Measurement and Review of TotalDAC D1 USB Cable

[amirm]

This is a measurement of Total DAC D1 USB cable and filter. Member dallasjustice loaned this to me last year and it has been waiting for the right setup for me to test it. Now that I have that (see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/do-usb-audio-cables-make-a-difference.1887/), I figured it was time to measure this cable.

This is a normal looking USB cable going in and out of a metal box that is about 2 inches long and 1.5 inch wide and 1 inch deep.

The one I have is gray and has no markings whatsoever. But otherwise looks the same, sans the extra length of the one I have. I estimate it to be around 2 meters/6 feet which their web site says retails for 360 euros. ex-VAT. That is about $428 at today's exchange rate. So not cheap at all.

The setup is as with the other thread with Sonore microRendu as the source (networked) player and the DAC, Schiit Modi 2. Here is a comparison of against generic long USB cable:

View attachment 8520

Yellow is the generic cable and red is TotalDAC d1 usb cable. As we see there is reduction of noise and distortion but fair amount remains.

Here is the comparison to a short USB cable (yellow):

We see that the short cable handily beats the TotalDAC d1.

So as we saw in the other thread, if you want the least noise, just use the shortest cable you can. That is the only thing that helps.

As before though, these results are only because the Schiit Modi 2 does so terribly. Replacing it with even cheaper but better designed Behringer UMC204HD, we get this comparison of long generic cable (in yellow) and TotalDAC d1 in red:

As we see the generic cable may be even slightly better than TotalDAC d1.

Summary
Using poorly designed DAC (Schiit Modi 2) we can show that the electrical output of the DAC changes some in favor of TotalDAC d1 USB cable and filter. Short cables though beat it in that setup.

Importantly when using a better DAC, the Behringer UMC204HD, the TotalDAC d1 cable provides no benefits at all.

Even the benefit shown with Schiit Modi 2 are below audibility.

So save your money and buy music, food or a gift for a loved one or favorite charity. Don't spend your money on products like this that don't show any useful improvement even when we magnify the measurements so much.

As always, feedback, corrections, comments, etc. are most welcome.

 

[AndrovichIV]

I wonder how many millions of dollars are spent every year in the snake oil audio industry

 

[Sal1950]

How strange, I though this to be a new report until I checked the date.
Almost 2 years old and not a single comment posted until today?

 

[amirm]

Surprises me too. I guess we didn't have the crowd we have then.

 

[solderdude]

Can't find any 'what's inside pics' but reckon it is merely a power supply rail filter only and signals pass unattenuated.
Maybe ... just maybe there are some ferrite beads around each data wire or something like that.

Or something like this:

 

[RayDunzl]

What's this, which seems to have power, but whose other legs are shorted by the data leads?

 

[THW]

reading the almost orgasmic reviews of this particular “filter” on the Internet really makes you wonder what drugs they’re taking when doing reviews for such products.

 

[fredoamigo]

It's still the same poetry... still very recently here for the "incredible "" gigafilter

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2019/08/04/totaldac-usb-gigafilter-review/

 

[graz_lag]

How strange, I though this to be a new report until I checked the date.
Almost 2 years old and not a single comment posted until today?

Me too, at first I thought it was a follow up of the review of the other piece of TotalCRAP of a TotalDAC ...

 

[watchnerd]

Can we unscrew the box and look inside?

Isn't there a bigger one that costs like over $1k?

 

[daftcombo]

Can we unscrew the box and look inside?

Isn't there a bigger one that costs like over $1k?

I would be surprised if there was anything in the black box actually.

 

[watchnerd]

I would be surprised if there was anything in the black box actually.

All the more reason to open it.

 

[daftcombo]

If our korean member @STUDIO51 could tell us what is going on in this review, I guess we would have another good bit of fun:

http://www.audioht.co.kr/m/?a_id=7151

Google translate excerpt:

The USB Giga Filter suppresses the noise component that can flow through the cable, making it feel as if the time has stopped running in the background. It also feels like it's raising the signal's density by 3%, which results in a hard bass, more mids, and extremely high treble. When I didn't connect the USB Gigafilter, I could see how noisy the treble was when I plugged it in, listened to it, and removed it. It's inherent to suppress what's bad with filters, and it's amazing how passive and active it is, and it's the most impressive USB cable I've ever experienced.

