"Sounds like a disease" lol... T+A (Theory plus Application) is a 45 year old German audio manufacture and makes some gear that rivals the most expensive Swiss manufactures (CH Precision). Harry's PA3100HV is a beautiful integrated amp (I might be a bit bias as I have the previous model the PA3000HV). Here in the United States a PA3100HV cost about $24k. Also you can add T+A's PS 3000 external power supply ($14,500). The amp is a very wide-bandwidth, dual-mono design and is balanced from input to output. It delivers 300Wpc into 8 ohms and 500Wpc into 4 ohms. The first 20W is delivered in pure class-A mode. The PA 3100 HV's preamp section is neutral and flat up to approximately 300kHz, and the amplifier section is flat out to 150kHz. The T+A 200 Dac - is also a very nice piece, priced at $7,125 in the U.S. it does DSD 1024 (the USB-B inputs are based on the new high-resolution Thesycon chip) and both PCM and DSD have their own converters. DSD files are processed using a true 1-bit converter - which processes DSD files in their native form. For PCM they use a quadruple converter that features a double symmetrical circuit design comprising eight 32-bit Burr-Brown converters. Harry, I am very curious as to what loud speakers you have the PA3100HV driving?
While i respect Paul a lot for everything he does, i must say that marketing talk got very strong here. T+A DAC200 is a great dac and strong competitor to PSAudio DSD DAC, also known by its DSD 1-bit output. Many DACs with i2S would not even get closer to DAC200. The best digital connection to this DAC is USB as it already has very good jitter elimination and support for higher samples like DSD1024 or PCM 768 (if you have the possibility of upsampling in a streamer to improve output quality) whereas other inputs are limited to 32bit 192Khz
Thank you very much Paul, the T+A has an I2S Input and I’ll try this one to see if there is a difference. And I am already using a Audioquest Coffee USB cable . Stay safe, Harry
I have a similar set up. Nucleus+ to my Dac. Things that made tremendous difference in sound are. The power linear supply for the nucleus. Mine is the Farad together with a power cable of the same company. My ethernet cable going into nucleus from the wall and the USB cable going into my Dac which are from nordost, model Valhalla 2
I squared S. That's exactly what my Cayin tube DAP has & something I've never even heard of until recently. I have a similar issue where I can connect via USB, 4.4 bal headphone out, line out, or good old network streaming through MConnect..and finally I squared S. Just bewildered by which to use into my preamp/Elac powered speakers. Whatever happened to just analog RCA :-) By the way T+A may be a rather amusing name as you stated...but this German firm makes great equipment...in particular their class-leading Solitaire headphones.
I have my Apple TV 4K connect to my Yamaha TSR700 by HDMI to stream music from my iMac and Apple Music. I also have a Sony XBP 700 HDMI connected to play CDs and SACD’s. They both sound amazing.
I'm using a Schiit Modi 3 dac and Nobsound class A preamp with my low cost yet powerful stereo rig. Need to order Topping D10S to try out DSD. Recently bought a 33 year old Adcom GFA 535 II power amp, 100 wpc @ 4 ohms. Two pair of Pioneer Andrew Jones BS-22 speakers, stacked in D'Appolito arrays, tweeters in the center, woofers on top and bottom. Bass response is jaw-dropping for such small woofers. Mid range and top end are also very satisfying for a $750 total investment.
i am pretty happy with my Topping D10S. i am huge fan of schiit but I made an A/B testing between Modi3 and D10S, and Topping was a clear winner for both me and my friend (disappointed owner of the schiit).
@@gilgalaad80 I love my Topping D50S but recently experience serious issues with Coax input. Signals won't lock. Topping is aware but it is out of warranty so I have to send it back on a slow boat to China... Probably not with it.. SIGH...
I2S isn't fully standardized and manufacturers use different pin configurations on HDMI ports, so they cannot be certain to work together with all other brands. That's the drawback.
