[JayM]

Context
A few months ago I wanted to upgrade my Wadia6 based system. For about 18 years, the Wadia6 has served me well. My system before the hiface consisted of the Wadia6 driving a benchmark Dac-1, through an AES/EBU interface cabled with an old Audio Research litzlink XLR cable, which is all I had lying around. The Benchmark drove Fostex PM-2 active speakers directly. Simple system.

I had been considering the new Logitech touch, but stumbled into the hiface as I was reading through the latest posts on the audio boards. The concept of the hiface seemed to be compellingly simple, a USB device that allowed a PC/laptop to output a S/PDIF signal via a USB port, which was reclocked by the device to have very low jitter. John had developed this even further by supplying the best possible power supply to the quartz oscillators. He also could supply a USB cable that allowed you to connect your own 5V supply. Enjoy the Music and 6Moons reviewed the stock unit favourably. I promptly sent off an order to John for the hiface boxed mod, as well as the USB cable.

That was two months ago. I knew nothing about PC based systems. My use of Windows had been confined to ripping a few CDs using WMP  from my own library to my work laptop, for listening at the office, and nothing more.

The modded hiface

When I got the unit from John, I had to read up and install Foobar on my work laptop. This laptop I use crunches spreadsheets out during the day, its nothing special, just a middle of the range Latitude notebook which work supplied me.

At this point I did not even have a digital cable, so off I went to the local electronics shop to get a BNC terminated digital cable, cost me $10. Nothing fancy. Just whatever they had.

First impressions of the laptop reading WMP ripped CDs, using the KS driver and Foobar then hiface mod, then cheapo digital cable to benchmark was unexciting. Music did not sound as good as the Wadia6 driving the benchmark. Using WMP via a DS driver was better but still not as good as the Wadia6 as transport.

I sat down and tried to optimise the set up I had. Changed a few settings on Windows and foobar, and finally I downloaded EAC. This time I used EAC to rip my CDs. Lo and behold, now I had the sound that surpassed my previous set up.

Using foobar to play WMP ripped discs is a sonic wasteland. Don’t bother. WMP playing WMP ripped discs was better. Using foobar to play EAC ripped discs and playing that through hiface has been the real deal, in my limited experience. My comments below refer to  the hiface in comparison to the Wadia6/Benchmark set up:
1.   Latitude E5500 laptop running Windows XP
2.   Foobar playing
3.   EAC ripped tracks
4.   via John’s modified USB cable (with my 4 x 1.2V(nominal) rechargeable batteries as power supply)
5.   To john Kenny modified hiface (battery powered boxed version)
6.   No name BNC digital cable
7.   To Benchmark Dac-1
8.   Then through PSC silver XLR cables
9.   To Fostex PM-2 active speakers

Sound has

1.   Massive improvement in low level detail; much greater transparency
2.   Significant improvements in subtle timing information
3.   Just better across the whole frequency spectrum
4.   Better separation of everything; better imaging
5.   Much greater information of the recording space coming through on playback
6.   Thunderous, growling bass. Bass just has that density it did not have before. The change had me checking my speakers to see if I had not inadvertently boosted the bottom end.
7.   A more relaxed and natural presentation all around, one that opens up the recording venue for you to hear.

I have listened to John Williams “A Portrait of John Williams” since 1982. I first had the LP, then the CD.  On Cavatina, the subtle rhythm of the guitar accompanying the melody came through clearly for the first time in all those years of listening. On Sakura, for example, there is a sense of a guitar playing within a space to a much more noticeable extent than my previous set up.

With the Wadia6/Benchmark, I thought I had it good, but this is just so much better in every way. Listening to the modded hiface, one just has to think a lot less and relax and let the musicians wash over you with their playing. You can hear their playing so much more. You can hear the space where they are playing so much more.

I don’t know about expensive analogue, because I haven’t been exposed to it that much, but for me the modded hiface, the modded USB cable, is almost too good for words. It’s knee-tremblingly good. I woke up this morning thinking about whether I should listen to ABC Classic FM, or my other CDs. I downloaded high res samples, so this lets me listen to high res too. Fabulous price, fabulous sound, for peanuts in the scheme of things, with enough technology to see me through the next 10 years. All on a journeyman’s laptop, with no esoteric settings let alone tweaks.

