John
Yup, another one. The SOtM dX-USB HD Digital Audio Transporter DDC is a ~US$500 box that converts USB to S/PDIF. With offerings from M2Tech, MHDT Labs, Audio-gd and Audiophilleo, this (low-rent) market space is really hotting up.
The dx-USB HD box is externally powered and handles USB data transfer via the much-vaunted asynchronous method – up to 24/192 (so native on OS X but bespoke Windows drivers will be required). Outputs are AES/EBU, coaxial and optical.
Most impressive of all, it’s specified as having two distinct oscillators for 44.1kHz and 48kHz sample rate families.
Wot no I2S? SOtM already manufacture the SOtM dX-USB USB Digital Audio Transporter DDC (also ~US$400) that trades AES/EBU for I2S, 24/192 for 24/96 and asynchronous for adaptive.
SOtM? “Soul of the Music”. An opportunity missed: given their South Korean location, they shoulda called it “Seoul of the Music”.
Specifications:
- USB2.0 High Speed, USB Audio Class 2.0
- 16/24Bit 44.1/48/88.2/96/176/192kHz
- Asynchronous mode operation
- Drivers for Windows XP-SP3 (32Bit), Vista-SP2 (32Bit), Vista-SP2 (64Bit), 7 (32 & 64Bit), Native with Mac OSX 10.6.4 or above
- Indicate LED (Power, Sampling rate)
- Powered by the USB bus, or external power supply
- Power regulation circuit using ultra low noise regulators
- 400/500MIPS 32bit Multi-threaded Processors (XMOS)
- Ultra high speed RS422 driver for AES/EBU, Coaxial , Toslink
- High grade components: PPS film chip capacitor, conductive polymer capacitor, audio grade electrolytic capacitor
- Dual full size high quality oscillator (one for 44.1kHz family, another for 48kHz)
- 105x53x150 (WxHxD)
- Approximately 490g
Wanna buy one? US$500 via eBay.
