Magenta DAC 2.1 User Manual

Usb digital to analog converter

DAC 2.1

The Magenta DAC2.1 has one of the latest and best technology in USB
receivers and digital to analog conversion, but it’s performance it’s not only
based in this important digital domain section, The MAGENTA DAC 2.1 has
a dual shunt power supply and an totally discreet analog output.

The input is asynchronous USB 2.0 to SPDIF converter is the best USB
converter, It has up to 8 macro cores inside running at 500Mhz with a very
powerfully data processing ability. There are three imported high precision
oscillators located close to the receiver chip, making the shortest path and
reducing jitter, It is very important for high frequency transferring.

The Analog Output is a totally discrete proprietary circuit that does not use
the feedback loop to do the integration or filtering.

The MAGENTA DAC 2.1 has two power supplies, one for the digital section
and the second for the analog, both are shunt.

Shunt technology provides a dramatic improvement in Q damping,
Good regulation reduces the loss of signal integrity that occurs when the

signal itself shifts the amplifier’s operating point.

This topology is a key factor along with its shunt power supply, to give its
characteristic sweet detailed and reach sound.

Key note on USB Audio

USB audio is very popular.
One of the reasons is that USB audio is part of the USB standard and as a
consequence native mode drivers are available in all the popular OS (Win,
OSX and Linux).
Connecting a USB audio device is a matter of plug&play.

USB audio is a flexible solution as any PC offers USB.
If you use a laptop this is probably the way to go if you want to improve on
the on-board sound card.

The audio is routed to the USB.
This is a matter of choosing the USB audio device in your media player.
The on-board sound card is bypassed; in fact you don’t need a sound card
at all.
The USB audio device is your (outboard) sound card.

Today the resolution of USB audio ranges from 16 bit/ 32 kHz to 32 bit/ 384
kHz.
Your Magenta DAC 2.1 has a range to up yo 32bit/384 khz.

The data transfer from the PC to the MAGENTA DAC 2.1 is asynchronous
mode. By design asynchronous mode eliminates input jitter.

 Asynchronous
 In this mode an external clock is used to clock the data out of the

buffer and a feedback stream is setup to tell the host how much
data to send.

 A control circuit monitors the status of the buffer and tells the

host to increase the amount of data if the buffer is getting too
empty or to decrease if it’s getting too full.
Since the readout clock is not dependent on anything going on
with the bus, it can be fed directly from a low jitter oscillator, no
PLL need apply.
This mode can be made to be very insensitive to bus jitter.