Musical Fidelity V-Link promises to 'perfect' laptop music
Just when you thought that moving to computer-based music could cut your hi-fi box count, here comes Musical Fidelity with the V-Link - a £100 box that claims to improve the audio output of your PC or Mac.
The V-Link is a 24-bit/96kHz Asychronous USB to S/PDIF converter with both coaxial and optical outputs.
It features a low-jitter power supply feeding a high-precision digital clock. Musical Fidelity claims this enables the V-Link to 're-clock' the data coming from the USB port with far greater accuracy.
Quite boldly, the company claims 'jitter is immeasurable and data transfer is perfect'.
Tony Jones, product manager at Armour Home - UK distributor of Musical Fidelity, says: "Today, more and more people are storing their cherished music collections on computers. However, until now, there have been serious limitations with regard to the sound quality obtainable from a computer's standard USB outputs"
He continues: " The V-Link offers both optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs. Choosing the optical option completely overcomes the problems of galvanic isolation, which, in the case of computers connected to audio equipment, refers to the 'digital noise' that leaks into the audio circuitry via interconnected earths."
We look forward to putting those claims to the test when we review the Musical Fidelity V-Link - which is avaialble now, priced £100.
Comments
I don't believe the RS bravo is async though and that makes quite a difference to the MCLK. I think for 99 it sounds promising. There is a review here that puts it in quite high regard.
http://www.custom-cable.co.uk/arcam-rdackw-versus-musical-fidelity-m1-dac-musical-fidelity-v-link-usb-s-pdif-convertor.html
And, Alan Norak, if you are going to support your (now deleted) bile-filled rantings with supposed anectdotes from your years in the industry, at least try to get your basic facts right before you make defamatory remarks about industry figures.
I've got a V-Link and it works a treat.
"Galvanic isolation" just refers to the opto-isolation of Toslink - which is a good thing when you're connecting to an electrically noisy PC.
Another mag measured the jitter and it came out as zero on their equipment. So I don't think MF are "taking the proverbial" here.
Ah, AlanNorak - your hi-fi shop doesn't stock Marantz or Musical Fidelity, then?
We're happy to write about any products, from companies big and small, if they get the information to us.
MF are renowned for this sort of marketing nonsense. If only they's spend as much money on real R&D rather than this bull, they's might actually make a decent product.
The same hysteria surrounding Russ Andrew and Ken Ishiwata, shifts thousands of overrated products.
It's a shame the real innovative engineers and products don't get the same exposure just because they're not mass produced!
So have Behringer - and for considerably less.
Russ Andrews has been doing something like this for a very long time.