[TJHUB]

I've been running a Touch as a digital source for a few months now.  I used it to feed a modified Music Hall DAC 25.2, as an analog source, and now it currently feeds my Eastern Electric DAC Plus (Psvane tube with LME49990 opamps).

The Touch is powered by a stock Jerome linear power supply, and I've had the Soundcheck TT2.0 mods on it since day one.  I also tried the Dynobot mods with some great success in the treble, but the bass really get attenuated for me with the Dynobot mods.  I also have the server computer decoding the FLAC files and sending PCM to the Touch.  The Touch is connected to my wired network.

So not being all too happy with the Touch's sound, I decided to pull my old OPPO 980H out to compare.  This was a huge mistake!  The OPPO bests the Touch in every possible way, and not by a little either.  This is a night and day type of difference. 

I haven't spun CD's in many, many years.  Since most of my CD's are in storage, I decided I'd just convert my FLAC files to CDA on CDR's for this test.  So I'm spinning CDR's burnt from my FLAC library.

The OPPO's sound is MUCH cleaner sounding.  Cymbals sound more metallic and much more defined.  Piano is the so much better, the Touch sounds fake in comparison.  There are more dynamics, stage depth, and punchier bass.  To my surprise, the tone is more realistic as well.  The OPPO sounds so good, it almost brings a tear to my eyes. 

So the question here is, what can I do here?  I have absolutely no desire to spin CD's.  I just don't think I can do it.  However, I now find the Touch unlistenable.  I fell victim to my own saying: "everything sounds good until you hear something better."  I see so many say just how great the Touch is as a transport.  Well, not for me, and certainly not compared to my OPPO 980H.

I can't really afford to move to something else, so I'm wondering what I can do.  Would upgrading the power supply possibly do the trick (bolder mod the Jerome)?  Consider the Bolder digital mod?  Or maybe move on to something "better?"

I have a little Linux server (the "Alix") that is functional, but it is incompatible with my DAC.  I've been looking into auditioning an Audiophilleo 2 to use between the Alix and my DAC, but $600 is just about out of reach for me.  I've also considered moving to a Mac Mini, but it's no cheaper, and by the time you set one up "properly," it's pretty pricey.  Plus I don't have an iPod Touch or iPad to use as a controller. 

I did try my netbook's USB output to my DAC, and that wasn't really any better than the Touch from what I heard.  The OPPO is still much better.

I have a friend from the forums here coming over Saturday morning to find out what he hears.  I guess he can confirm whether or not I'm nuts.

You can see my setup under the "systems" link.

Any comments for me?   

[Wayne1]

Please accept the fact that I AM biased on this subject.

I will try to answer with what I have observed and not too much of a sales pitch.

The Touch is the best of the products that have been produced by Logitech for sending music from your computer to a stereo. To pack in all the features for $300.00 retail is absolutely amazing. certain things had to be compromised in order to do that. The main thing they held back on is the power supply.

Quite a few people have heard the difference the changing from a switching power supply to a linear power supply can make to the sound of the Touch. There are also degrees of difference in linear power supplies. A stock Jerome PS is a step up from the switcher, but the Jerome itself can be improved. The diodes used in the Jerome are noisy, adding their own coloration to the output. The smoothing caps and final storage cap are very inexpensive and sound it.

Here is a quote from prpixel after he received his Jerome back from updating the original mod "I've had my updated Jerome for about 11 days know.   I let it burn in for about a week before giving it a listen.    There's more resolution in the treble and the bass is better than the original mod"

If the power supply is not putting out the cleanest possible power, it will come through the rest of the system. A higher quality power supply will improve ALL aspects of a devices sound.

In Pez's review of his modded Touch and Deluxe power supply he had some interesting comments about the difference in power supplies. While he was patiently waiting for his mod to be completed he was borrowing a modded Touch with a Welborne PS.

Here are some excerpts from his review:

"I setup Wayne's SB touch and Welborne PS. It took me about 30 minutes to realize that this combo was not just better than the Sony, it was vastly superior. I mean ridiculously better. Music that I had on SACD sounded worse on the Sony than the very same disc transferred to 16/44.1 sounded on the SB. The Sony is no slouch, as a matter of fact it is a great player. Even stock the Sony is one of the better sources I have heard and owned ever. Yet here I was trying to remember the reasons why I'd put this off for so long... The answer still eludes me.  "


"I lived with the Welborne for quite a while as Wayne was busy with other peoples orders and I was out of town most of the summer so I told him to take his sweet time getting it done as I was enjoying the Touch/Welborne combo very much and didn't see any reason to hurry. The Welborne is a great power supply, it's focused, it's wonderfully alive sounding and has great soundstage, though it didn't do a great job of drawing me into the music. A little hifi-ish sounding. A bit heavy handed with detail. The kind of gear that says to you 'do you hear the f#cking detail? You should be pissing your pants with joy!!!'. Not forward sounding, but trying very hard to sound great, if you know what I mean."

