Hello
Is the sound quality of the usb-out improved in the Rivo Plus compared to the ordinary Rivo?
Thanks!
Best regards Lars
Compared to the original Rivo, on Rivo Plus the clock feeding the IC that performs signal reconstruction on the USB DAC port have been changed, from a standard crystal to a MEMS type.
This improvement brings even better jitter and frequency stability performance, and less susceptibility to temperature variations and aging effect.
If this will result in a better sound quality, it heavily depends on the connected DAC. Some Rivo Plus users reported an improvement when moving from Rivo Classic to Rivo Plus, but this might not be the case for all DACs.
Thank you for your reply. I will have try it out.
Best regards Lars
you’re more than welcome!
Yes. It’s also important to remember that using the USB connection, the downstream clock will be used automatically as the master, not the new Rivo clock. If he desires to use the Rivo + clock, then I2S is the better choice. Which to use depends on the quality of the DAC compared to the Rivo +. I recently purchased the Rivo + and am running USB to a LAIV Harmony DAC, am assuming the LAIV clock will be at least as good or better than the Rivo +. At some point I will experiment with I2S to see if I can hear a difference between the Rivo + clock as master or the LAIV clock as master. I kind of doubt it, since both of them are high quality.
So the sound quality of the Rivo+ is the same as the Rivo, with with the usb output?
It’s actually the wrong question. If you use the USB, you are not comparing the Rivo with the Rivo + since the downstream clock will determine the quality. It depends on your DAC. The improvements noted by Darmur will apply if you use one of the other outputs, such as I2S or coaxial, in which case the new Rivo + clock should be in control of the quality. That said, there is still a handshake between the two clocks, and quite frankly, I don’t really understand how that works. But the Rivo + clock would be the “master” and the downstream DAC would be the “slave” clock. I have heard that even when the upstream clock is in control, some DAC’s can “clean up” or correct jitter coming from upstream, but now we are beyond my level of expertise. Perhaps someone else can add to this.
dear @Lidsmoes
as explained before, it depends on the DAC
inside the Rivo Plus there is an improvement on the clock feeding the IC that performs the signal reconstruction on the USB DAC port, compared to the original Rivo. The clock is a MEMS type, with better better jitter and frequency stability performance.
With some DACs connected to USB you can notice improvements on the sound quality, as reported by some Rivo Plus users, with some other DACs you will not notice this improvement.
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I have the original Rivo w a Teddy Pardo PS, it was going directly into my HoloAudio Cyan2 DAC via USB sounding nice …I picked up a Singxer SU6 DDC …USB feeds it with I2S output to the DAC …now it sounds great
Not sure how it would stack up with the Rivo + , however I’m content with it
Cheers
Interesting discussion. I have an SPL Diamond DAC and it does not have a clock of its own. It relies solely on the clock in the source equipment to send the correctly timed data. Based on a few of your opinions on this thread, it would appear that I should expect some degree of sound improvement as the data from the Rivo+ will now have less jitter and frequency variation from the MEMS. Is this a correct assumption? I have the Rivo but keen to upgrade to the Rivo+ if it will bring palpable improvements.
OCXO clocks are more stable than MEMS clocks since they are temperature controlled?