caiman 2 usb not as good as coax?

[magical_mouse]

Hi, i have always found digital sounds flat compared with vinyl but when i compared a laptop (using fidelizer and foobar) into the usb input and compared it to the fiio x7 digital coax out to the caiman coax in the fiio sounded so much more alive - is this the dac or the fact that computer audio does not sound as good as a digital feed using coax from a fiio ?

any ideas or observation form personal experience?

thank you

d

[StanleyB]

If you are looking for the same kind of sound from the FIIO from a USB input then buy a FIIO with a USB output. That will answer all your questions.

[magical_mouse]

Hi, my original point is that the coax from a transport e.g. fiio x7 was better, more alive, dynamic closer to vinyl than the usb from a laptop on the caiman2 and i wondered why?

BTW the fiio x7 does not have usb output (yet) - my issue is that to me the usb on the caiman sounds inferior to the coax and i wonder if it usb that is the issue.

d

[alexk0il]

Hi, i have always found digital sounds flat compared with vinyl but when i compared a laptop (using fidelizer and foobar) into the usb input and compared it to the fiio x7 digital coax out to the caiman coax in the fiio sounded so much more alive - is this the dac or the fact that computer audio does not sound as good as a digital feed using coax from a fiio ?

any ideas or observation form personal experience?

thank you

d

Difficult to say without doing apples-to-apples comparison as suggested by Stan. Alternatively, you can also try your DAC with a PC that has a decent sound-card with toslinks or digital coax outputs to see if ti makes any difference over the USB.

Anyway, USB output from PC has a lot of analog noise plus cheap USB cables can pick up extra noise. The analog noise with digital protocols such as USB is translated into a jitter that might contribute to incorrectly recovered USB clock.

Replacing an ultra-cheap USB cable with the cable that has two ferrite chokes has significantly improved the sound of my other non-Beresford USB DAC, so it may work for you too. I'm sure you can find better cables, some of the dedicated audiophile grade USB cables may cost 10 times more than you paid for your DAC. :)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008VOPCGY. (https://www.whathifi.com/audioquest/jitterbug/review)

You can also try to further improve your sound by an active USB filtering device, something similar to this, though there is a chance that SEG already has a proper USB jitter cleaning circuitry in place. https://www.whathifi.com/audioquest/jitterbug/review (https://www.whathifi.com/audioquest/jitterbug/review)

Good luck
Alex