What ddc is suitable for connecting wadia 860 cdp and pc?

Discussion in 'Hi-Fi and General Audio' started by Kmahn, Jun 29, 2022.

  1. Kmahn

    Kmahn

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    I understand that ddc is needed to connect a PC to Wadia 860cdp. Please recommend me a ddc which I should use to connect pc and Wadia860cdp. Wadia 860 has four digitale input jack, aes/ebu, spdif, toslinc, st.
    Which one of these has the best sound? Is wadia's dac sound good enough to be worth a pc-fi?
     
    Kmahn, Jun 29, 2022
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  2. Kmahn

    Sergeauckland

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    I don't know what a DDC is, but to connect a PCs digital output to a DAC, you just need a simple cable. Pretty much any cable will work fine for normal domestic lengths.
    AES-EBU is a balanced connection, S-PDIF is unbalanced and Toslink is optical. The data on all three is identical, so the audio quality is exactly the same, just the cable and connectors are different. The advantage of the Toslink is that being optical, there's no galvanic connection so occasionally, there's hum between a PC and a wired DAC. Apart from this, no difference as the data is the same.

    S
     
    Sergeauckland, Jun 29, 2022
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  3. Kmahn

    Kmahn

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    Thank for your reply. Usually, the digital output terminal of the PC is USB only, and there are no aes/ebu, s-pdif, toslink and st terminlas. So we need equipment that converts digital signal from USB into digital signals like aes/ebu, s-pdif, toslink abd st, and this is ddc. Is there a cable that can directly connect the toslink terminal of wadia 860 and the usb terminal of pc?
     
    Kmahn, Jun 30, 2022
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  4. Kmahn

    Sergeauckland

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    There are any number of USB to S-PDIF converters available on Amazon and elsewhere, which will all do a good enough job of converting the USB output to digital audio data. There's no real issue of audio quality involved here as the conversion is of data, pure numbers, not analogue audio.

    Whether you use S-PDIF coax or S-PDIF optical (Toslink) is up to you, they both have identical data, so identical sound quality. The only benefit of Toslink is that it provides galvanic isolation between the PC and the DAC/amplifier so avoids any risk of ground-noise. Coax S-PDIF should also provide such isolation as the data should be sent through an isolating pulse transformer, but these days to save money and to make things smaller, they omit the transformer.

    S.
     
    Sergeauckland, Jun 30, 2022
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  5. Kmahn

    lawrence001

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    I use the M2Tech HiFace it's a great sounding convertor if a bit old now, the MK2 has better compatibility with later windows.

    If you want something later and better, look at Singxer they are very good.
     
    lawrence001, Jul 4, 2022
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  6. Kmahn

    Kmahn

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    Thank for your reply. Because the Wadia 860 cdp can only receive digital signals of up to 48khz/21bit, it is a burden to invest heavily in a good converter. So I need to find out the m2tech you recommended. However, I need to see if it works well on my cdp first. Have a nice day!
     
    Kmahn, Jul 4, 2022
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