Musical Fidelity V-Link

[jantheman]

Heads up for those that are interested.
Just found out that MF are producing an asynchronous USB to S/PDIF converter. Due out in Feb. Not yet listed on their website but it looks really good and the one online review I have read confirms that. There is a review in HiFi News but haven't seen that one.

Asynchronous USB
Up to 24/96
Selfpowered from USB
O/P to Coax and Toslink
Steel box like the other V series components.

Oh yes...a most importand point...How much...100 squids.

Online review is on another forum...please advise if I am allowed to post a link.....

[Reid Malenfant]

Cheers for the heads up Ray, sounds interesting indeed :)

[Krisbee]

I've been waiting on this one to see how it was implemented. I'm Linux based, so the Hiface thingy was no use to me as M2Tech are never going to provide Linux drivers. In any case there have been numerous reports of software glitches with the Hiface.

On paper, MF's V-Link is attractive as it works with Linux and code to make it work is in the main chip's firmware and is reportedly an all in-house development. It's curious they chose not to incorporate this in th new MF-DAC.

No doubt critics/modders will have something to say about it being powered by USB and it does not have galvanic isolation.

Proof's of the pudding is in the eating, so will have to see what kind of reception it gets amongst real users.

[Reid Malenfant]

No doubt critics/modders will have something to say about it being powered by USB and it does not have galvanic isolation.
Easy to get round that ;) All you need is a ferrite bead & some fine enameled copper wire & insulate the output socket from the chassis & Bob's your dads brother :)

[jantheman]

The review I read made a point about the galvanic isolation in that it said because there is a choice between Toslink and Coax O/P, if its an issue then use Toslink. That reviewer also found no discernable difference between the two outputs and emphasised that there were no issues with ground loops etc with the coax O/P. YMMV

I dont really see USB power as an issue, the HRT series of USB Dacs are all USB powered and are very well respected. Bearing in mind that most supplied offboard PSU's are slated and recommendations abound for replacements, USB power could be the saviour. Even MF recommend the V-PSU for all it's V series components so this one will save a few quid.
As always, it's in the implementation and as you have said...we will wait to see.

[bryan76]

Thanks Ray for the heads up, this does look really interesting. I think I must have read the same review you mentioned.

Can't wait to hear some feedback when people try this out. My setup is sounding awful at the moment, I am so close to buying a Touch, but I think I'll hang on :scratch:

[jantheman]

For information only, the V-link is now listed on MF's website.
http://www.musicalfidelity.com/products/V-Series/V-LINK/v-link.asp

[Krisbee]

Did MF just reproduce the Hifi News article or did Hifi News swallow MF's ad lines whole? All seems a bit incestuous. I'll just wait on real world feedback.

[jantheman]

Did MF just reproduce the Hifi News article or did Hifi News swallow MF's ad lines whole? All seems a bit incestuous. I'll just wait on real world feedback.
I haven't seen the HiFi News review. Are you saying that this is a copy of that review???
Have to say I did wonder as this write up isn't in the usual MF format.

[Krisbee]

I don't buy/read Hifi Mags, but what is posted on MF's website appears to be the same text as I have read elsewhere and supposedly comes at least in part from Hifi News.

As you say, it is not in the same format as their description of other "V" series devices and MF have not even posted a pic of the V-Link yet. Whereas retailers have splattered images all over the web.

MF are no different to other audio companies who demonstrate devices at shows and get their products reviewed in the hifi press before they are available to the general public. But they seem to have neglected their own website for some reason.

[Welder]

Just wondering, has anyone ever read a Hi Fi press review of any equipment they didn’t say was good :lol:

[jantheman]

For those interested...looks like they may be available by the end of February. I contacted an online retailer who is advertising them and he said they were on back order and due in about 3 weeks.

[wee tee cee]

Has anyone tried one yet.I run a MF1 DAC,would love to know if it improves on the already excellent USB sound.

[lurcher]

Just wondering, has anyone ever read a Hi Fi press review of any equipment they didn’t say was good :lol:

Not as such, but I do know that the mags will send kit back if its no good/broken and not review it.

[StanleyB]

Not as such, but I do know that the mags will send kit back if its no good/broken and not review it.
I always wondered why I never received any of my DACs back after sending them off for reviews. So now I know..

[lurcher]

I always wondered why I never received any of my DACs back after sending them off for reviews. So now I know..

Ahh, well, that would be a whole different matter :-)

[wee tee cee]

Got one this morning.Sounds good straight out the box.A wee bit more seperation and more revealing.Sounds a tad brighter than the usb straight into the dac.I will give it a bit of time to warm up/burn in.Im using one of mark grants glass toslinks and a belkin pro 5m usb.
Ill give it a thorough listen tonight with liberal amounts of bourbon and red wine to lubricate my lugs.

