I’m getting digital noises from my PC into my DAC. Are there any good and cheap galvanic USB isolators? I only know this Ifi and other boutique brand stuff but that’s way too expensive.
I just want a data connection so no noisy power can travel into my DAC
IfI usb filters help but I found the Topping one to be better if you can use toslink out or add a cheap sound card with toslink to a desktop dac that will also work
I’d agree, optical is the easiest and cheapest way out here if possible. I wouldn’t suggest using it for sonic reasons if it’s a nicer dac, but for most sub 1k dac you should be just fine. If you don’t have optical on your motherboard, you could grab a cheap ddc for that
You could go for one of the ifi filters, but that might not always work depending on which filter you choose. For ground loops the idefender is the one you would want (I’d also personally pick up a psu to go with that for good measure), but from my experience that isn’t always going to work depending on the situation
optical is already occupied by my Raspberry Pi Volumio streamer. The ifi looks a bit pricey, I wondered if there is anything like it from no name brands
Would a toslink splitter something like this work 
I don’t want to use toslink from my PC because of the poor jitter performance of my motherboard
I think the ground loops are caused by my rather new motherboard. It powers my DAC even when the PC is off. My old PC only had power on USB when it was on
Gotcha, there probably are, although I don’t know of any off the top of my head, so far the ifi has been the cheapest one I’ve tried to actually work
So to test, if you have the dac plugged into the amp and into power, but not plugged into the pc, do you still hear the ground loop? Or is it only when the dac is plugged into the pc
Yep, only get it when the PC is connected
I’d probably just grab an ifi then and see if that fixes it, if not then there are other options to try like grabbing a ddc to use coax in
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The ifi doesn’t necessarily need external power if my DAC is self powered, right?
No, but giving it its own power can be beneficial since it will replace the power coming from USB (which while it isn’t actually powering the dac, that power from the PC is still coming in, so adding a psu to the idefender will bypass the PC 5v and use the plug 5v. I’d try it on its own and see if that works, if not then try using a phone charger or something to power the ifi
I would want just data without power from my pc and use my linear power supply with the auxiliary power input on my dac
You could also try using an unpowered USB cable (basically a cable with no 5v line or those lines disconnected) to potentially solve your issue, but it’s hit or miss if the dac will actually work with one of those (for various reasons). Given your dac is self powered you shouldn’t need to use the psu on the ifi, but it’s just something you will have to try and see what happens. Even dacs with their own psu sometimes don’t take well to having no 5v coming in from usb (either because that’s just not what the dac expects and it makes it unable to communicate properly, or because sometimes the usb modules are powered separately from the rest of the dac so the usb input module might be powered by usb 5v and the rest of the dac powered by another psu, all depends on the dac at hand)
Hello,
which Dac do you actually have?
Is the Dac supplied with power via USB or a separate power supply unit?
I’m not quite sure, but I’d say that the USB port you have is connected to the power supply to provide power.
It’s possible that it’s not grounded with these USB ports that are often built into the front.
Try a USB port that comes from the mainboard that should be grounded as a rule.
And should actually remedy the problem.
The other cheap alternative would be to use a USB PC express card.
But you have to try it out to see if it will solve the problem.
The main advantage would be to reduce the load on the processor and shorten the signal path.
If it doesn’t help, you will have to use a galvanically isolated USB stick as @Mon said.
Do you actually have a 3 or 2 pin plug connected to the power supply of your PC or Dac ?
If you only have a 2-pole plug, that would probably be the reason why the PC or the Dac is not earthed and has ground noise.
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Ah yes if you haven’t tried other usb ports on the pc, try that and see if that solves the issue, sometimes it can help
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I’m using a SMSL Sanskrit 10 which can be powered by the PC USB or by an extra 5V USB.
hdmi to hdmi audio extractor to dac? no clue what sq you would get. others might know and be able to chime in. but the audio extractors are pretty cheap.
Those are terrible for sound quality. I think I’ll just get the ifi and use usb. Good usb to spdif Interfaces are more expensive than the ifi
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Hello,
I took a look at it and it does have 2 usb C ports.
And I think there was something about the history.
Try to power the Scankrit with the smartphone charger at usb aux and the other usb c port to the pc where the source material is located, then it should be gone.
And I think you have to switch off the 5 v in the settings of the port on the PC where it is plugged in.
Then I think the ground loop is gone.