Been asking Paul to cover this topic for at least 3 years... He probably just does not know.... Of course, the easy answer is use everything PSAudio... But it's always nice to have options. I continue to wait....
These Chinese DAC manufacturers - Denafrips and Musician Audio out of the same plant - have adjustable I2S outputs to match the DAC input. That is especially helpful unless and until the pinout is standardized among manufacturers.
Another great product that takes usb in and outputs to aes, coax, and I squared s is singxer. They made a range of those and their all good. For a while that is all the company made. Now they also do headphone amps. Also in the matrix range and a little more $$$ for higher performance models. Even the cheaper one does well.
Brandon... I appreciate this... I'll look into singxer - Do you know how I can find the device Paul was referring to? Googling "The Matrix" has its own inherent drawbacks...
Thanks! You will be happy to know a paper came out about cables from North Carolina U showing it is the movement of the wave along the line and the lines ability to handle it in a zero ohm characteristic that keeps the pattern. Electrons don't move, waves do and that pattern can get distorted and it will be most evident in decibels. I turned down my volume 14 db after switching to some good cables.
PC/Streamers -> DDC (I2S output) -> Dac (I2S input) -> tube pre -> Monoblocks -> speakers My preferred chain... Vinyl / R2R to a tube based phone (Manley) is also a nice chain. For DDC go Matrix SPDIF3, Gustard U18, Singxer SU2 KTE or SU6, Denafrips Gaia or Hermes.
I connect my streaner to the DAC using two high quality RCA plugs and just two, under 1mm very tiny cables, no shielding, now twisting or braiding, just two very small wires. Never heard any cable soundng better (it is a very nice cable sort). Just keep it simple.
@3:41 "Do remember that cables matter". Paul, you are 100% correct. I tested with three different cables, all of which work properly for the devices to which they are connected / originally intended. 1) The USB cable that came with my HP printer. 2) The USB cable that came with my multi-bay hard drive enclosure. 3) The Audioquest cable that I purchased from the store where I purchased my DAC. All three cables worked. They all sent the bits to my DAC, and I heard the music. For #1 and #2: For folks that never heard a resolving system, they would think that the music sounds fine. Everything is copacetic. For #3, the music blossomed. it was night and day different. Going back to #1 or #2 was like putting a muffler on the music. It lost all of the desirable qualities of musical reproduction. So it is not simply about all of the 0s and 1s that go through the cable. It is about those 0s and 1s arriving at the DAC in unison; evenly spaced; perfectly timed; no re-transmissions, etc. For a print job, you will not notice if there was a hiccup, causing a split-second delay for your print job. But for audio, it is very noticeable.
@Stéphane Cocquereaumont "What you experienced is 100% placebo effect. Hard to swallow maybe, but this is true." You made that up. You have zero knowledge of what I experienced. Tell me: Which cables have I done listening tests with? Which stereo equipment did I use for my listening tests? You do not know, and yet you claim to know that I experienced. You can claim the placebo effect. You can also claim that I was hypnotized, or I was dreaming, or I was exposed to hallucinatory rays from Mars. You, Stéphane Cocquereaumont, do not know what you are talking about.
Sorry to burst your bubble there, but packets don't arrive in unison. USB is not a steady data stream connection. It's sent in chunks. Watch any file transfer over USB and you'll see significant fluctuations in data transmission. But all that data is literally encoded digitally. There is no compression for transmission via USB. It sends the entire file. There is no basis for this argument in physics.
Digital cables do not matter as long as all the data is getting to the dac and likely the cheapest usb cable can carry audio files without issue. One important point also is that for many devices… ios devices for one can only deliver their highest quality 24bit/192khz audio via lightening (usb).
Came here to ask how you can have electrical interference in a digital signal. That doesn't make any sense. The data either arrives or it doesn't. Once it is analog, that is a totally different story.
@Douglas Blake I always tell people that noise in a digital signal is like looking at a blurry word you can still read. Yeah, the noise is there, but the signal itself is unaffected because the information still arrives in perfect form.