[jantheman]

Tony, I look forward to reading your findings.....

[Krisbee]

If it means anything, it has been reviewed here:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-spdif-converter-0

The innards look a bit sparse, but it's what is sounds like that's NB. It would be useful to get some real user feedback.

[Tim]

I think it's in this months HFN too

[wee tee cee]

Had a good listen to it last night.Found it has tightened things up a bit and has proved quite revealing on tracks I know well.
The MARK GRANT optical cable is a bit bright for my taste so latterly I tried a Atlas one which smoothed things out a bit.My son quite profetically said "with the MG optical your listening to the hi fi,with the Atlas your listening to the music"I will have to have a go with some co-ax and see how that goes.
My only criticism is that the two LEDs which I have at the back are helluva bright,bathing my cables in a lovely purple light which didnae half piss off my missus (highlighting the spagetti junction at the back)
Once ive settled on interconnects I will report back.

[DSJR]

That's worrying if two differing optical cables actually change the sonics. I mean, either one of them is altering the switching/timing of the data stream in some way, or the receiver in the DAC is malfunctioning :scratch:

[Reid Malenfant]

Or digital optical cables happen to sound different from each other just the same as digital coaxial :lol:

[Yomanze]

Got one this morning.Sounds good straight out the box.A wee bit more seperation and more revealing.Sounds a tad brighter than the usb straight into the dac.I will give it a bit of time to warm up/burn in.Im using one of mark grants glass toslinks and a belkin pro 5m usb.
Ill give it a thorough listen tonight with liberal amounts of bourbon and red wine to lubricate my lugs.

Interesting that you are saying 'a tad' and 'a wee bit'. Once you move away from soundcard and standard Mac/PC SPDIF outs there's a definite jump-up in quality, but when comparing dedicated USB to SPDIF devices there doesn't seem to be a massive difference between the good stuff. Thoughts? I am very tempted to grab an ART Legato and be done with it though! Annoys me that a lot of stuff e.g. Musical Fidelity & HagUSB doesn't offer BNC outputs.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

So where we up to with these things?
Seem to be able to pick em up for £80-£90
Currently using a external USB creative soundcard and 3 meters of qed cheap as chips interconnect as a digi coax into the majik ds as a dac... And to be honest it still sounds really good with spotify
I'm just wondering, with a one of these fellas and a decent cable just how much improvement am I likely to get?

[Stratmangler]

So where we up to with these things?
Seem to be able to pick em up for £80-£90
Currently using a external USB creative soundcard and 3 meters of qed cheap as chips interconnect as a digi coax into the majik ds as a dac... And to be honest it still sounds really good with spotify
I'm just wondering, with a one of these fellas and a decent cable just how much improvement am I likely to get?

Probably none more, just different :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

To be fair Chris, that's what I'm inclined to think ... I was hoping I might be told something else ...
I think I'm going to see if I can borrow one, or maybe see if I can get one on sale or return through the shop ...
It's only £100 (maybe a little more once ive got mark to make me a cable) but it's a £100 I'm just not into paying it for a minor change in sound
The creative thing is actually really good IMO ... A lot of superfluous features, and distinct lack of audiophile cred aside ... Beside the differences in presentation between tricked out caiman and majik ds that I am already aware of; pc-soundblaster-majik, vs pc-camian didnt prove definitive ... The majik was slightly more musical, the caiman slightly more analytical ... But that's how it is anyway! The sound blaster isn't the bottle neck I would expect it to be!
The problem is, it's starting to fail ... Now I could just buy another ... Or invest a few more penny's
Hence me posting here ... :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

All the audiophile reviews of the v-link seem to mention expensive USB cables ...
I thought that had pretty much had a line drawn through it ...
I bloody hate this hobby sometimes
Pesky mark grant/mike cables making me realise digi coax sound different, crap free sky hdmi cables making me see a difference ... And now I'm told even USB cables vary... Why can't I just take a god damn objective perspective and deny my self this nonsense, it would make life a lot easier!

[MCRU]

All the audiophile reviews of the v-link seem to mention expensive USB cables ...
I thought that had pretty much had a line drawn through it ...
I bloody hate this hobby sometimes
Pesky mark grant/mike cables making me realise digi coax sound different, crap free sky hdmi cables making me see a difference ... And now I'm told even USB cables vary... Why can't I just take a god damn objective perspective and deny my self this nonsense, it would make life a lot easier!

but cables don't make any difference m8 you should know that :lolsign:

[sburrell]

Hey, it seems one benefit of the V-Link no-one's yet touched on is it's compatibility with Integer Mode. Does that make this a worthwhile intermediate step betwixt computer and DAC for those whose computer's (Mac-owners, this means us) optical output doesn't support it?