"I got the new SB set up. I was not expecting much, maybe a little difference between the Welborne in that this PS has the Bybee Music rails. What I got instead was absurdly better than what I expected. Waynes power supply made the Welborne unit beg for a merciful and quick death. It was laid back and oh so analog sounding (not a trait I would attribute to the Welborne supply at all, or any digital source I have ever heard before) It has the amazing ability to make mediocre recordings sound great, not just listenable, but actually great. Bjorks Vespertine which has long been an acid test for sibilance and digititis (a word I just made up for music sounding... well, digital and jittery) was no longer an acid test, but a wonderfully emotional experience which is what the album should sound like on any system, but never does.

Feists 'A Reminder' track Brandy Alexander is rich and intimately presented. Again it is so laid back and easy sounding through Bolder PS and touch mods. I love this track and it seems to be one of those that sounds great on any system, but I have never heard it sound like this. "

"It's rare when I have the opportunity to do an upgrade that is in every way superior to my previous equipment. Many of my other reviews I find myself holding back on something, whether it be build quality, some nit about sound quality, or even the way a product looks. With the Bolder modded Squeezebox and power supply with music rails I can find no such nit to pick... None. It is the kind of upgrade that elevates my entire listening experience and breaths life into music that has not impressed me for years. Not to mention the ease of being able to just queue up music at a click, but that's a topic for another time. Wayne has truly outdone himself and more importantly the competition here and I recommend this product without reserve."

If you take Pez's account for fact and not the ravings of a delusional youth who has been struck on the head one too many times (he is a black belt in kendo and practices a LOT), you can see that the power supply made a huge difference in his enjoyment of his system. The modded Touch and Deluxe power supply produced better sound than his $3000.00 Sony, audio only, SACD player.

In order for you to get more out of your Touch, I am afraid some money must be spent. The first thing I would suggest is to get the Jerome modded. Then you can play around with different AC cables into the Jerome. This will make some difference and might help in fine tuning to sound to what you like. I will also suggest you consider the digital mods to the Touch. The mods are again concerned with delivering the best possible power to where it is needed most. In this case the digital output section and clock inside the Touch. The combination of the two, modded PS and Touch, should lift the sound over that of the OPPO. If you are able, getting a Deluxe power supply will further improve the sound.

As far as other alternatives for playback of computer files, I am not aware of much that would deliver the same quality for close to the same price. The Bryston player is receiving raves but is quite a bit more. The Mac Mini can sound wonderful, but to really tweek it out can raise the cost to over the Bryston. Many have loved the Slim Devices Transporter with the Modwright mods. You might be able to find one used for a decent price, but the mods are all to the analog section so your EE DAC would become redundant. There is no code written for Linux to interface with the M2Tech USB interface used by the EE DAC+ so to use that, you would need to find another product to convert from USB to SP/DIF. As you found out, that can also get expensive.

If I can be of help, please feel free to call or e-mail me. I hope this was not too pushy or sales oriented. If anyone objects, please feel free to delete. TJHUB, if you would then care to post in my forum we can discuss this in greater depth.

[TJHUB]

Wayne: 

Thanks so much for your reply.  You were one I was hoping would respond.

I'm having a hard time figuring out just what happened here.  It was only about 6 weeks ago when I thought the Touch sounded pretty good.  I add the EE+ DAC and sell my reality cable speaker cables, and everything seems to go to crap.  Then I add Morrow speaker cables, and things seem to get even worse.  Is it that my current setup is that much more sensitive or revealing to the source?  I was thinking maybe the EE+ DAC or Morrow cables was the wrong direction, but then the OPPO proves that completely wrong by sounding absolutely fantastic! 

I'm at a real crossroads here.  Do I trust that modding the Touch is going to bring the magic back, or do I move on to something else?  These kinds of decisions are impossible, especially when limited funds come into play.

[JEaton]

If you haven't tried it yet, try using a TOSLINK S/PDIF connection to the DAC instead of coax. Here's what someone else found recently:

http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/digital/messages/16/160236.html

[Vincent Kars]

Try Touch over Tosling and Coax to the Oppo.
Maybe this improves sound quality without spending

[Big Red Machine]

Have you modded the Touch set-up with those tweaks folks are often raving about?  Maybe you foobared something along the way.

My Touch is all stock with no tweaking, coax cable via BNC to the EE+, flac via SC, and only the highly modified power supply.  But with the stock power supply it is very good.  If you have that much delta in sound then your Touch may be the problem.

