Chris Hi, I can send you one to try if you like, I would be interested to hear your thoughts, very best,Keith.
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Chris Hi, I can send you one to try if you like, I would be interested to hear your thoughts, very best,Keith.
Thanks Keith. I may take you up on that.
I was hoping to gather some opinions first before diving in. Generally the feedback on the web is pretty positive for these things but I don't know the credentials of most of those doing the feeding back - they might all be cloth-eared MP3 users - hence why I asked here :)
I guess the only way to really know if this will beat the CD player (and potentially the Transporter too) is to get hold of one and try it for myself.
I've been told that the Modwright modded transporter s the way to go.Not cheap though.
I have just spent a day and a half playing with the hiFace together with foobar2000, winamp and MediaMonkey and the kernel streaming plug-ins. Listening tests were mostly done with foobar. I used the following configurations:
1. Logitech Transporter -> Beresford Caiman
2a. PC WAV files -> hiFace -> Beresford Caiman
2b. Logitech Squeezebox 3 -> Beresford Caiman
3. PC DVD-ROM drive -> hiFace -> Beresford Caiman
4. Myryad MC100 cd player -> Beresford Caiman
The Caiman fed the Croft Syntegra i and thence the Zu Druid MkIV i speakers.
The order shown above was the order of performance.
The Transporter won by being more 3-dimensional, especially in the depth perspective, more sharply focussed, more relaxed and more involving. It had a groove factor that seemed to slightly elude the other combinations. It set the toes tapping and the head nodding where the others did not or did less so. This was obviously dependent on the track but where the groove was subtle, the Transporter reproduced it and the others skipped it to varying degrees. This I usually put down to very low jitter but the very quiet background of the Transporter may also be helping. The difference wasn't obvious on all music though and on many lesser systems would be missed entirely
I'm a little disappointed (but not really surprised) that the hiFace didn't surpass the Transporter. It got closer than a £100 converter has any right to!
When playing WAV files, the hiFace and the Squeezebox were indistinguishable.
CD replay was very interesting. The hiFace definitely outclassed the Myryad by sounding a little more refined but again there really wasn't much in it. When using treated CDs it was hard to identify any difference. The hiFace made a better job of untreated CDs than the Myryad and this suggests to me that there is some useful jitter reduction going on through the hiFace (or maybe the DVD-ROM drive is better than the Myryad as a transport).
Comparing WAV files to CD, both played through the hiFace, similar comments apply. The WAV files came through with a touch more refinement but the gap closed somewhat when using treated CDs.
So, to sum up for the hardware, it is a great device for £100. It does seem to have low jitter and can be considered a viable replacement for a Squeezebox and for a mid-range CD player at least. It doesn't however outperform a Transporter.
I am also pleased to report that there were no clicks, pops or drop-outs throughout the listening sessions.
And so to the software...
I was able to get foobar to scan my WAV library and play a file readily enough but that's where the 'good' ends and the 'bad' begins. The configuration options are I'm sure very powerful but they are also absolutely unintelligible. There was also no way to get foobar to extract useful tags from my folder and file names so manual tagging would be required :(
Winamp fared slightly better by at least looking good and having a useful interface without any need for configuration. Again however, there was no way to get winamp to extract useful tag information from folder and file names so again manual tagging would be necessary :(
MediaMonkey was the best of the three but still not ideal. It at least attempted to interpret the folder and file names. It failed dismally but then redeemed itself by offering a re-tagging function where I was able to specify my folder and file naming convention. It then created and saved the correct WAV tags. Hoorah! (so why isn't it possible to specify the naming convention in the preferences and have it done right first time? :scratch:)
But... would these tags be acceptable to Squeezebox server. No they were not. The latter failed to recognise the track number tag. MediaMonkey has a hidden option (in a .ini file) to write a slightly different track number tag. This revised tag did prove acceptable to Squeezebox server. Hurrah!
But... this new track number tag was now not acceptable to winamp or foobar (or several other players). If I had started with any hair, I would have less of it by now :steam:
WAV tagging is clearly still a hit-and-miss affair. Squeezebox server is probably to blame (there is a bug report outstanding for this very issue).