Cable really does makes sound differences as the better cable quality can send as much "sound signal", data to the I/O as possible, and vice versa, the low cable quality can not transport much signal from the source to the I/O.
So I just purchased a meter long i2s hdmi cable from ebay that happens to be made by you. It looks like an an older model but I can't find it anywhere to get the specs so it must not be for retail. It has a silver plating with PS audio logo in blue with a black braided cable. I bought it for that reason alone because it was made by ps audio. Any idea on specs with my description?
I use usb and it’s not noisy at all. Lies are funny to uncover, also to add the usb connection handles the highest sample rate and frequencies higher than any other connections along with hdmi
@Stéphane Cocquereaumont because you and the original poster don't have highly resolving systems (Mid-fi gear) and have not experienced hearing a difference in sound... That's the fact...I have two systems, one high resolution worth $50k... The other a vintage late 70s system... The $50k system sounds different with every type of cable I throw at it.. USB, i2s (HDMI), power and speaker cables... The 70s mid-fi system, zero change... Sorry try again
@@SantanKGhey1234 System "resolution" has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the only signal being passed through a USB cable is digital packets of information. Both the sending device and the receiving device are totally unaffected by noise on the transmitting cable. The receiving device controls the timing of the packets so there is no disparity between the digital clocks in the devices, thereby eliminating jitter over the USB cable. The only reason your "highly resolving" system sounds better is because your wallet is much lighter and therefore your body is more capable of feeling the sound waves.
Usually related to SACD transports... for PSAudio SACD transport, it looks like HDMI but it is NOT HDMI in the classic sense in High Def Audio/VIDEO on TVs / BluRay Players.. Some I2S implementation uses what looks like network connection (RJ45) but again, it is NOT meant to local area network connectivity but for I2S signals. It is confusing.
I don’t know how big of a difference cables matter, but I do know that noise travels through USB cables from source. Experienced it first hand. I do believe that UnisonUSB is at least on par with SPDIF interfaces though in 99% of cases. Perhaps even better in some
Isn't I2S like the wild wild west as there is no standardization of pin outs ? My worry is SACD layer playback of DSD tracks will not be compatible between SACD transport and the I2S input of the DSD capable DACs due to copyright issues unless one stick with the same brand of SACD transport and DSD DAC that has I2S inputs ? And I still don't understand why SACD DSD is limited to DSD64....
You can bypass that limitation when you stream your DSD audio instead of playing back from disc. It is quite easy to rip discs these days. The only question is whether you prefer playing back from the physical format or not. Edit: Oh and my answer applies to your 2nd question as well. SACD is limited to DSD64, but files can go up to DSD1024.
The best conection is where the clock is seperate to the digital signal. About 25 years ago dCS were first to use a seperate BNC for clock infomation. Accuphase used a ADHL link cable that is a like I2S and has a seperate clock. Most say that a standared BNC is best for digital transfer because its 75ohm. RCA and XLR are not.
How does cable impedance factor in? Would you also say SPDIF is a better cable than AES3, the latter of which has a 110 ohm impedance? I was with you up to that last sentence.
@@charlienyc1 I'm not a digital engineer so I don't know why 75Ohms is best. Its just the agreed standard that all manufacturers use when designing their equipment. The standard impedance on a coaxial cable is 75Ohm. Unfortunately, RCA and XLR connectors are not designed for digital application and cannot achieve 75Ohm. This is the reason RCA implement 50Ohm impedance, which could generate noises due to impedance mismatch. BNC is preferred because it implements 75Ohm for both cables and connectors, maintaining itself true to the standard.
