Hello partners! Happy listening !!!
I have decided to buy the Gustard X16, I am going to use a Pi4 with VitOs to connect to Roon. Is the USB cable it brings enough or will it be better to buy a higher quality one?
Thanks for the support!!!
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Congrats. That’s an awesome DAC at a very good price. Any USB data cable should be more than enough for audio.
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fine DAC. i had it too, but the better is the enemy of the good. I bought the Gustard A22. use the Audioquest Pearl as USB.
The Gustard x16 is an excellent DAC. I use the relatively inexpensive Chord USB C-Stream. Subjectively I think it makes a worthwhile difference. I also use the Chord C series ethernet cables. I don’t think they make any difference at all but the colors match my USB cable and they have very sturdy ethernet locking mechanisms 
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That has dual AKM ships. Does it have a DSP passthrough option? That is, does it have a NOS option where in addition no internal filtering is done? There are several threads were the combination of HQPlayer doing filtering and modulation and DSP passsthrough with an AKM DAC is considered the best way to stream DSD.
I connected it directly to the nucleus.
I’m not sure whether a sotm tx-usbextern would improve something.
HQ player no warning, because I drive the nucleus and the HQ (as far as I know) does not work.
I am trying to get NAA on a SOtM SMS-200 Neo to a Gustard x16 working and it is a nightmare. There are all sorts of stability problems and it will not do the native DSD256 that the Gustard is capable of in any case. So my next attempt is to cut the SMS-200 out completely and just use the USB interface of a TX-USBExtern with a RPi4 instead. I am a long time user of various SOtM USB interfaces and I have found they make quite a difference. In the past I just used internal SoTM PCI USB cards in windows servers and never had any issues. But using an external SOtM SMS-200 Neo has never really worked.
I’m not sure if I should buy a SOtM TX-USBHUBEX.
the price is already hot, 439 € in germany.
Where are you buying it? I am having trouble sourcing one in Denmark. I have no experience of the Hub but I used one of these for many years until my music server crashed and burned:
It made a very significant difference to the SQ compared with the standard USB hubs on the Windows based music server I was using. I get the same “house” sound with the SOtM SMS-200 Neo but it is just so unstable. So I want to try a RPi4 or NUC with the SOtM TX-USBHUBEX. I know for what it is, a USB port, it is expensive, but I don’t think you will regret the purchase unless it leads to the stability issues I experience with the SMS-200!
don’t know yet what will bring more.
either the SOtM hub or a mutec m3.
The Mutec MC3+ is doing much more at almost 3x the price so I am not sure they are really comparable. It depends what it is you want to do. For example the MC3+ switches all sorts of inputs/outputs like BNC, Coax etc. via USB. The SOtM Hub doesn’t do that. It is a USB to USB filter.
But you may want the features of the MC3+ for other reasons. For example, you could use it to connect a legacy CD player to HQPlayer to take advantage of modern up sampling and filters that will harmonize the sound you get from your old CD’s (if you still have them) with the sound you are getting from your streamer. This may be an especially interesting option for those already using HQPlayer with roon.
my aim is to turn the soundscrew. the weak point of my system is the usb connection between nucleus and A22.
what can help?
I have found that SOtM USB bridges of various sorts make a very worthwhile improvement, although I have no direct experience of the SOtm USB Hub. I assume that all their USB products are essentially identical except in format. I do use them with HQPlayer though and that makes a much bigger difference. So in your case Nucleus → (HQPlayer Core → NAA) → Gustard A22.
There are many ways the (HQPlayer → NAA) combo could be implemented and many ways in which it could include various SOtM USB products.
Unfortunately, I can’t put the HQ player anywhere in the chain, right?
The HQPlayer “core” or server is confusingly called a “desktop” but it is networked so it can go anywhere on your network that is convenient. Especially if you intend doing a lot of resource intensive upsampling, filtering, modulation or convolution you may want to use a powerful server that you will want to put in a closet or basement if it has a lot of noisy fans. The NAA is a very lightweight client in your listening room communicating over ethernet to your HQPlayer server and connected by USB (possibly via some kind of SOtM USB filter) to your Gustard A22.
What is a NAA?
NAA is “Network Audio Adapter”. It’s only job is to deliver a bitstream to your DAC over USB so it is a very lightweight daemon that could be run on a variety of small, cheap, fanless hardware in your living room. It communicates with HQPlayer Desktop which does all the heavyweight DSP. A typical chain would be:
Roon Remote --wireless–> Roon Core --ethernet–> HQ Player Desktop --ethernet–> NAA --USB–> DAC
There is some high level documentation here:
The Gustard X16 has already arrived, very satisfied !! I listen to the music in more detail. I don’t know how to describe it but I like what I hear.Thanks for the contributions!
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Dieter_Schaaf…Which device is that?
Also looking to get I2S out from ALLO USBridge to X16 DAC…Could this be the device im looking for?