I didn’t know John from Adam but I took a punt. His work is DIY – you won’t get something as well finished as an iphone.  But I have found him to be a gentleman. The stock hiface is a product with a brilliant concept and execution, and John’s mods and cable takes this up to a stellar maxed out level, which is critical to us anal retentive audiophools.

Before I embarked on this journey, I just wanted something that was at least as good as my previous Wadia6 as a transport. The modded hiface has exceeded that objective magnificently for me, in my set up, and for my tastes and hearing faculties.

Google hiface modifications to look it up

[jkeny]

Thanks Jay much appreciate your write-up & kind words. What I'm really delighted about is the pleasure that it has already brought to your music enjoyment & will undoubtedly bring to your fiuture listening.
Small tweaks that might get you a bit more improvement could be to address the SPDIF cable. What we want to achieve is to reduce the effect of reflections on the cable.

Reflections occur when a high speed signal encounters an impedance mismatch. This can occur anywhere in the signal path but the only one we have control over is the cable (unless we get into DIY).

The impedance we want to aim for is 75ohm all the way through the signal path. You are using a cable with BNC connectors which has a chance of being 75ohm (forget about RCA which is 50ohm by design). However, because it is a cheap one it probably has not very well controlled or homogenous impedance.

I'm not suggesting that you buy an expensive digital cable, in fact, what I would try first is a BNC to BNC adaptor which might allow you to plug your Hiface box directly into your Benchmark DAC without an intervening cable.

The possible advantages of this approach are:
- it gets rid of the cable altogether & instead we have a well engineered & controlled impedance link  from end to end (no cable dialectrics, kinks, etc to consider)
- it is a very short path for the signal so any reflections will bounce back & forth between transport & DAC & eventually die out before the important transition stage at the DAC.

This last point may be wrong & I'll have to check it out again but it is a cheap experiment before going off to buy expensive digital cables.

[PeteG]

John,

Sent you a Email on your web site for prices.

[Firefly]

- it is a very short path for the signal so any reflections will bounce back & forth between transport & DAC & eventually die out before the important transition stage at the DAC.

This last point may be wrong & I'll have to check it out again but it is a cheap experiment before going off to buy expensive digital cables.

only partially wrong 
Yes, it will bounce back & forth.
No, it wont die out just like that.

[jkeny]

only partially wrong 
Yes, it will bounce back & forth.
No, it will not die before next transition window.

Ah, the whole argument rests on the amount of the signal that is reflected at each end of the transmission line & how many reflections (& therefore the time) it takes before the voltage level of the reflection becomes insignificant.

It's all in the details - say you have a pretty lousy SPDIF cable & termination mismatches that reflects 10% of the signal - for 500mV SPDIF signal 50mV will be reflected from the DAC end back to the transport end (no problem here) where 10% (5mV) of this is again reflected back to the DAC end (it's at the DAC end where the critical issues are). So after 1 round trip the reflection is 1/100 of the signal strength.

This 5mV is enough to cause a problem at the SPDIF receiver IF & ONLY IF it hits when the SPDIF receiver is at the decision point (i.e in the middle of reading a transition 0 to 1 or 1 to 0).

Now with a short enough cable it will have hit the SPDIF receiver end before this decision point so it gets reflected back again but only 10% of 5mV i.e 0.5mV & this will bounce off the transport end again & 10% of it reflected - we are now down to 0.05mV arriving at the receiver - is this enough to upset the decision point? How many times can this bounce back & forth before it hits the DAc during the decision point? After 2 round trips we have 1/10000 of the signal arriving back at the DAC

This is why I believe short is good  because you get more bounces back & forth (& thus reduced reflection energy) before the time for the receiver decision point is reached.

Improving the reflection absorption at each end will also work but this is difficult to do.

You can also use a long cable of "special" lengths calculated so as the reflections fall after the decision point but this requires a lot of variables to be taken into the calculation of the "special" lengths.

BTW, another problem with the "special" cable length is that for different speeds this "special" cable length will be different so maybe shorter is better as below a certain length we can stop worrying about these reflections.

BUT having said all this I'm willing to learn - correct me if I'm wrong!