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Hah ... I know where I stand with Marks interconnects. Makes fr a worry free life when I can put something into my system and know what I'm listening to ...
All my interconnects are g1000hd ... Every single one (bar the one in question as I didn't have a 3m one) ... There might be "better" I don't know, but I'm far past caring. I know what they do, how they do (or more accurately in my system don't) effect the sound, so I stick with them, as I say, it makes life much easier that way ...

[Stratmangler]

Hah ... I know where I stand with Marks interconnects. Makes fr a worry free life when I can put something into my system and know what I'm listening to ...
All my interconnects are g1000hd ... Every single one (bar the one in question as I didn't have a 3m one) ... There might be "better" I don't know, but I'm far past caring. I know what they do, how they do (or more accurately in my system don't) effect the sound, so I stick with them, as I say, it makes life much easier that way ...

So you're on the way to recovery then ? :lolsign:

I can't detect any difference in picture or sound quality between the 3 HDMI cables connected up here, and one of those was supplied with a Sky+HD box.
Your experience with the Sky supplied cable might well be down to a certain batch being faulty.
All three cables are 2m in length, and they all support HDMI 1.3 .

[dave2010]

All the audiophile reviews of the v-link seem to mention expensive USB cables ...
I thought that had pretty much had a line drawn through it ...
I bloody hate this hobby sometimes
Pesky mark grant/mike cables making me realise digi coax sound different, crap free sky hdmi cables making me see a difference ... And now I'm told even USB cables vary... Why can't I just take a god damn objective perspective and deny my self this nonsense, it would make life a lot easier!Hamish

Mostly I'm with you on this, though it seems you would consider a £100 "upgrade" as fairly cheap. There must be many who wouldn't agree.

I think we've had a discussion about USB cables before. They can make a difference I'm afraid, though normally won't because of the way USB works and the error correction/resends built in to some of the protocols. The only definite proof I've had of this is when trying to download some files from a (now) early Humax PVR (9200?) - which had lousy USB drivers and picky connections to different chips at the PC end. I found it made a difference if the USB cable went over other cables, such as signal/mains. I found it made a difference if the USB cable touched the floor. I found it made a difference which cable I used. In the end I found one cable which, when suspended a few inches above the floor, generally worked without stalling on the downloads. Other cables and configurations wouldn't work. It would only work with one laptop whose chip set it seemed to like.

Having said this, my view is that any fairly decent and well screened USB cable should work, and you shouldn't have to spend more than £20-£25. With good equipment and good drivers and software at either end you can probably get things to work fine even with cables costing only a quid or two. It's only really dodgy kit and software which should force you to have to really be picky.

I am assuming you mean short runs of cable - maybe up to 1 metre. If you want to run for several metres (I have joined cables together to get runs of over 5 metres for some applications) - then apart from perhaps taking USB out of the spec. limits, you may well find that having "better" and screened cable really makes a difference, but I hope you're not doing that.

It's surely not worth spending £00s and then trying to convince yourself that you can hear a difference. That's my opinion anyway. Spend the difference on a few bottles of wine or pints and you won't be able to tell for sure. :)

[wee tee cee]

I run a v-link in conjunction with a MF M1 DAC.I run a 5m belkin pro usb cable to the v link and a mark grant trico/wtb between the two.Running the v link sounds better to my ears than without.
my impression is that it sounds less distorted and open.Treble less splashy/midrange more open and bass more controlled.
I also switched to mark grant interconnects,in my case the bi-amp cables he produces...The most neutral/uncoloured cables I have used.
The digital interconnect is expensive,but worth every penny.One of the other members brought one round,I heard it and ordered one the next morning.
I have just purchased a gatorized caiman and once I get it burnt in will try to offer a comparison.

[dave2010]

That's worrying if two differing optical cables actually change the sonics. I mean, either one of them is altering the switching/timing of the data stream in some way, or the receiver in the DAC is malfunctioning :scratch:Our friend Yomanze (msg 24) showed some traces on another thread which did show differences between different cables. However I did query whether these would realistically be expected to have any audible effect, as I'm pretty sure the traces were of the analogue signals representing the digital data, not analogue, and most digital equipment should be able to decode the data accurately. There can be considerable distortion of digital waveforms with next to no effect on the overall performance, which is one of the reasons why systems such as ADSL work.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

So you're on the way to recovery then ? :lolsign:


fully ... well apart from perhaps (as Dave points out) my still think £100 is a cheap upgrade ... i guess its all relative ;)
you may joke, but, I have a freedom of a certain mindset once attained that i never thought i would when i was "in the deep end" ... my hifi currently sits on £35 tv stand ... a concept that i would have once considered a travesty ...




