Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others

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larryminator

  • Jr. Member
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Hello,

I'm about to buy a used RWA USB select and I want to know how does it compare to the Trends Audio UD10 or the new Trends Audio UD10.1. Is it really that much better?

This is to transfer the signal from USB to I2S or SPDIF to a Melos MAX3R DAC.

Is it worth the 300-400$ in parts?

I'm also looking at the HagUSB.

Thanks

Laurent


Vinnie R.

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Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #1 on: 8 Sep 2007, 03:08 pm »
Hello,

I'm about to buy a used RWA USB select and I want to know how does it compare to the Trends Audio UD10 or the new Trends Audio UD10.1. Is it really that much better?

This is to transfer the signal from USB to I2S or SPDIF to a Melos MAX3R DAC.

Is it worth the 300-400$ in parts?

I'm also looking at the HagUSB.

Thanks

Laurent


Hi Laurent,

Welcome to the RWA forum!

The USB select has been discontiuned for a while and was based on a highly modified M-Audio Transit board.  It converts USB to SPDIF, but not I2S.

It runs completely on SLA battery power (even the 5V line in the USB cable from the computer is not connected) and sounds excellent.  In most cases, I installed a 75-ohm BNC digital output jack (coax) for the SPDIF output.  If you can get a 75-ohm BNC jack installed at the input of your dac (if it does not already have one) and use a 75-ohm BNC-BNC digital cable, you will get very impressive results!

I have not compared it to a Trends UD10 or 10.1, so I cannot say how they compare.

Best regards,

Vinnie

larryminator

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 8
Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #2 on: 8 Sep 2007, 05:16 pm »
That's why I want to know, is the price difference worth it over the UD10 or UD10.1.

Thanks


Bemopti123

Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #3 on: 8 Sep 2007, 05:47 pm »
It is a different design.  The Trends is not SLA or battery powered.  I think you are attempting to compare products that at first seems to have the same function, and yet, the execution of the application might be intrinsically different.  How Vinnie has told, the main module of the Select is based on the M-Audio device that does not necessarily cost much, and yet, other earlier USB converting devices from Empirical Audio seem to have been based on the same module. 

More than calculating what parts costs, what I think you should be looking for is whether the sonics of the product justify what you think something is worth in parts alone.

If you are DIY capable, then perhaps you might be able to approach the idea on a parts cost position, but if that is not the case, perhaps you need to simply ask whether the product in question sounds good.

Products like the Trends are made to give you a certain function, being that I have not heard it, it can certainly sound good, but from many of the reference systems that I have so far heard, NONE used it as part of the digital source.  Perhaps some people will call computer audio the David against larger CDP + DAC based systems, but that $100 device does not seem to dent the high end CDP market much.

If you do not want to invest much, perhaps you can use the Trend as a nice experiment, but the need of a separate DAC will quickly escalate the cost of this experiment. 

Perhaps you can go check some other people who have computer based front ends.

jhm731

Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #4 on: 8 Sep 2007, 05:56 pm »
The Trends is not SLA or battery powered. 

Wrong.

The Trends comes with a battery pack. See:

http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Product/USB_Audio_desc.htm


larryminator

  • Jr. Member
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Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #5 on: 8 Sep 2007, 07:37 pm »
I already has a high end DAC.

I want to play music from my computer through it (it doesn't have a USB input).

The Trends Audio would only be a transport from USB for SPDIF.

ALso, how does the RWA USB compares to the RWA Squeezebox digital modded? My wireless network is really bad so I want to go the USB Select road, but is the sound as good?

Anybody have compared the USB Select to the Trends Audio UD10?

Thanks

Bemopti123

Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #6 on: 8 Sep 2007, 07:45 pm »
The Trends is not SLA or battery powered. 

Wrong.

The Trends comes with a battery pack. See:

http://www.trendsaudio.com/EN/Product/USB_Audio_desc.htm



As an option, not standard.  Need to pay extra.  I doubt that those punny rechargeable batteries have the same battery performance of the RWA SLA (compact brick type affair.)
But then it seems as if Hifi logic, in NJ sells them combo for just $125- talk about spare change. 

I say if you are curious about it, get it, if you do not like it, you will not lose much. 

I did the same USB experiment, but mine was a DAC+USB affair, the Headroom MicroDAC.  It can be battery powered, but it drains 9volt batteries fast.  The sound is excellent off my Mac Mini, but I still have my 47 Labs Shigaraki+DAC as my digital reference.

 

larryminator

  • Jr. Member
  • Posts: 8
Re: Red Wine Audio USB Select VS Trends Audio UD10 & others
« Reply #7 on: 9 Sep 2007, 04:02 am »
Anybody?