[regal]

Jay did you hear the stock hiface before the mod?  The reason I ask is I'm not impressed at all with my stock Hiface.   I have all the parts to do the mod but thinking if I mod it I won't be able to sell it,   kind of in a catch 22 right now.

thanks

[jkeny]

Jay did you hear the stock hiface before the mod?  The reason I ask is I'm not impressed at all with my stock Hiface.   I have all the parts to do the mod but thinking if I mod it I won't be able to sell it,   kind of in a catch 22 right now.

thanks

Have a look at the reviews - many have compared it to the stock Hiface!

[JayM]

Sorry regal – I did not have or hear the stock hiface before ordering. I saved some money by just getting John to supply the hiface and the mod.

One thing you might try at very little cost is to construct your own 5V PS for the USB cable. Sounds like you know your way around some DIY. Just get down to your local grocery and get the rechargeable batteries they sell – nominal 1.2V x 4 will get you the 5V (they usually come up slightly higher than the 1.2V). Any cheapo USB cable will do for this "proof of concept" exercise.

This at least will separate the hiface PS from the laptop/PC power supply, and while you will not get the full impact of the separate batteries, this will give you some idea of what improvements can be had.

I also had to futz around a lot with the laptop settings.

First I discovered using foobar to play WMP ripped files sounded awful. Flat, lifeless and dull. I downloaded EAC and ripped to .wav (not FLAC) and then used foobar to play the EAC tracks.  This was good.

All the best.  For what its worth, I’ve sold my Wadia! I’m pulling out all the CDs I have it seems and listening to them again with the hiface. I started listening to some jazz and classical stations around Europe and the US. Just over the moon with this device.

[jkeny]

Jay, I think Regal has already tried a USB PS tweak AFAIK but I don't know if he's too impressed with the Hiface.

It's great for me to hear feedback like you are giving where you are obviously enjoying the device - it brings a smile to my face & a warm glow too 

[Audioclyde]

I have been using a stock HiFace for a couple of months now; I slightly preferred the HiFace feeding the bnc dig input of my MW Transporter with Pure Music as the player, vs the MW transporter connected via Ethernet and using the Squeezebox software.

Monday I received my box modded HiFace from John Keny.  IMHO the improvement over stock is jaw dropping!  All the items mentioned above, plus I'd add that everything, especially the nuances and tonal colors of the music are much more vivid.  I'm extremely pleased with the mod.  I thought I pretty well had addressed pwr issues in my system:  all equip runs off a dedicated ac line, and I have an Equitech balanced pwr conditioner that has computer, etc plugged into it, and my amp, sub and the MW Transporter plugged into Davd Elledge's fabulous Uber Buss.  But the mods to the HiFace pwr supplies and running off the batteries sounds great.

Best,

Randy

[jkeny]

Thanks Randy,
Appreciate the feedback & delighted that you like what you hear!

[doctorcilantro]

I'm curious if you would be williing to try and report on use of J. River Media Jukebox (free) or the 30-day trial of J. River Media Center using WASAPI. I'd love to hear your thoughts since you are now using Foobar.

Context
A few months ago I wanted to upgrade my Wadia6 based system. For about 18 years, the Wadia6 has served me well. My system before the hiface consisted of the Wadia6 driving a benchmark Dac-1, through an AES/EBU interface cabled with an old Audio Research litzlink XLR cable, which is all I had lying around. The Benchmark drove Fostex PM-2 active speakers directly. Simple system.

I had been considering the new Logitech touch, but stumbled into the hiface as I was reading through the latest posts on the audio boards. The concept of the hiface seemed to be compellingly simple, a USB device that allowed a PC/laptop to output a S/PDIF signal via a USB port, which was reclocked by the device to have very low jitter. John had developed this even further by supplying the best possible power supply to the quartz oscillators. He also could supply a USB cable that allowed you to connect your own 5V supply. Enjoy the Music and 6Moons reviewed the stock unit favourably. I promptly sent off an order to John for the hiface boxed mod, as well as the USB cable.

That was two months ago. I knew nothing about PC based systems. My use of Windows had been confined to ripping a few CDs using WMP  from my own library to my work laptop, for listening at the office, and nothing more.