I can't detect any difference in picture or sound quality between the 3 HDMI cables connected up here, and one of those was supplied with a Sky+HD box.
Your experience with the Sky supplied cable might well be down to a certain batch being faulty.
All three cables are 2m in length, and they all support HDMI 1.3 .

entirely plausible, im yet to duplicate the issue ...
Yet i would still describe that as there being a possibilty that some cables are better than others... broken or not, it did after all display a picture, all be it one with colour fringing

[The Vinyl Adventure]

... ... ...

It's surely not worth spending £00s and then trying to convince yourself that you can hear a difference. That's my opinion anyway. Spend the difference on a few bottles of wine or pints and you won't be able to tell for sure. :)

Im actually using a screened cable already, it came free with a printer, its fatter, stiff and has nicer plugs than the cheaper ones ... It works fine, but sounds no different to any others from my minimal experimentation ...
Works or not works has been my criteria, i did have a usb cable that worked for my dac but not printer... maye the other way round? anyway, i binned it and used a different one ...
I shall stick with it and drink that wine i think ;)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

I run a v-link in conjunction with a MF M1 DAC.I run a 5m belkin pro usb cable to the v link and a mark grant trico/wtb between the two.Running the v link sounds better to my ears than without.
my impression is that it sounds less distorted and open.Treble less splashy/midrange more open and bass more controlled.


... what were you using instead previously



I also switched to mark grant interconnects,in my case the bi-amp cables he produces...The most neutral/uncoloured cables I have used.
The digital interconnect is expensive,but worth every penny.One of the other members brought one round,I heard it and ordered one the next morning.
I have just purchased a gatorized caiman and once I get it burnt in will try to offer a comparison.

Yes, that has always been my view of marks cables, and why i stuck to them like glue, I just cant hear any effect, where other cables added something often something undesirable, by comparison there seemed to be no addition from marks ... I find this a hard concept to explain really as, in reality, how do i know nothing is added when i have no way of testing what no cable sounds like but swapping and changing out a whole bunch of cables gave me the conclusion that marks did the least ... so i stuck by them ...

Again with the £100 cheap upgrade recommendation, but my gator caiman sounds much better with one of David Brooks psu's (http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/power-supplies/333-mains-cables-r-us-dc-power-supply.html) ... might be worth a consideration should funds allow

[Stratmangler]

fully ... well apart from perhaps (as Dave points out) my still think £100 is a cheap upgrade ... i guess its all relative ;)
you may joke, but, I have a freedom of a certain mindset once attained that i never thought i would when i was "in the deep end" ... my hifi currently sits on £35 tv stand ... a concept that i would have once considered a travesty...

Mine is on a cheap plywood stand from Ikea - I remember it cost £18 at the time.
My equipment does have granite slabs underneath it, and the granite has focal pods between it and the ply shelves, so not fully cured myself ;)

My TT is mounted on a Target wall shelf, the frame of the shelf has been drilled and the voids filled with expanding foam, and the MDF shelf has been replaced with a slab of slate.
The slate/spike interface has RDC cone cups.

[wee tee cee]

... what were you using instead previously



Yes, that has always been my view of marks cables, and why i stuck to them like glue, I just cant hear any effect, where other cables added something often something undesirable, by comparison there seemed to be no addition from marks ... I find this a hard concept to explain really as, in reality, how do i know nothing is added when i have no way of testing what no cable sounds like but swapping and changing out a whole bunch of cables gave me the conclusion that marks did the least ... so i stuck by them ...

Again with the £100 cheap upgrade recommendation, but my gator caiman sounds much better with one of David Brooks psu's (http://www.mains-cables-r-us.co.uk/power-supplies/333-mains-cables-r-us-dc-power-supply.html) ... might be worth a consideration should funds allowUSB straight into the DAC.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Haha, this would make an interesting thread in its self ... "How hifi paranoid are you?"
but i guess the only way to get a fair judgement would be to get a non "enthusiast" to audit everyone ...
scale of 1 to 10
with a zero for the non enthusiast
1 is buying into the audiophile concept at all, ie having anything other that basic included cables
10 is cryogenically treated, burned in cables suspended off the floor by non ferrous, spiked materials, with amazonian ebony thats been urinated on by a blind tree frog floor protecting shoes

[The Vinyl Adventure]

USB straight into the DAC.

ah, im with ya... assumed your dac didnt have a usb input ...

