just get a better DAC".

It's not about cheap or not,is just is what it is.RME is amazing but it's target is prosumer,things there are different.

 

[jivex5k]

It's not about cheap or not,is just is what it is.RME is amazing but it's target is prosumer,things there are different.

Yeah that's a great point, probably not a lot of people gaming over a Babyface. And it really is amazing in terms of audio routing and asio performance.

 

[Sokel]

It's not like I have some cheap DAC though, it's RME. That's what threw me off about seeing all the comments saying "just get a better DAC".

Talking about luck,what you see in the graph,is a 10 yo PC with a GTX660 Ti GPU to a 13 yo interface,unbalanced loopback,no isolators,no nothing:



(I keep it for measurements,I know I will not be that lucky again,my wife's brand new Mac has more noise! )

I think isolation is a must and the way to measure the before and after too.

Just have a look at the Cosmos's thread to see to what lengths one has to go (all battery powered,isolations,etc) to get a clean measurement and after that think the real world scenarios.

Edit:For those skeptical about the loopback,here's with an external unbalanced DAC 6m away plugged to a different socket:



(pure-pure luck)

 

[nagster]

Some intona products are on discount.

Signal Processing Devices, Made in Germany

Inventor of USB 2.0 High Speed Isolator

intona.eu