Both winamp and MediaMonkey produced an unintelligible error message dialog at startup. Annoying :steam: MediaMonkey also seemed to do an inexplicably poor job of displaying album art. Even when displaying a large image, it displayed it at very low resolution even though the source file was at a higher resolution. Weird :scratch: Winamp displayed it better.
I also thought about how I might use a hiFace setup in practice (for the main hifi) and concluded that it would be a royal pain without some kind of remote control. We are really spoilt by Squeezebox server. It is a polished application with a clear and intelligible interface, clear and intelligible settings and the ability to remote control it from any device that has Wifi and a browser or indeed by using the infrared remote that comes with the Squeeze device. Using a wireless mouse and squinting at the TV just isn't the same.
So, to sum up for the software, I guess I'm not the target audience for any of these applications but I was still hugely disappointed. At least these apps are free - I'd be angry if I had paid money for any of them.
I did download SqueezePlay to see if that would play through the hiFace but it couldn't. Indeed I couldn't find any way to get Windows Media Player, Real Player or plain old Windows sounds to come out through the hiFace.
I won't be using a hiFace for the hifi because the Transporter sounds better and has better interfaces.
I won't be using a hiFace for headphone audio at my PC because the software isn't up to it unless I convert my music collection to FLAC and even then the software seems to have issues. I'll keep using the Squeezebox for headphone audio from the PC.
So, the hiFace is a good piece of hardware at a very attractive price but from my perspective at least, the software has some way to go.
Great review, technobear - I see you rate the Hiface playing WAV files in second place! I believe it can easily take first place from the transporter with some mods to the unit. Here's my report on the sound of the modded unit compared to a modded Musiland from here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digit...ml#post2048687
Quote:
I re-worked my Musiland 01US to use a socket for I2S so that my ESS DAC could plug into it. Well the modded HiFace leaves the modded Musiland in the dust. The Musiland has everything done to it that can be done
- disabled all switching regs
- disabled power to DAC & output op-amp
- replaced PS de-coupling caps with larger uf OSCONs
- external clean 5V supply replaced USB 5V (as per the HiFace)
- short I2S to DIP8 socket glued to top of Xilinx chip
The HiFace has better clarity all through the frequency range
- bass is amazingly textured & powerful
- treble has an airiness to it
- finer details are revealed
- soundstage is deep & wide with venues & recording ambience being revealed clearly
- as I said already, just like really good analogue, not a bit of digititis in it. Last night I listened for about 4 hours through headphones without a hint of harshness or headache
- This unit really is a killer when modded - I would love to hear others try it & report their impressions! It would be interesting to hear how it compares against some of the big ticket Transports/DACs (Ayre, Wavelength,dCs, etc) - I don't own or have access to these units
So, I'm thinking of completing the final mods to the HiFace
- replace the 1.2V reg with external clean 1.2V supply
- It just dawned on me that I can power off the clocks & supply my own external clocks! Doh! So this is something I'll experiment with eventually.
- I'll eventually test the BNC output that I have on this unit when I build a DAC with BNC input.
Interesting stuff Chris.How does the Transporter fare on it's own compared to with the Caiman?
Hi AliQuote:
Originally Posted by Ali Tait
Chris' post about it is here.
Chris:)
Top review.
Worth doing a few cheapo mods to the SB3 as I suspect the difference between SB3 into Caiman and Transporter into Caiman may be to do with the better smoother internal supply in the Transporter.
Regards
Chris
The fact that the Transporter can also handle twice the sample rate natively might also have something to do with it;)
That's one hurdle you're unlikely to get over without a redesign of the unit.
Over on the Slim forum there's also mention of the S/PDIF being better implemented in the Transporter.
Chris:)
Hi Chris,
I had assumed that the music files were ripped standard red book for the comparison. If we are talking higher res then yes SB3 should not be in the same league and the Hiface and Transporter solutions should show their additional capability.
Regards