@@davidfairchild1640 Yes, like USB, however as Paul said that's a two way connection that's so noisy he even recommended wifi instead which isn't much better.
informative video; but i have a question, isn't usb carrying digital signal? i mean you can connect hdds and other sort of peripherals over it but my point is: is the dac going to care about the other characteristics of 0s and 1s ?(unless its jitter or lag or perhaps magnitude jitter which usb doesn't have as far as i know, it was present in old digital communication protocols) i mean unless the interference or cable quality is EXTREMELY bad, the dac is not going to care about them at all, and for the 5v line, most of the dacs if not all of them (meaning good ones) have extremely paranoic filtration and most of them even have separate circuitry isolated from the audio circuitry, i may be and probably am wrong here so i would be extremely happy to see an explanation from you, thanks
If your DAC has good galvanic isolation, buffers and clocks properly I think buying a device that takes the USB and creates a clocked IIS is basically doing what the DAC does already (ie do we really believe an offboard stand alone devise that splits the USB into IIS is doing it better than high-end DAC is?). I agree that USB electrical noise can be a problem, but I have also experienced both accessory based galvanic isolation products (eg iFi nano iGalvanic) and DACs with very good USB implementations that include galvanic isolation and in both cases zero noise/issues. Electrical noise is as far as I can tell the only potential issue with USB. The data integrity is no issue at all and jitter also not an issue. If you have a budget DAC and a noisy computer then yes USB can be bad. Try a product like the nano iGalvanic and problem solved. If you have a hi end quality DAC with galvanic isolation for the USB then no problem I can see.. or hear lol.
@HD OM 20 years ago digital connections already existed and only morons using built-in DAC of a CD player while the dumbest of them buy expensive players with better DAC - smart people skip it
If I connect an hdmi audio extractor to my laptop hdmi port....connect the toslink digital output port from the extractor to my DAC toslink input vs connecting a usb port from the laptop to the usb input port on the DAC.....which setup should sound better?
@@Douglas_Blake Actually.....I have my setup with 4 DACs.....a Topping E30....which is the main.....a Fiio BT30 for receiving wireless streaming from my LG G8x cel phone via LDAC code....an OriGen G2 and a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi.....All of them via USB (except the Fiio BT30) to my Laptop and then via Optical to the Topping E30 for then send the analog signal to the amp thru RCA cables.....For me is a Playground to switch between units and compare ...🙂
Those China made small boxes make a massive difference. Get the ones with femtosecond clocks. I best $200 i have spent! And those who want to experiment with cables but thought they were too expensive for a snake oil.. Well look at Chinese stores.. They are super cheap. And even if they don't change your sound they are definitely worth it for their bling value. They are gorgeous! Look it up.
I agreed on comment below me cuz im portable hifi guys, carried with me iem n q5s tc (dac amp module) said the highest connections 1st usb 2nd bluetooth in this case 5.0 3rd line in or optical or coax..Any comment sir?..peace!
I use Ethernet out of my Nucleus, like many owners - the USB is used for the external backup SSD in my case And, a Nucleus is a PC, an intel NUC in a party dress
True, but most entry motherboards no longer carry the connector, not even the pins on the board nevermind the toslink connector. Also, we need new optical interface to carry audio signals that can carry a huge bandwidth increase compared to spdif. It's perfectly possible, but the audio industry does not seem the least bit interested in doing it.
@@medonk12rs If you think of noise from your computer as 5v noise and house GND. then spdif optical are the best Since you don't get this via optical. Optical up to max 10 meters, but preferably as short as possible?
@@ford1546 Don't know about max viable cable lengths. But -- in my humble experience with only a limited number of Computer/Streamer/DAC combinations, optical was not once the best choise. Typically from worse to better sound quality the order I got was Optical SPDIF -- Coax SPDIF -- USB. Note that also via USB there can be differences, depending on the feeding device (Computer or - much better: dedicated high quality steamer) and the USB cable quality. Unfortunately Paul is right -- again -- about USB cable quality.
LOL why not sell the power plants @ Audio Advice in Raleigh NC? Have you ever thought to market power correction systems in areas with known poor power. Like downtown Philadelphia LOL.
I don't think recommending a ddc in that price range would benefit an aries g2. The g2 probably does a better job by itself than adding a ddc to it. Just my 2cents.