Using the tubed section of the EE?  Which tube?  Try another for grins.

[avta]

If you meant that your Touch is connected to your network via ethernet cable you might try another cable. You might also try using the analog outputs of the Touch to see if you can narrow the down the problem area.  Be sure the volume of the Touch is set to 100%. I've made that error a few times when updating software. What version of SS are you using ? I'm not familiar with the mods you mentioned but if they are all software changes you might undue them. I run a stock Touch with an Anedio DAC on a wireless network with fine sound.

[PeteG]

Bolder Cable also has a Touch digital mod too, that and a modded power supply by Wayne makes a great combo.

[Wayne1]

As others have said, you might want to reset the Touch to standard and then change one parameter at a time. I think you have tried to do too much at once.

The power supply mods can only help. I would start with that first. They will take time to break-in. Give them a good 2 weeks to a month to settle before making other changes. Then you may want to try different cables. I have yet to hear any Toslink cable sound good, but that is more a matter of the serious cheap receivers and transmitters used in most gear.

Take a good look at the power distribution to all your components. Try swapping power cables around. It will take time to get everything balanced. Know that the Touch CAN sound very good. Power supply is where everything starts.

[Big Red Machine]

We all agree Terry, you should be having glorious sound right now.  Something is amiss and it isn't the quality of the gear.  Would you like to try my stock Squeezebox in place of your Touch before you go messing with the Touch?

[HAL]

We all agree Terry, you should be having glorious sound right now.  Something is amiss and it isn't the quality of the gear.  Would you like to try my stock Squeezebox in place of your Touch before you go messing with the Touch?

This is an excellent suggestion to eliminate all the moded Touch variables.

[TJHUB]

Ok gents, it looks like it's time to explain more...

First, I really appreciate the help and comments.  I also want to say that I've been relatively happy with the Touch since getting it 3 months or so ago.  However, something has gone terribly wrong.

I don't even know where to start as this is such a long story.  I suppose I'll first address the software mods.  I know for a fact that I do not have anything set wrong or installed wrong.  To prove this very thing to myself, I did a reset on the Touch to revert it back to stock.  It did the upgrades to the latest firmware (7.5.4-r9408), and I'm running Squeezebox Server version 7.6.1.  This proved to have no change whatsoever. 

I listened to the Touch completely stock connected to my DAC via coax for about a half hour.  It was obvious to me that the Touch now sounded fuzzy, lacking in detail, and precise imaging.  Overall tone was ok. 

The I applied the Soundcheck TT2.0 mods.  I basically activated everything, and the Touch sounded cleaner losing a bit of the fuzzy sound. 

Then I applied the Dynobot mods and this is where things go bad.  The sound gets VERY clear and defined.  However, the bass gets anemic and that of course throws off everything.  So I undid the Dynobot changes. 

I then compared the Touch to the OPPO, and the OPPO just embarrasses the Touch in every way as stated in my first post. 

So I then start to wonder if the Touch has something wrong with it.  I used to be happy with it, so why not now?  So I decided to give the analog outs on the Touch a listen again.  I was listening this way for about 5-6 weeks while waiting for the new EE+ DAC to ship (I was on the pre-order list).  After adding the Jerome power supply, things were sounding good enough to not complain.  Sure, I've heard better, but I was relatively content. 

Right now, I'm listening to the analog outs of the Touch.  It's exactly as I remember it sounding.  There is a lack of detail and dynamics, but I like the sound better than through the EE+ DAC.  This certainly shouldn't be, so I don't get it.  Then I applied the Dynobot mods to see if the bass would go anemic again, and no it did not! 

At this point, I'd rather listen to the analog outs of the Touch vs. the Touch through my DAC.  How terrible is that?

I have experimented with toslink vs. coax many, many times.  In the past, I have even preferred the sound of the toslink with my previous DAC.  For the record, I had a nice glass toslink.  However, the last time I was comparing sources (experimenting with the Alix feeding the USB input of my Music Hall DAC 25.2), I determined I couldn't really hear a difference between toslink and coax, so I opted for the coax and left well enough alone.  A few weeks back, I ended up selling that glass toslink to a friend that needed one.  So I no longer have a "good" toslink cable to test with.

To answer what tube I have in my DAC, I have a Psvane tube installed.  It was an easy winner for me when I compared it to a Brimar and the infamous Siemens "silver plate."  The Psvane had a very clean and coherent sound that was very balanced top to bottom with great tone and decay.  I also have upgraded the U1/U2 opamps to the LME49990's that give the DAC more dynamics and increased clarity and a slight shift down in timbre that really sounded magical when first installed.  I also have a silver fuse installed.  Basically, all the magic of the DAC, tube, and opamps seems to come shining through with the OPPO as the source.  That sound if MAGICAL in EVERY way.

