Sonicweld Diverter HR 24/192 USB to SDPIF Converter

The original Diverter received an unprecedented amount of praise, and was recognized as t he "best in class" USB to S/PDIF converter. The new Diverter pushes the performance envelope of USB to S/PDIF converters even further.

The designer spent thousands (literally) of hours and reworked all of the circuitry; these long hours in front of the computer allowed dramatic improvements to the power supply delivery circuitry, the power supply regulation and filtering, the output driver stage, the clocking circuitry, and a myraid of other changes.

The all new 10 layer PCB layout utilizes true high speed digital deign techniques, even going so far as to have the board fabricated from an ultra high performance microwave material; these are techniques and materials that are not often, and perhaps maybe never before, been seen in consumer level products!

Suffice to say, as well done as the original Diverter was laid out and built, this new piece is in a different league
- To ensure the best USB interface to computer possible, he spent a great deal of time and effort writing custom code for the USB receiving chip, and optimizing the async connection. Better than me rambling on about things, here are a few things that Josh Heiner of Sonicweld, the acclaimed high speed digital engineer responsible for the Diverter HR has to say about the design:

"It is my opinion that circuit boards are generally under appreciated in the audio world, and are often dismissed as rather generic and unremarkable, but I consider them critically important. In fact, I view the board is the single most important component in a product. Many people with design experience and skill can select parts from a catalog and design a working circuit, but the circuit board, which is the mechanical, thermal, and electrical foundation for any electronic product, is where and how the circuit is actually implemented. Its features have an enormous impact its performance, because it effectively adds thousands of unseen passive components to the circuit and defines the working relationship of each part to its neighbors. It takes a particular skill set to identify and weigh the myriad competing factors in designing a circuit board; more than any other single factor, it is what sets one design apart from another.

The new Diverter’s circuit board is something I’m truly proud of. It is a ten-layer design with very small, precise features (some of the Diverter’s parts are of the 0201 size, which is akin to ground pepper), and is crafted from high-performance, microwave-grade materials. Taken alone, its construction features set it apart from any other high-end audio product I know of. Engineering such a board, which is easily the most expensive and influential component in the Diverter, has required over a thousand hours of simulation, calculation, parts selection and sourcing, layout design, and prototyping. There is only one vendor in the world I know of who is capable of making the board with the technology and combination of features I required, and locating that company was a difficult journey that accounted for much of the development delay. More specifically and quite unusually, this version of the Diverter has required ten different iterations of the board, which have been extremely expensive and time- consuming to execute. These elaborate measures were necessary to test and optimize various combinations of clocking, output driver, firmware features, board construction, and power supply. In the end, the final board is the highest quality board I’ve ever produced, and it has yielded the best performance I’ve ever measured on the bench for any digital audio product."

"The power supplies have been completely re-imagined. The main system power is still derived from the USB bus, and is now regenerated on board before being fed to its various high-performance regulator circuits. The multistage power supply filtering found all around the board is now more refined and effective. Key subcircuits such as the main oscillator benefit from quadruple regulation. A new, custom-produced differential oscillator and differential output circuit have been employed. The high-speed cable driver is a special circuit which I’m confident has not been used in the audio industry before, and is very robust and capable of driving long cable lengths if necessary (although I still recommend using short cables if possible). The new Diverter retains galvanic isolation in its output circuitry."

Features:

* Passes up to 24/192 data via asynchronous USB 2.0 operation

* Compatible with 16 bit and 24 bit files with sampling rates of 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, and 192kHz. rate

* Ultra low-noise power supply reduces random jitter

* Precision output clocking circuit for very low deterministic jitter

* Unique internal power supply regulation for optimum performance using USB bus power - no external power supply needed!

* Aggressive common and differential mode filtration circuit designed for optimum performance using USB bus power

* Computer-optimized power delivery networks for wideband, extremely low power supply impedance

* Low-jitter master oscillator with ultra-short differential clock delivery path and dedicated, triple-regulated power supply

* Active inrush current management protects USB controller

* Custom 10 layer circuit boards employs high-speed digital layout techniques, and is fabricated from high-performance microwave laminate material

* Custom machined enclosure milled from 6061-T6 solid billet aluminum alloy with stainless steel constrained layer damping plates

* Ultra high quality, ruggedized, Amphenol USB "B" input

* Utra high quality true 75 ohm BNC digital output (custom CryoParts BNC to RCA adapter provided)

* Galvanically isolated SPDIF output

* Firmware field upgradable via USB

* Top plate incorporates a dimmable LED dot matrix display which indicates the incoming stream’s sample rate. It also displays the product’s firmware revision level upon startup.

* Plug and play for Mac users running OSX 10.6.4 or newer, ASIO-compatible driver is supplied for Windows operation.

Verified to work with all Windows versions from XP up (ASIO-compatible driver supplied), and Mac OSX 10.6.4 or higher (no driver required).