우는 것보다 웃는 것이 낫다

 

[watchnerd]

If our korean member @STUDIO51 could tell us what is going on in this review, I guess we would have another good bit of fun:

http://www.audioht.co.kr/m/?a_id=7151

Google translate excerp:



우는 것보다 웃는 것이 낫다

Google Translate derived quote, it's hard to tell if this is typical audiophile gibberish or a translation artifact:

"The USB Giga Filter suppresses the noise component that can flow through the cable, making it feel as if time is running out in the background, and the sound of each instrument sounds more clearly, giving a higher resolution. It also feels like it's raising the signal's density by 3%, which results in a hard bass, more mids, and extremely high treble. When I didn't connect the USB Gigafilter, I could see how noisy the treble was when I plugged it in, listened to it, and removed it. It's inherent to suppress what's bad with filters, and it's amazing how passive and active it is, and it's the most impressive USB cable I've ever experienced"

 

[THW]

i've also heard that when you unplug the USB cable, absolutely no sound comes out of your transducers.

 

[soundwave76]

'Black boxes' are now a hot topic in the AI / machine learning industry, i.e. it's very hard or impossible to figure out what happens inside a deep neural network with given input and the output. Seems like the same applies to this, literally a black box product.

 

[solderdude]

What's this, which seems to have power, but whose other legs are shorted by the data leads?

View attachment 27795

Didn't see your post ..

That is ESD protection which consists of low capacitance clamping dioded.
It is a single chip with a few components and 6 pins like for example the DALC208 for instance.
Overvoltage on the datalines is clamped to the VDD rail or GND rail.

This, however, may not even be used in this cable though.

 

[SDC]

It says the background is silent as if time has stopped.
Amazing depth in music, higher resolution achieved by enhanced timbre.
Sounds 3% more dense.
Bass hardens and Mid steps forward Highs are purified.

Drugs are illegal in Korea. I think he just drank too much, sentences are weird in Korean, too.

 

[graz_lag]

'Black boxes' are now a hot topic in the AI / machine learning industry, i.e. it's very hard or impossible to figure out what happens inside a deep neural network with given input and the output. Seems like the same applies to this, literally a black box product.

Like into this: https://audio-creativeshop.nl/product/bonn-n8-high-end-audio-network-switch/
Hahaha!

 

[ajawamnet]

This is a measurement of Total DAC D1 USB cable and filter. Member dallasjustice loaned this to me last year and it has been waiting for the right setup for me to test it. Now that I have that (see https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...s/do-usb-audio-cables-make-a-difference.1887/), I figured it was time to measure this cable.

This is a normal looking USB cable going in and out of a metal box that is about 2 inches long and 1.5 inch wide and 1 inch deep.
View attachment 8519

The one I have is gray and has no markings whatsoever. But otherwise looks the same, sans the extra length of the one I have. I estimate it to be around 2 meters/6 feet which their web site says retails for 360 euros. ex-VAT. That is about $428 at today's exchange rate. So not cheap at all.

The setup is as with the other thread with Sonore microRendu as the source (networked) player and the DAC, Schiit Modi 2. Here is a comparison of against generic long USB cable:

View attachment 8520

Yellow is the generic cable and red is TotalDAC d1 usb cable. As we see there is reduction of noise and distortion but fair amount remains.

Here is the comparison to a short USB cable (yellow):

View attachment 8521

We see that the short cable handily beats the TotalDAC d1.

So as we saw in the other thread, if you want the least noise, just use the shortest cable you can. That is the only thing that helps.

As before though, these results are only because the Schiit Modi 2 does so terribly. Replacing it with even cheaper but better designed Behringer UMC204HD, we get this comparison of long generic cable (in yellow) and TotalDAC d1 in red:

View attachment 8522

As we see the generic cable may be even slightly better than TotalDAC d1.

Summary
Using poorly designed DAC (Schiit Modi 2) we can show that the electrical output of the DAC changes some in favor of TotalDAC d1 USB cable and filter. Short cables though beat it in that setup.

Importantly when using a better DAC, the Behringer UMC204HD, the TotalDAC d1 cable provides no benefits at all.

Even the benefit shown with Schiit Modi 2 are below audibility.

So save your money and buy music, food or a gift for a loved one or favorite charity. Don't spend your money on products like this that don't show any useful improvement even when we magnify the measurements so much.

As always, feedback, corrections, comments, etc. are most welcome.

Better designed Behringer UMC204HD? Glad to see they aren't so bad... I bought one of those to be a bit better than the old Sound Blaster for my bench PC.

See this photo:

I had to add transformers for balanced output - even tho the manual states TRS - it's not truly balanced outputs.

And it has some funky HF noisy shit riding on the outputs... had to add some caps to the unit itself...

Here's the noise of the UHD204 on a 440Hz sine and this is after I put Film cap on the outputs - this is the unbalanced P1 output; the main out is the same:

Here's the noise itself: