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Study: Is I²S interface better for DACs than S/PDIF or USB?

Audio Alchemy, Camelot Technology and Sonic Frontiers, all now defunct, were the ones who move I2S into the intercomponent sphere. I wrote two DIY articles about it in AudioAmateur 3/1995 and 1/1997.

Noted. Being the snot nosed kid that I am, I had only just entered my raging hormone teen years back then :)
 
I remember back in 2006 we were representing M2Tech and their very new s/pdif - usb ‘HiFace’ converter, there were only a couple of devices around back then, updating drivers was a bit of a pain though.
Keith
 
And all the glowing reviews of the HiFace being somehow better "sounding" :D
gosh I remember people even discussing on the best firmware update...
 
Much later I saw some measurements for their ‘Young’ dac ( which included the USB/s/pdif) it wasn’t great but good enough.
At that time there wasn’t that many options to connect your laptop to your system.
Daniel Weiss used firewire which was fine if you were an Appple user, there was a US firm a small outfit?
Keith
 
There is no need to involve AMANERO or anyone else developing specific USB Audio interfaces, because from my point of view, they have no reason to exist. The philosophy behind using a PC, streamer, or Raspberry Pi is to provide to the DAC with a clean DATA file input, which is already inherently jitter-free, directly through a USB port or any port a PC uses to exchange data with peripherals.
I am not sure I understand. USB Audio is a specification how to pass audio data directly over USB port in a standardized way.
 
Anyone remember this:
i2se.JPG
 
The chap behind Amenero is I believe the same guy who wrote the code for M2Tech.
I remember there was a spat regarding actual ownership of said code which led to M2Tech components simply not working with Apple, which was tricky!
Secure your intellectual property,
Keith
 
Sure. It is as much an I2S connector as are HDMI and DIN.
Hello Mr. Rubinson,
I read your posts on Stereophile for multichannel audio and really appreciated your reviews of pro-gear. Not everybody can afford a Datasat AP 25 or Storm Elite, so pro-gear make a lot of sense .
It is possible to use a computer/workstation to deliver via an audio-card 16 to 32 channels of Atmos digital signals to active speakers wirh a digital input ( such a the new Neumann and Genelec) ? A Dolby Atmos license for the computer would be needed. Also, the Audio-cards would need a digital volume control ?
If not possible , then the the digital Atmos stream would be transferred to an interface ( Merging ,Audient etc..) that would have digital outputs with volume control.
What is the easiest and cheaper way to do this ?
René; Newbie to real audio ( but an old audiophile fool in a previous life).
 
Hello Mr. Rubinson,
I read your posts on Stereophile for multichannel audio and really appreciated your reviews of pro-gear. Not everybody can afford a Datasat AP 25 or Storm Elite, so pro-gear make a lot of sense .
It is possible to use a computer/workstation to deliver via an audio-card 16 to 32 channels of Atmos digital signals to active speakers wirh a digital input ( such a the new Neumann and Genelec) ? A Dolby Atmos license for the computer would be needed. Also, the Audio-cards would need a digital volume control ?
If not possible , then the the digital Atmos stream would be transferred to an interface ( Merging ,Audient etc..) that would have digital outputs with volume control.
What is the easiest and cheaper way to do this ?
René; Newbie to real audio ( but an old audiophile fool in a previous life).
There is no easy way at this moment.
 
Thank-you.
I realize that unfortunately . I don't know why Marantz or Yamaha do not offer a digital path to their xlr,s outputs as the volume control is apparently already in the digital domain. If that is true, would it be simple for a technician to bypass the analogue conversion and bring the digital channels directly to the xlr,s. That would mean that only a server would be needed to output to the digital receiver as the receiver would separate and control the digital volume and channels while also be Dirac compliant. Possible ?
Thanks, R
 
Marantz or Yamaha do not offer a digital path to their xlr,s outputs as the volume control is apparently already in the digital domain
What products are we talking about here?
 
I don't know why Marantz or Yamaha do not offer a digital path to their xlr,s outputs...

HDCP and DRM mainly I'm guessing.
 
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