[tLea]

Hello all,
I've lurked around this forum for many years but apparently never got around to registering so now I have done so.
My history with and enjoyment of CI Audio products dates back to early 2005 when i acquired a VDA-1 + VAC-1 package, my first outboard DAC, which I paired with a CAL Icon II HDCD disk player.  In 2007 I moved up to a VDA-2 and added a streamer (Apple Airport Express), which I ran for several years with the VRX-1 balanced cable set. Really enjoyed it but decided I wanted USB functionality for higher rez. I acquired a Transient Mk II which was in my main system for a while. Not long ago I bought a Holo Audio Spring 2 DAC, which has an input for I2S using HDMI cabling. I've been experimenting with using the Transient as a DDC between my streamer (MicroRendu 1.4) and the Spring DAC to convert USB to I2S.  It's hard to do a direct comparison because my rack makes it inconvenient to switch around.  I thought I would search this circle to see if anyone had tried the Transient in this way and posted their impressions. But as a newbie I can't search until I have posted a few times. So I would appreciate any thoughts.

[CIAudio]

Hello all,
I've lurked around this forum for many years but apparently never got around to registering so now I have done so.
My history with and enjoyment of CI Audio products dates back to early 2005 when i acquired a VDA-1 + VAC-1 package, my first outboard DAC, which I paired with a CAL Icon II HDCD disk player.  In 2007 I moved up to a VDA-2 and added a streamer (Apple Airport Express), which I ran for several years with the VRX-1 balanced cable set. Really enjoyed it but decided I wanted USB functionality for higher rez. I acquired a Transient Mk II which was in my main system for a while. Not long ago I bought a Holo Audio Spring 2 DAC, which has an input for I2S using HDMI cabling. I've been experimenting with using the Transient as a DDC between my streamer (MicroRendu 1.4) and the Spring DAC to convert USB to I2S.  It's hard to do a direct comparison because my rack makes it inconvenient to switch around.  I thought I would search this circle to see if anyone had tried the Transient in this way and posted their impressions. But as a newbie I can't search until I have posted a few times. So I would appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks for joining AudioCirle!

The Transient works great as a format converter... XMOS based with precision clocks yields a low-jitter output which is superior to using s/pdif where clocks are extracted from the serial signal.

[tLea]

Thanks for joining AudioCirle!

The Transient works great as a format converter... XMOS based with precision clocks yields a low-jitter output which is superior to using s/pdif where clocks are extracted from the serial signal.

Hey, thanks for responding.

The comparison I'm trying to evaluate looks like this:

microRendu > USB > CI Transient > I2S (HDMI) > Holo Spring2 DAC

vs.

microRendu > USB > Holo Spring2 DAC

I suppose the test is whether the Transient sounds better to me at converting USB to I2S than the internal electronics of the DAC. The design for the Transient is at least 6-7 years old now, so another way to look at it is "Has the technology improved in that time?"

[CIAudio]

I guess it would mostly depend in which has the better clocks. Clocks being equal, USB to your DAC has the advantage because the clocks are closer to the DAC input and is a simpler signal chain. In the end, what sounds best in your system is the way to go. 😉

[duff138]

Could I use the Transient Mk II with an iphone connected using the Apple camera adapter?

Right now I have iphone -> camera adapter -> Douk Audio ( $30 usb to coxial converter) -> CIAudio VDA-2.

Had a few ideas of how to use the Transient Mk II, this being one. Replacing Douk with Transient Mk II. 


Along with iphone I have Squeezebox -. VDA-2