Is it worth getting an audiophile USB card?

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Hi everyone

My current setup is onboard USB (MSI x570 Ace) > IFI Ipurifier 3 > Chord Mojo > HD 650. The Mojo mostly runs on battery and the Ipurifier seems to be doing a good job of cleaning up the signal.

I've recently come across audiophile USB controllers. Has anyone got any experience with them here? Jcat seems to be the go-to brand - is it really worth €435 for the entry level?
 
The Chord Mojo and the HD 650's are already good solid kit.

I would really be asking the question about whether you can actually hear anything wrong with the sound? You're not going to get a big difference in quality if you don't have a problem you can already hear as USB is a digital signal and any distortion is a sign of a problem.

If there is a problem you can hear, then you really should be addressing the source, rather than trying to filter it out. Motherboard, PSU or conflict with another device can cause these.

Personally, I buy Gigabyte motherboards of late because they have USB ports dedicated for use with DACs (A feature called DACUP). You then don't need anything else except the DAC to plug in. The fewer devices in the chain, the better the end result.

Personally I would swap out the motherboard for a Gigabyte and drop the IFI. Keep it simple and a clean signal path (Mobo>Mojo>650's) and you'll get the best sound.
 
Thanks - honestly, other than the ifi making it sound slightly cleaner (hard to describe but it definitely does something), I'm not noticing any distortion.

I hadn't realised Gigabyte did that on their mobos. MSI is definitely behind the times there, so I'll definitely think about upgrading. Or down/sidegrading - it's not like overclocking is an option with a 3700x.
 
Coming from an audio engineering background, I'd be curious as to whether you could detect a difference using an ABX or similar method.

Did some more testing today - hardly scientific but I can definitely pick it out. What I don't know is if it actually makes an improvement. Sound signature seems almost sterile with it, and I find I actually prefer it without the Ipurifier.

@doc - I think a Gigabyte mobo might have to wait until my next rebuild. They look great, but they're asking crazy money for anything with 3 nvme slots.
 
For context, I own a Mojo and use it with BeyerDynamic DT770 Pro's (250ohm) and Denon D7000's.
I bought a USB jitterbug as I felt highs were a little "metallic". I think it helped a little bit (and only cost £40) but I confess I can't be bothered to switch backwards and forwards to compare.
I did last week discover that powering my mojo via USB3 on my Asus CH6 mobo, caused a very obviously hiss from the output which surprised (and disappointed) me. The problem went away completely when I switched to powering it via an Anker 5 port USB charger, hardly the last word in "pure hifi PSU".

I've not tried the Jcat stuff but my personal opinion is that I would very much doubt if the Jcat USB card would give you €435 worth of improvements on a mojo and there's a fair chance you'd hear no difference whatsoever or at best (also) "something" but you can't actually say what, or if it's better or worse. Don't forget that Jcat are the company that have a $1000 Ethernet cable for sale. Make of that what you will. Whatever merits their gear may (or may not) have, their gear is not for humble Mojo owners.

Be careful of being drawn into the world of audifools who always have an itch that they need to scratch. If you really want to hear a proper difference, put the money towards the next level up of headphones or even buy a different pair of phones. Some folks like to have different phones for different kinds of music or environments.

BTW, despite being a "man of science" I don't actually believe that ABX testing is always (100% of the time) a successful way to assess how much you are enjoying music from system A vs system B. ABX can obviously be a good way to help avoid you falling victim to expectation bias and blowing a load of money on a piece of flashy looking kit that makes "hard to put your finger on" differences. However I do feel that some positive changes are subtle and creep up on you over time. Also, switching backwards and forwards will eventually induces listener fatigue.

If you want something interesting to experiment with, download the free demo of Signalyst HQplayer 4 Desktop. The demo plays music for 30mins before closing down.
As a media player, its "ok" if a bit limited. I think it's written by 1 guy and you can see that the effort has gone into the back-end not the user interface. I use is in "network mode" and play music to it from my Roon music server.
It has very sophisticated upscaling algorithms to take the USB output up to 768Khz into your DAC. Mathematically it is (in terms of "taps") on the same level as the uber-expensive Chord Hugo M Upscaler and some claim is sounds just as good.
A license costs 238.39 GBP. I haven't pulled the plug on buying it yet but I'm close to doing so. It may have been the beer but I find it makes music somehow more enjoyable, natural and instruments more substantial and (dare I say it) more organic. It costs nothing to try.
 
Did some more testing today - hardly scientific but I can definitely pick it out. What I don't know is if it actually makes an improvement. Sound signature seems almost sterile with it, and I find I actually prefer it without the Ipurifier.

If you knew when it was in the chain then any testing is invalid as it heavily biases your perspective on it. Needs to be a blind test. Somewhere between 10 and 20 iterations is enough to give 95%+ confidence in the result, and 10-20 tests is not enough to cause fatigue.
 
@SonicSW20 Yeah, had somebody swap it or not between tests. It was only 5 times, but it was enough that I'm pretty confident I could pick it out.

@gEd I tried the Jitterbug too. It didn't make much difference on the Mojo, so it now sits between my Switch and G6. I definitely agree that using something other than bus power is a must for the Mojo. I went with an Ifi ipower in the end, which definitely sounded better than the cheap charger I was using. If you're using it on a desktop setup, I recommend running it off battery and charging it over night for best results.

I've just seen the jcat network cable and the €350 sata cable. It's enough that I'll pass on the USB card! But I'm definitely going to take some time figure out HQ player - the interface is god-awful, but the sound is sublime.
 
Unless there is power from the USB being used to feed an analogue part of the chain there won't be a difference (ignoring stuff like jitter recovery) - if there is power from the USB being used then filtering and especially ground loop isolation can make a big difference. (You are better off though with a DAC that has good jitter recovery).

In terms of audio/DAC you don't need to spend anything like £400+ to get excellent results with the HD650s - getting a setup that has good "synergy" with them will make some difference though - they definitely have a sweet spot in terms of performance of things like voltage swing and small step response, etc.
 
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