For the coax interconnect, I'm currently using a BJC cable.  I Just received a Black Cat Veloce that I have yet to hear.  That will come later this afternoon.

I'm wondering if something might be wrong with the digital output of the Touch.  It seems to be the weak link here.  It's becoming the only answer that makes any sense. 

[Big Red Machine]

It sure sounds like a digital problem with the Touch.  If the Oppo as source is sweet then the Touch is sick and the dac is healthy.

[HAL]

If you have a chance to compare it to an unmoded Touch in the exact same configuration, that would tell if the digital output is the problem. 

[JEaton]

If you have a chance to compare it to an unmoded Touch in the exact same configuration, that would tell if the digital output is the problem.

Aren't we just talking about software mods? They're easily undone by a factory reset, IIRC.

[HAL]

There might be a hardware issue that the comparison would show.

Just a thought.

[Wayne1]

I would say to only way to know for sure would be to either try another Touch in your system or to use your Touch in another rig.

If you wish, you can send your Touch and supply to me and I will be happy to evaluate it. I would also be willing to send you my modded Touch and a modded Jerome to compare to your unit.

Let me know what works for you.

[TJHUB]

I would say to only way to know for sure would be to either try another Touch in your system or to use your Touch in another rig.

If you wish, you can send your Touch and supply to me and I will be happy to evaluate it. I would also be willing to send you my modded Touch and a modded Jerome to compare to your unit.

Let me know what works for you.

Wayne,

You make some very generous offers.  I want to get through my fellow AC'er's visit tomorrow morning before I make any decisions as to what to do.  I need to know if he will hear what I do, or prove that I may be nuts.  Personally, I think I'm perfectly fine. 

I will email you tomorrow with some questions.  Thank you for your time thus far.

All,

I have something to confess that is confusing me quite a bit.  I really don't like Blue Jeans cables.  I own many IC's, subwoofer cables, digital IC's, and speaker wire from BJC.  None of them sound "good" to me compared to cable like Reality, Morrow, and the Sweet Spot Reveal cables I've owned.  The only exception has been the digital IC.  I've compared it to a few coax cables, most recently an Onix Master II, only to find it sounded very similar if not identical. 

I don't use BJC stuff on any part of my music chain, with the exception of the digital IC.  I saw someone selling a Black Cat Veloce cable and snapped it up.  It arrived this afternoon, so I figured I'd throw one more thing into the mix to really confuse me.  And guess what?  It did!

The Veloce is wonderful.  I put it between the Touch and the BNC input of my EE+ DAC.  I reverted the Touch back to just running the Soundcheck TT2.0 mods (they work very well).  To my surprise, this cable is MUCH different than the BJC.  It brings tremendous clarity and separation to the Touch.  I'm also hearing less bass loss as well.  So to prove this to myself, I left the Touch connected to the BNC input, and I connected the OPPO to the RCA input with the BJC cable.  All I had to do now was play the same tracks on each source and switch the inputs on the DAC.

What I heard was the Touch start to approach the sound of the OPPO.  The treble and midrange seem very close, but the OPPO still edges the Touch out in the bass.  The OPPO's bass is still more with greater definition and a punchier midbass sound.  It's really very good.  However, the Touch is no longer horrible.  I've been listening to it the last couple of hours and it really is sounding much better. 

So the question is why?  Could the BJC cable be causing some weirdness with the Touch and/or DAC?  This makes little sense to me.  So I tried the Veloce cable on the OPPO.  It's a bit too bright and thins the bass out just a bit too much.  So it would seem that the Touch and OPPO are very different sounding sources connected to the EE+ DAC, and each source works better with a different cable. 

I plan to carefully go through everything with Nuance tomorrow.  We'll take notes and attempt to be thorough.  I'll also be able to fire up my Duet tomorrow to at least compare its digital out to the Touch.  I remember not hearing a significant difference with my Music Hall DAC in the mix, so we'll see how it is with everything I've got going on now.

More tomorrow...

[Kinger]

So anything to report back?  Curious as to your findings TJHUB............

[talla242]

great site this is,just registered,tons of useful information,thanks! I have a quick question hopefully one of you guys can answer,I have a Touch which I absolutely love,upgraded from a Duet,I currently have an Onkyo 608 avr,It does have a couple analog inputs on it but are the onkyo's dacs active on all of them?,according to the manual it does have a "direct" setting but all it says is that it turns off the equalizer and surround settings,was thinking of purchasing a dac but not sure if it would be a waste,the onkyo has cd analog in,aux analog in,vcr/dvr analog in,thanks for your time