Hi, was reading these messages and it’s to bad it doesn’t work.
I did order the 130 last week and I do have terminator II
So both rose rs150 and terminator II have ps audio mode.
I sure hope I won’t have any problems connecting i2s with rs130 HDMI
@ROSELOA is rs130 HDMI mode A same as RS150 DVI mode A? So also ps audio compatible?
My 150 used to work fine with the terminator II
Duffer 5,
Are you using the HiFi Rose150B I2s(DVI?) out to the I2s input of the U18 then out of the U18 HDMI to HDMI input of the Gustard R26 r2r?
The reason I ask is that when I look at the Gustard U18 back side picture it looks like the only input is USB Intput(sic). Won’t the HiFi Rose 150B send to a USB directly?
Thanks.
Ron
You will be in good shape withy the PS Audio profile and Denafrips. Don’t go crazy on your hdmi cable. Audioquest cinnamon should be fine. And as short a length possible that your setup can accommodate.
I am using Hifi Rose USB out to the U18. The U18 then converts to a pure i2s stream including clock sync info and I output that from the i2s output of the U18 into the Gustard R26 i2s input.
Yes, I was thinking about the Cinnamon 48 0,6 meter
Or should the Carbon or Vodka give huge improvement on this length?
Stick with cinnamon. More that good enough.
And which Cinnamon you prefer? Normal Cinnamon or the Cinnamon 48?
It’s around 70 vs 139 euro for 0,6 mtr
Normal s fine for me. And I have a very resolving system.
Hello @Bitspeed ,
This is the I2S Output in RS130. A mode is compatible with PS Audio DAC and B mode is compatible with JAVS DAC.
Best Regards,
@ROSELOA these two profiles do work for many external DACs but for DAC’s like Gustard neither profile works. In the past Hifi Rose and Mofi told users that either profile would work for Gustard external DAC’s but a special cable was required. As we know now this was information provided in error and no cable can overcome the incompatibly of an external DAC that does not allow for a profile for i2s of either PS Audio or JAVS. Hifi Rose should really communicate this better.
The easiest of replies to potential users of the 130 or 150 is, “For external DAC users please check with the manufacture of the external DAC to confirm that the i2s protocols used are either PS Audio or JAVS.” This last statement will save off a lot of problems for all involved. Additionally, “No special HDMI cable is required for i2s connections between the 130/150 to an external DAC that complies with either the JAVS or PS Audio i2s profiles.”
As someone who just purchased a Gustard on the basis that a cable would permit iis connection and discovered that it won’t, I second this request. Gustard is not an “off brand” DAC. It is one of the highest rated DACs. If HiFi Rose wants to be considered in the top rank of streamers, it would seem that the Gustard iis profile would be among the provided profiles. This additional profile is advisable for HiFi Rose products with internal DACS. For the RS130 this additional profile is essential for a marketable product.
Reverse question: What digital sources does Gustard work with I2s? To me from what I read around on the web, with none other than interposing the interface always built by Gustard. A few years ago I tried a Gustard dac and despite numerous tests with cables and even trying to modify them, I was unable to get it to work in i2s with an X50 audio cocktail that I had at the time so much so that in the end I bought a PS audio dac which worked first hit.
Flash,
This may not be the answer you are looking for but I will do my best. With i2s being a "audio / information " transport format that does not have a standard many source manufacturers have built in multiple i2s formats into their source units by either having software configurations like Hifi Rose or they sometimes use “dip,” switches which allows for numerous connection types between streamer / source and external DAC. Some streamer / source manufacturers even have a combo of software and hardware dip switches to ensure compatibility. So to simply answer you question I don’t know who specifically supports the Gustard i2s profile but it is my understand the profile of Gustard i2s is similar to that of PS Audio except for speaker phase and the DSD flags. The two i2s profile exceptions we Gustard are easily overcome with source / streamer manufactures including the profile via software or using dips switches or both.
Hifi Rose has NOT done a great job with their i2s implementation. With the 150b they used not standard originating points in DVI which is odd at best. Additionally not until I did the work to map the DVI pins to HDMI pins did I learn that Hifi Rose uses PS Audio and Javs as their i2s profiles. They never published the info until I was relentless in my pursuit of the info. I have provided Hifi Rose all the work I did and they in fact have used it with other customers (you are welcome Hifi Rose). Before I did all the work and research I was told it was the cable I needed not the profile as either profile would work(100% wrong on Hifi Rose’s part) but now Hifi Rose has taken the position to publish the exact i2s profiles in the 130 which are indeed PS Audio and JAVS. So a future user of the 130 can easily pair a DAC that can connect to the Rose without a DDC, an opportunity I was not and many others were not afforded.
The additional profiles should have been implemented in the very beginning by Hifi Rose and especially in the 130 where an external DAC is required. Hifi Rose has got to get really good at supporting their customers on the nuances of i2s as many will be confronted with conflicts when selecting an external DAC with the limited i2s profiles of the 130 / 150.
Sorry for the extended detail but I hope this helps. At the end of the day I would provid the i2s /HDMI pinout scheme of the Gustard products (attached) to any source manufacture you are interested in purchasing and that manufacture should be able to tell you quickly if the two devices are compatible via i2s. I unfortunately did exactly this with Hifi Rose and they told me I needed a specialized cable. If anyone tells you that you need a specialized cable they are wrong as i2s uses standard HDMI all day long. The profiles of the source unit is what makes the difference.