I spent $10000 on cables and my system sounds so much better. I have a Wind-up Gramophone and placing the cables next to the winding handle has made a huge improvement. 😊
Paul is right. The litter box can connect HDMI to i2s: Sony UBP-X800M2 (HDMI output) connects to Ladder Schumann DAC (i2s input) (pls read description) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6yJuO1oNsis.html
@@ZeusTheTornado idk it's Cardas man. I like it's sound much better than when compared to my Audioquest Diamond which I sold. I had a trial period and just preferred the Cardas.
@@LuxAudio389 To me that's crazy, I bought a certified USB cable from the Thomson brand for 4 or 5 euros and I don't plan to buy anything else, it's short and thick enough for me to be comfortable with it, to me with USB and optical cables are bits in bits out. I'd have to see substantial a series of measurements that show expensive/better cables are worth it, and I must say that so far I've only seen measurements that show the contrary
This video makes me think about starting a company selling snake oil USB cables at US$10,000 produced at US$5 with nice packaging and expensive looking cable and connectors. Paul will secure me some customers.
You watch a lot of the same videos I watch..😎🤗👍 Except Mori. Everyone ❤️’s Mori, on and off the stage. Japan’s darling 😍 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6DF1B8MYZkU.html
I think the poser of this question should be asking this of the engineers at T + A, not Paul. I mean, it sounds like Paul isn't even familiar with T + A and they are one of the greatest companies on the planet making DACs that compete with MSB and Wadax at a far lesser price.
Of course cables matter.. PSAudio sells 2 meter power cables for $9900... or a PAUL’S REFERENCE AudioQuest Dragon ZERO 10 ft Speaker Cable for a mere $42,100 ! Yikes !!
You are hallucinating, if you own quality amp or gear , 150usd power cord can make nice difference over China made stock power cord made from scrap copper and worth 1.99usd
Paul... Or anyone else - Can you give us something to click into in regards to this "the matrix" device you speak of.... The internet is not exactly savvy with this kind of search.
I wish Paul would cover this topic... I2S and it's caveats in playing DSD layer of an SACD and mixing / matching brands... Been asking for..... 3 years.. Maybe he does not know ????
@@ptg01 There is a lot of variables of the audio chain there , some USB inputs on some DACs are done well and difference from I2S link will not be as dramatic .
@@ptg01 i thought he did , how clock and data are split and send separately from output to input and not squeezed together to be later separated in SPDIF ... I hope there was a quality CD transport for around 700usd offering i2s as so many folks have large CD collections and CD will come back like vinyl just did ....
Sometimes his answers are completely off. This is one of them. Of course usb cables don't matter. It's a digital signal. Check Amir's channel. But I like Paul.
I just didn't know that A USB Cable betweent the iphone and the external DAC could make that big a difference. If you can't trust Paul for the benifit of the doubt then go be a flippin' NAYSAYER, I want the good shit not LoFi....
"Amir at audio science review found that cables make no significant difference." Amir is not a scientist. Amir refuses to confirm his conclusions, by way of performing listening tests on high-end stereos. Since you can hear a dramatic difference in cables, and Amir insists that you cannot, then either Amir is lying or incompetent. It is not about all of the testing that Amir has done, and done correclty. Rather, it is about the testing that Amir has not done; that Amir refuses to do. If your car's brakes are not working too good, and your mechanic shows you that he tested "X", "Y", and "Z", and all is well, do you just drive away satisfied? Of course not. You know that you have an issue with your brakes. So you go elsewhere, and have an honest, competent mechanic test your brakes, and you discover that it is your car's master cylinder that needs to be replaced. So all of the tests from mechanic #1 were true. But it is the test that mechanic #1 never did that mattered. The stereo is the lab equipment. Your ears are part of the lab. Your ears can hear things that nothing in Amir's lab can measure. I am not talking about wishful thinking, or imagining hearing differences. I am talking about slap-in-the-face differences, that a person deaf in one ear could hear. Between Amir implying that he is a scientist, when he is not a scientist, as well as refusing to perform a proper listening test, Amir is not to be trusted.
