Totaldac USB cable / filter

Introduction

Totaldac is a company based in France that has been creating a lot of buzz lately with its DAC designs.

The founder of Totaldac is Mr. Vincent Brient, a professional engineer who has worked in a variety of industries before founding Totaldac. Looking at the hand built R2R circuit (utilising 0.01 % precision Vishay resistors) inside his DAC, a certain amount of respect is due for Mr. Brient. 

Description

The Totaldac USB cable / filter is stated to improve the sound of any DAC or music server utilising a USB connection. A sealed aluminum box contains more than 30 components, to provide filtering for digital pollution coming from a computer or music server. The box will even protect your DAC from an over voltage situation.

The Totaldac USB cable will operate under both USB 1.0 and 2.0 modes, and transmits bit-perfect data. No drivers were needed in my tests, under both Windows and Mac environments. Mr. Brient kindly agreed to answer some questions I had about his cable and some other general questions. The questions and answers are reproduced in verbatim below :

Q1. The totaldac usb cable/filter is described as containing “high performance filters to suppress digital pollutions coming from the computer or the music server.”. Are both the data and power lines filtered ? Does the box provide galvanic isolation from the computer ?

A1. It filters both data and power. There is no galvanic isolation as this doesn’t exist for high speed USB. It exists only for old non-asynchronous DACs with a 12Mbit/s USB bit rate, unable to do 192KHz/24.

Q2. The totaldac cable uses a single cable instead of the increasingly popular route of using separate cables for the data and power lines. Do you have any thoughts on this ?

A2. The filter box is placed very close to the DAC connector, so the cable separation is no critical. The long part of cable is before the filter.

Q3. Some audiophiles feel that USB (even if asynchronous) does not sound good as other connection methods like AES or coaxial. Many are using separate USB/SPDIF convertors, claiming better sound compared to direct hookup to their DAC’s USB input. Do you think think this approach has any merit ?

A3. All computer approach need a computer bus to output the digital audio signal. USB, PCI and so on, all have the same difficulty due to the clock and pollution of the computer. There is no computer with true native spdif output, then can only fill and asynchronous fifo, just like the USB does, even if the fifo can be in the processor itself.

USB, even asynchronous, is a sensitive link, this is why the filter helps. For the best sound my customer use the d1-server using the USB cable/filter for the internal loop, then the signal is rebuilt again in AES-EBU in the asynchronous reclocker, then goes to the DAC via AES-EBU.

A computer straight to a USB DAC is not the best way.

All in all the difficulty is not especially the USB, it is the computer for audio, but optimisation are possible, I think that now the d1-server with its USB filter is better sounding than a CD drive.

Sound Quality

The Totaldac USB cable / filter was deployed in a number of situations, similar to my review on the Astin Trew Concord Powered USB cable system. The supplied review sample was 2 m in length.

Tonally, the Totaldac was very different from the JCAT or the Wireworld Platinum Starlight cables which I had on hand. The Totaldac had a richer, warmer and more organic balance. Bass lines had a good deal of weight and bloom, positioned between the hard hitting Wireworld, and the neutral JCAT. I found the bass to be subjectively “wetter” and more rounded than the Wireworld. Midrange had a slight prominence and projection to it, with vocals being pushed forward slightly in the soundstage compared to both the Wireworld and JCAT. There was also a pleasing smoothness and warmth. A little bit of texture was sacrificed in favour of an absence of sibilance on female vocals. Treble presentation varied depending on where the cable was deployed. On my main system, linking my Mac Mini to my Calyx Femto DAC, I felt that the treble was almost as extended as the JCAT, but with a slight emphasis towards the initial transient of the instruments compared to the decay and room ambience. The treble was slightly softer in quality, wth the Totaldac linking my Macbook Pro to my Antelope Zodiac Gold DAC, and even more laidback when I deployed the cable to connect bus powered devices like my Calyx Coffee DAC / headamp, or my Bel Canto uLink USB / SPDIF convertor.

From a staging and imaging perspective, the Totaldac had a grander presentation, with a larger sense of scale and bigger image size. The Wireworld, and to a greater degree, the JCAT had more pinpoint imaging and a more distant perspective. The contrast between the Totaldac and Wireworld was most stark on my Calyx Coffee. The Totaldac was sumptuous and inviting and almost analog like. The Wireworld was punchy but aggressive on the top end, almost to the point that listener fatigue set-in after a few minutes of listening. 

The Totaldac reminded me in many ways of my Lite DAC-AH DAC, a non-oversampling design that utilised 8 paralleled TDA1541 chips. Coincidence ?

Conclusion

I found the Totaldac to be a more easy going cable compared to both the Wireworld and JCAT. As cliched as it may sound, the Totaldac would likely please the listener who is seeking a more analog like presentation from their computer music. 

The choice of cable would depend very much on the tonal balance sought, and choice of music.

I liked the Totaldac very much – it was the house guest with impeccable charm and manners.  I would put it at the top of my audition list if I was seeking a USB cable with a fuller, smoother and fluid presentation.

Highly Recommended.

The review sample was supplied by Mr. K.M. Poon of Horizon Acoustics, the Singapore distributor for Totaldac.

I wish to thank both Mr. Poon of Horinzon Acoustics and Mr. Brient of Totaldac for making this review possible.

Totaldac

Email : totaldac@totaldac.com

Website : http://www.totaldac.com

Price: 0.25m or 1m: 360euros incl VAT in the EU, 330euros excl VAT outside of the EU.

2m: 390euros incl VAT in the EU, 360euros excl VAT outside of the EU.

Horizon Acoustics

144 Upper Bukit Timah Road

#03-15 Beauty World Centre

Singapore 588177

Tel : 91259149

Email : poon@horizonacoustics.com

Website : http://www.horizonacoustics.com

Eric also publishes his own blogspot out of Singapore entitled Eric’s Hifi Blogs (http://singaporehifi.blogspot.com/)