The modded hiface

When I got the unit from John, I had to read up and install Foobar on my work laptop. This laptop I use crunches spreadsheets out during the day, its nothing special, just a middle of the range Latitude notebook which work supplied me.

At this point I did not even have a digital cable, so off I went to the local electronics shop to get a BNC terminated digital cable, cost me $10. Nothing fancy. Just whatever they had.

First impressions of the laptop reading WMP ripped CDs, using the KS driver and Foobar then hiface mod, then cheapo digital cable to benchmark was unexciting. Music did not sound as good as the Wadia6 driving the benchmark. Using WMP via a DS driver was better but still not as good as the Wadia6 as transport.

I sat down and tried to optimise the set up I had. Changed a few settings on Windows and foobar, and finally I downloaded EAC. This time I used EAC to rip my CDs. Lo and behold, now I had the sound that surpassed my previous set up.

Using foobar to play WMP ripped discs is a sonic wasteland. Don’t bother. WMP playing WMP ripped discs was better. Using foobar to play EAC ripped discs and playing that through hiface has been the real deal, in my limited experience. My comments below refer to  the hiface in comparison to the Wadia6/Benchmark set up:
1.   Latitude E5500 laptop running Windows XP
2.   Foobar playing
3.   EAC ripped tracks
4.   via John’s modified USB cable (with my 4 x 1.2V(nominal) rechargeable batteries as power supply)
5.   To john Kenny modified hiface (battery powered boxed version)
6.   No name BNC digital cable
7.   To Benchmark Dac-1
8.   Then through PSC silver XLR cables
9.   To Fostex PM-2 active speakers

Sound has

1.   Massive improvement in low level detail; much greater transparency
2.   Significant improvements in subtle timing information
3.   Just better across the whole frequency spectrum
4.   Better separation of everything; better imaging
5.   Much greater information of the recording space coming through on playback
6.   Thunderous, growling bass. Bass just has that density it did not have before. The change had me checking my speakers to see if I had not inadvertently boosted the bottom end.
7.   A more relaxed and natural presentation all around, one that opens up the recording venue for you to hear.

I have listened to John Williams “A Portrait of John Williams” since 1982. I first had the LP, then the CD.  On Cavatina, the subtle rhythm of the guitar accompanying the melody came through clearly for the first time in all those years of listening. On Sakura, for example, there is a sense of a guitar playing within a space to a much more noticeable extent than my previous set up.

With the Wadia6/Benchmark, I thought I had it good, but this is just so much better in every way. Listening to the modded hiface, one just has to think a lot less and relax and let the musicians wash over you with their playing. You can hear their playing so much more. You can hear the space where they are playing so much more.

I don’t know about expensive analogue, because I haven’t been exposed to it that much, but for me the modded hiface, the modded USB cable, is almost too good for words. It’s knee-tremblingly good. I woke up this morning thinking about whether I should listen to ABC Classic FM, or my other CDs. I downloaded high res samples, so this lets me listen to high res too. Fabulous price, fabulous sound, for peanuts in the scheme of things, with enough technology to see me through the next 10 years. All on a journeyman’s laptop, with no esoteric settings let alone tweaks.

I didn’t know John from Adam but I took a punt. His work is DIY – you won’t get something as well finished as an iphone.  But I have found him to be a gentleman. The stock hiface is a product with a brilliant concept and execution, and John’s mods and cable takes this up to a stellar maxed out level, which is critical to us anal retentive audiophools.

Before I embarked on this journey, I just wanted something that was at least as good as my previous Wadia6 as a transport. The modded hiface has exceeded that objective magnificently for me, in my set up, and for my tastes and hearing faculties.

Google hiface modifications to look it up

[PaulFolbrecht]

I just ordered a stock Hiface.  I kind of wish I'd been aware of this mod first.

But, anybody compare a modded unit to the Evo?

[jkeny]

Check out the Enjoythemusic review which compares the MK1 (it's now at MK2 & sounds better) against the Evo & Halide Bridge. https://sites.google.com/site/hifacemods/home/announcements/reviewinenjoythemusic

[PaulFolbrecht]

John, please shoot me a PM with your current price, including shipping to 53223 (U.S.) and lead-time - thanks.