USB to SPDIF converter

'wychuah' made an interesting post at at M-Audio SuperDAC Group about Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX and Trends Audio UD-10

"It is so far, the only USB audio device that uses an asynchronous USB interface, meaning that the computer is slaved to the Audigy 2 NX's clock like a conventional transport connected via wordclock would be. As for how good this is as a transport... a Chinese forum has compared it against the Squeezebox and it came out on top; but on the other hand they think the UD-10 is ultimately a better transport."

http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=9103

ZD Net Review at
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/audio/0,1000000949,39146641,00.htm

It has an external PSU and a remote control.

SB Audigy 2 NX was recently discontinued in Europe. Price was nearly 100 Pounds in the UK. They are still for sale in Asia at around the same price.

If you are looking for a bargain, some refurbished units with 30-day warranty are being sold for under 30 Pounds plus P&P.
I just won for £35 all in

Seller is pauliansales-ltd
or do a search for "Audigy 2 NX" at
http://www.ebay.co.uk

 

Some months ago, based on strong recommendation, I bought a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX. Was about £100 new but can be picked up at eBay for around £30. Spec and details at
http://in.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=205&product=9103

It is mains powered and needs to be installed using drivers supplied. Also has various utilities thrown in buy I use foobar2000 and CDex.

I also feel that streaming ripped CDs sound better than the original CD. The error correction programs such as 'paranoia' combined with the processing power of the PC is way ahead of what is possible inside a CDP.

For streaming my current setup is:
NAS (hard drive for networking) > wireless router > wireless notebook > Creative Labs Audigy 2NX > DAC > Amp.

 

I've just resurected this old thread as I see it's been discussed before.

Has anyone tried one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HA-onfo-U2-US...766?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c0a9f74e Got to be worth a try at at 25 quid.

 

If all you want is a low quality USb to spdif converter than injects lots of correlated jtiter then yes.

Otherwise I'd save up a few more pounds and buy a 2nd hand hiface.

 

I know it may be cheap, but does that mean it's no good?

I'm not so sure. It looks, unlike most, as if it will output at whatever bitrate you set rather than settling for everything at 16/48 regardless of the original file format.

At the moment I'm using the coaxial digital out on my Audiophile 24/96 but that seems such a waste as it has good quality analogue outputs but, unfortunately, isn't noise free.

 

Well it reuses the 5v line to power all the chips, there's no additional regulation by each chip so they all share the same line noise.

There's only one Xo in there, probably a 12Mhz clock to synthesise all the required sampling rates- which means all your 44.1 multiples are Asynchronously resampled.

To its credit there is a small pulse transformer in there so they might galvanically decouple the spdif out from the USB input which is a step in the right direction.

You can only buy one and find out, I wouldn't expect miracles though.