@@NoEgg4u I find a fatal flaw in your otherwise correct statements: "Your ears are part of the lab." This CAN be true under the correct testing environment, but no audiophile that i know does it the proper way. I don't know if Amir is a scientist or not, but I am pretty sure I am. And to me, if you can't objectively or statistcally measure a thing, that thing does not exists. There is no "slap-in-the-face difference that a person deaf could hear" in a RU-vid comment that matters. But this is just my opinion, of course, and I am not here to change anyone's mind. Anyway, many people forget that music is just about passion and happiness. If a 2k dollars usb cable makes you happier and you enjoy your listening more, good for you, it's well spent money.
@@gilgalaad80 Problem is your ego cannot accept that more money buys better things. You can watch movies on a phone and be happy but watching in the cinema is of different level. Its same as with hifi.
@@NoEgg4u Amir is an engineer and a much better engineer than Paul. I've lost count of how many times pearl gets it wrong. If cables made a difference there would be a trial is that shows that. Because you can't point to one it means you're just trying to sell snake oil.
Here we go again😯 Paul is trying his best to sell you all his I2S system. As noted in the comments below I2S IS NOT very effective simply because there is no standard set so two I2S devices may or may not talk to each other. Furthermore, I2S is not a common feature on even high-end audio devices simply because there is no standard. So what about USB? Well, let's dispel the "audiophile" myths. First of all "noise" on USB cables is almost irrelevant. USB is connecting two digital devices and the only thing either device has any interest in is the digital information. Consider this: video has considerably higher bandwidth and timing considerations than audio, yet the video is easily transmitted over USB 2 with no ill effects. The issue of timing and jitter was solved years ago by the use of Asynchronous timing where the receiving device, the DAC's clock is used to "pull' the data from the source utilizing the clock of the receiving device. There IS NO timing disparity and thus no jitter is caused by timing through USB. USB is perfectly fine for transmitting audio.
Which cables have you tested with, to reach your conclusion that Paul is wrong about USB cables influencing the sound quality? Please list all of the components on the stereo you used to test various USB cables, that were the basis for your conclusion that Paul is wrong.
@@NoEgg4u Paul said a few years ago , that USB cable Signature from JCAT " was sent from heaven " Now he is quiet about that. I have it and it is awsome cable for the price ( but it is not cheap )
@@NoEgg4u I personally have a recording studio where I record 16 channels of audio over USB at 32bit 96 KHz audio with no issues with noise or jitter. However, for a more detailed analysis here is testing for you: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qXuBsdmEOAs.html
@@JonAnderhub "I personally have a recording studio where I record 16 channels of audio over USB at 32bit 96 KHz audio with no issues with noise or jitter." Anyone with a laptop and any number of mixing software applications has a recording studio. I never thought that I had jitter, until I replaced my mass produced USB cable with an Audioquest USB cable. The improvement was a religious experience (well, not quite -- but it was amazing). It is like being in a room and not noticing a sound, until that sound goes away. You then take notice. Once you minimize jitter, you will then recognize when you have it. Jitter is not a buzz or a noise that an untrained ear will hear. Jitter makes the music less spacious. But if your music already sounds spacious, and instruments / voices sound very good, you think that you do not have jitter. Then you find a way to minimize the jitter, and the instruments have bite, and texture, unlike anything you have yet to experience. If you do not use gear that is designed to minimize jitter, then you have jitter. I still have jitter. But I had quite a lot more, prior to using a quality USB cable. If you heard my stereo, you would say "What jitter?". I know that I have some, because I have heard my same stereo, in the store, with a transport designed to eliminate jitter (well, jitter can not be 100% eliminated). That transport is out of my reach. I am happy with what I have. I would be happier with that stand-alone transport.
@@papapapaw look at one of Paul's fanboys. You must be the guy that bought $5,000 interconnect cables. Now you feel you have to swear and lash out because you know you got ripped off.