@duffer5 First of all, we welcome the improvements and optimizations on Rose devices so that they can support connections of this type to a large extent. As you said, i2s is currently not a standardized transport and this complicates the projects of all manufacturers, not just Rose. I made my case example with the audio cocktail/Gustard i2s interface I had a few years ago. However, it seems to me that Rose is making every effort to make this format more compatible, an example of which is the change in physical connections which saw the elimination of DVI in favor of a more appropriate hdmi on the 130 model. But the great unknown of the pins remains the major problem to solve. Kudos to those companies such as Denafrips who have equipped their products with various signal arrangements via switches. Maybe this is a good solution to fix i2s compatibility with digital sources.
Duffer5,
Looking at your post, I’m trying to get a grasp of the exact nature of the IIS incompatibility. I’m going to give you my understanding which may well be incorrect. Please tell me where I’m incorrect.
IIS is a format which is an agreed upon data protocol meant for internal (inside a device) transmission of digital data. Each data element in IIS is well defined and unchanged from one device to another (for example, LRCK-). However, since this data was never meant to be transmitted outside a single chassis there was no need to define a connector i.e. pin out/in standards so there is no IIC connector pinout standard. As a result, manufacturers who have chosen to provide for IIS outside the chassis have selected their own connector pinouts for the same data elements. This is the sole difference between the various IIS incompatibilities. To fix these pinout incompatibilities it is necessary to change either the connecting cable pinouts on one end or the other or use a device which does it and possibly other things as well. Therefor, it would be possible to connect a Gustard IIS implementation of IIS to a HiFi Rose IIS implementation by mapping the pins correctly on each end of a cable. I grant that isn’t the way it should be and your suggestion of mapping the pinouts through either physical (dip switches) or better yet, electronic pinout switching would be a much more elegant solution. So how far off am I?
TIA.
From Wikipedia: In audio equipment, I²S is sometimes used as an external link between a CD player and an external digital-to-analog converter, as opposed to a purely internal connection within one player box. This may form an alternative to the commonly used AES/EBU, Toslink or S/PDIF standards.
The I²S connection was not intended to be used via cables, and most integrated circuits will not have the correct impedance for coaxial cables. As the impedance adaptation error associated with the different line lengths can cause differences in propagation delay between the clock line and data line, this can result in synchronization problems between the SCK, WS and data signals, mainly at high sampling frequencies and bitrates. As the I²S bus doesn’t have any error detection mechanism, this can cause significant decoding errors.
There is no standard interconnecting cable for this application. Some manufacturers simply provide three BNC connectors, an 8P8C (“RJ45”) socket or a DE-9 connector. Others like Audio Alchemy (now defunct) used DIN connectors. PS Audio, Musica Pristina and Wyred4Sound use an HDMI connector.[7] Dutch manufacturer Van Medevoort has implemented Q-link in some of its equipment, which transfers I²S over 4 RCA connectors (data, MCK, LRCK, BCK).
You are 100% correct in your understanding with one caveat that no cable can be modified to work. I have spoken to the top cable makers and they have attempted what you suggested in the past and it does not work no matter how they remake a cable. There could be the rare exception (but yet to hear success due to speaker phase inversion and DAD issues) but you most likely will have hit or miss success more miss than hit. I2s transmission is done externally through standard hdmi, the “magic” happens at the point of exit from the source not the cable.
Thanks for your reply. From an engineering standpoint, I’m trying to understand why cabling wouldn’t work. It should, unless the length of the cable or some sort of interference kept the signals from being transmitted/received in a timely fashion. What cabling company did you work with? What happened when you tried a modified cable? Did anybody look at an oscilloscope of the cable comparing input to the output signal terminal by terminal? That would tell if there were any changes in the cable signal from one end to the other.
I don’t want to deter you from trying a custom cable but from my single experience it does not work and most cable companies are not willingly to do the work because the result is inadequate. I think the issue is too much hardware involved with differing standards. All i2s uses an unmodified standard HDMI cable which should tell you something.
Let me know if you have any success with a custom cable.
I am traveling today so I don’t have the names of the 5 I have reached out to. When I return I can post. But they all said the same thing, “ we tried it specifically for the Hifi Rose and it didn’t work. The customers all wanted to return the cable so we don’t even attempt anymore.” This could be a Hifi Rose thing but I think you will find similar issues when attempting to make a custom cable. I recall off the top of my head I tried Blue Jeans, The cable Company and 3 other top tier custom cable makers. They all said they won’t do it do to poor results.
If I had to guess the issue is with the DSD flag and the clock timing info. Those two issues are hard to overcome and can cause audible conflicts. Not to mention speaker phase. Phase is often a value that can be adjusted via hardware so there could be a conflict there as well.
I know for sure both Denafrips and Audio-GD DAC’s work with the hifi Rose i2s A layout because they both support the ps-audio format.
I think it’s a good idea when hifi Rose will put a list on their website with rose 130/150 certified DAC’s
Of course one can use USB or AES/EBU but there are a lot of users who like I2S
Good idea. Most external DACs that use the Ps Audio or JAVS standard should be compatible. All others are questionable. But with the 130 requiring an external DAC a confirmed compatibility external DAC list would be valuable for sure.