[wee tee cee]

Got the gatorized caiman up and running this afternoon.Fed with the v link its sounding bloody good,if it improves with burn in the MF dac is toast.

[Gazjam]

I run a v-link in conjunction with a MF M1 DAC.I run a 5m belkin pro usb cable to the v link and a mark grant trico/wtb between the two.Running the v link sounds better to my ears than without.
my impression is that it sounds less distorted and open.Treble less splashy/midrange more open and bass more controlled.
I also switched to mark grant interconnects,in my case the bi-amp cables he produces...The most neutral/uncoloured cables I have used.
The digital interconnect is expensive,but worth every penny.One of the other members brought one round,I heard it and ordered one the next morning.
I have just purchased a gatorized caiman and once I get it burnt in will try to offer a comparison.

Good on ye mate!
Welcome to club Beresford. :)

Unlike some other kit, it DOES get better with burn in.
even after a couple of weeks...

[wee tee cee]

Gary,
The MF hasn't been switched back on since I played it,no need.The headphone section is the best I have ever heard,admittedly I have very little experience.
Might have to have a listen to your PSU and hot rodded caiman.

[Gazjam]

yup no worries Tony, just give us a shout when your shifts suit.

I've had a few things done to my dac,
Elna capacitors
Dexa regulators
linear PSU
big smoothing cap removed and replaced with better
resistor removed from 5v regulator

be good to "sanity check" my dac against a standard one, who knows maybe I've came back to where I started!

Has your mate heard his headphones thru the Caiman?
He had a seperate headphone amp, wonder how he thinks it compares...?

[DSJR]

I thought you could buy these converters for around £30. They "all" supposedly have a buffer built in so no jitter "problems. Apparently, the full error correction protocols inherent in the USB standard hasn't been properly used in audio streaming and this may be what you're hearing when going "straight?"

[sburrell]

OOC, why has USB become the standard for this? Surely FireWire would be a far more appropriate choice, considering the purpose?

[DSJR]

I think Firewire has now been all but bypassed, since I think USB 3 is faster again, unless I'm probably very much mistaken?

[Stratmangler]

OOC, why has USB become the standard for this? Surely FireWire would be a far more appropriate choice, considering the purpose?

Does Apple own the intellectual rights to firewire ?
If they do then that's why - nobody wants to pay the licensing fee.

[sburrell]

According to Wikipedia, it's MPEG-LA that own the intellectual property rights, and they levy a 25¢ fee for each equipped device - Sony, Apple, Texas Instruments were amongst the funders of its development.

Apparently, FireWire is also more expensive to implement. But the latter is obvious, if you know anything about the technology - it's superior in every way when compared to USB, but also more complex. In brief: USB=VHS, FireWire=Betamax.

The only reason USB is on everything is because it's cheaper, not superior. And because it's on everything, everything gradually migrated towards using it, despite its inferiority. Heck, even Apple stopped providing FireWire cables for its iPods and offered USB cables instead, even though FW transfer of data meant much faster copying of files - they wanted the PC-user market. Mice and keyboards on PCs used to have dedicated PS/2 ports, and these allowed mice to be run at far higher polling rates (and therefore offer smoother and more accurate operation than USB). But now, it's all USB (you can increase the polling rate of your USB ports, but at the high risk of introducing instability in other attached peripherals).

AFAIK, USB 3 has all the same failings as USB 2 (eg. uses CPU cycles to manage data transfer - FireWire manages itself independently of host's CPU). Thunderbolt, USB 3's competitor, is similarly superior, but is once again more expensive to implement - but it can do things that USB 3 can only dream of.

*shrug* The best things in this world often go ignored for the weakest of reasons.

EDIT: from what I can uncover, FireWire has good jitter recovery built in as a result of employing something called Data Strobe Encoding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_strobe_encoding). I can find very little information on USB's timing properties, and what little I can find that seems to refer to it is not wholly positive.

[DSJR]

Thanks for that. Then it seems a USB - SPDIF/Optical interface box may well be the best option for audio. I'll have to look up the one suggested to me...

I've just nicked this recommendation from the Audiosmile forum - hope they don't mind...

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx

[sburrell]

According to the designer John Westlake, my new DacMagic's major weakness:

is the TDA1315 – the SPDIF input receiver. The TDA1315 has very poor jitter performance – despite claims otherwise from Philips ... If possible, modifying the unit to “clock-lock” with the transport will bring enormous improvements – then the quality of the Dac becomes the limiting factor.
Would inserting a V-Link between the computer and the DacMagic improve matters? Just for future reference.