WaveIO USB -> I2S for input to Najda DSP DAC/PRE/X/O - bit of soldering

[Magna Audio]

I have long known that there must me something better than serving music from Jriver on my laptop through a Behringer UC-202, to optical and into SPDIF input into Najda!

Firstly the UC-202 can only handle 44100Hz and I have quite a few higher sample rated albums, 48, 96, 192. In fact these sounded worse than 44, presumably due to the way it downsamples.

So attention turned to options - M2Tech that can handle 192 and a pal of mine brought one round. It worked and sounded good.
More open and composed, but I did not have it for long enough to really evaluate.

I looked on the DIYaudio sites and also what other Najda users recommended. The I2S route in to Najda is the way to go.

My Najda stuff write up is here for reference
http://www.hifiwigwam.com/showthread...ighlight=najda

The WaveIO from Luckit has good reviews and recommendations. So I ordered one. All the way from Romania.
http://luckit.biz/

http://luckit.biz/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/waveIO11-e1393969930893.png

It duly arrived and I plumbed it in yesterday. Needs tiding up with proper connectors and I have yet to install the Sample rate indicator LEDs...
Installation is 7 fiddly little connectors and a 3.3vdc from Najda's Expansion port1 had it working.
I decided to use the USB on board and power from PC as the simplest and my Laptop is confirmed as having enough juice to run it.
The easier to wire Isolated outputs were used.

The drivers to run WaveIO ASIO installed perfectly.

Next hurdle was to stop Jriver downsampling everything over 44100Hz to 48000!
I could see input side was 96 / 192 etc but all was output at 48! This was confirmed by the WaveIO driver app TUSBAudio Control panel, which shows the sample rate.
Nearly tore my hair out last night with it - the help files etc are not that helpful - hehe to me at least.

This morning I sussed it!
In Jriver you have to use DSP studio and change the output settings in the sample rate table so that the outputs reflect the inputs, then Jriver / windows leaves them alone. They are default set at 48000 for all above 48000 input!
The fact that you could change that side of the table had escaped my fervent clicking last night!

Now to pretty it up, take some pics and wire up the sample indicator LEDs to confirm what the SW says.

The support from Lucian Romega has been excellent and it is a really nicely assembled board.

I might explore the non-isolated outputs later. Lucian sent me a Farnell link for the micro plug on coax cables to do this.

I could also go external USB and external power but for now it plays and sounds good!

[Magna Audio]

Have cracked on and set up LED's for 44.1Khz, 48, 96, 192 and now as each track changes I can see it verified both in Jriver / ASIO driver SW and on the HW.
Nice to know.

All stuff is sounding better. Bass weight and speed is better than UC-202 and possibly better than Transport / Coax / Dac was.

Some hi-res files are sublime. Guess what I'm hitting all this rainy afternoon.

BTW came across this

http://www.highresaudio.com/index.php?sid=1&genre=&nv=k&page=1

Could get expensive!!!

[Magna Audio]

Clarification to what I wrote earlier, it is of course not the UC-202 that did downsampling but Jriver. I presumably could not have selected any higher in Jriver as it can tell from the device driver that it can't do higher.
So before I was able to set up the higher bit rates in Jriver with WaveIO I was comparing like with like at all bit rates, and WaveIO was much better. Even more so once the full potential is realised.

[Magna Audio]

I've plumbed it in nicely now with all the sampling rate LED indicators. Nice to see it flitting between 44.1, 88.2, 96 and 192 as the played rate changes.
I have one album at 384K which plays nicely and that is catered for by lighting the 96 and 192 LEDs :)

The sound quality continues to impress. I recently set up Najda so it would provide an un-X/O's output to SPDIF and into my trusty DPA enlightenment DAC.
That only works at 48KHz max so I had to create a new set up in Najda as my preferred rate into the horns is 96KHz.
Anyway with Najda fixing the down-sampling, all sounds great (unlike when Jriver was) into my little headphone amp and AKG701's.

Nice to have that working too so anything I want to stream is available with changing setting in Jriver!

Next thing to fix is a proper USB input socket on the Najda/WaveIO case...