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If your card has noisy analogue out, but also has S/PDIF (coaxial or optical) digital out, cheap "OK" DACs exist

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First post, by darry

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I recently bought one of these [1] for 20 Canadian dollars to test it and eventually put it to use.

Basic testing (using an Amazon Basics brand USB 5V power adapter) has revealed that

- there is no audible background noise using headphones (Panasonic RP-HTX7)
- Physical volume control affects both headphone out and line-out (weird, IMHO)
- Optimal distortion characteristics are seen on my unit at around 50% volume control range or a bit less.

Differently branded but otherwise identical looking DAC + headphone amplifier (which also has S/PDIF passthrough, which I did not test) units are also sold under various other names. I presume these will have similar performance, but I cannot be certain [2]. @mods ,this not an endorsement or an attempt at publicity, and I apologize in advance if sharing these examples goes against forum policy.

AY113 is printed on the PCB and the main chips appear to possibly be a CS8416 clone or workalike as S/SPDIF receiver and a CS4334 clone or workalike as a DAC (based on my interpretation of chip markings).

Why I am writing all ? Because my unit honestly does not sound (IMHO) or measure (when looped through a MOTU M2 using RMAA) terrible :

The attachment AY113_values.png is no longer available

EDIT : Added missing units for values shown

More details :

The attachment rmaa_ay113.zip is no longer available

EDITL: Yes, I know that frequency response and distortion characteristics could be better, but for 20$ this isn't that bad, especially if someone is fighting a persistent noise, hiss or ground loop/hum issue and wants a low costs fix.

[1]
https://www.thesource.ca/en-ca/cables-adapter … ter/p/108095191

[2]
https://www.amazon.ca/Converter-Stereo-Digita … e/dp/B0CN9C4B4K
https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/opticalto-rca-co … PRD5DOYWQY5EJQC
https://www.aliexpress.com/i/1005005680693491.html

Reply 1 of 3, by darry

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For comparison, this is what a 100$ SMSL DS100 DAC gets (same methodology as the AY113 test, except the X-FI card is a PCIE SB0880).

The attachment DS100_.png is no longer available

Reply 3 of 3, by darry

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I agree, I was surprised by how good it is. I tested a few cheap S/PDIF DACs with line-out and they were all significantly worse.

I learned a few other things along the way.

- On many cheaper USB powered devices, the quality of the DC supply (if using an external PSU through a USB hub) can affect things significantly. A powered USB hub with a quality PSU can really make a measurable and sometimes very audible difference.
- Quality but not necessarily expensive shielded analogue audio cables help when using an unbalanced in/out
- Cheap hubs, (especially USB 3.0 ones from my experience) especially when bus powered can be terrible, to the point of causing dropouts in the USB datastream.
- Other causes of USB dropouts I have seen include cheaper USB cables and running the USB cable too close to the PC motherboard.
- Some devices deal better with noise picked ip over USB than others. If I plug a an Apple headphone dongle in a specific cheap unpowered USB 3.0 hub and play audio through it, I can crash audio playback just by moving a window fast enough in the Windows GUI. I can get my Terratec DMX 6Fire USB (which is not IT SB poeered) to crackle in the same setup. My MOTU M2 is impervious to any issues in the same context. In the case of the Terratec, plugging it directly into a back USB port or a powered Plugable USB 2.0 hub works perfectly as long as I don't run the USB cable too close to the motherboard (still outside the case). Using a high quality USB cable helps but does not completely eliminate issues if the cable runs too close to the motherboard.

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