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MARANTZ GUIDE TO PC-AUDIO | NA-11S1 | 05.2013 | 4www.marantz.eu
USB-B CONNECTION IN DETAIL
High End audio DAC mode through USB-B port.
First of all this port is using the most advanced technologies to get
the best sound from your audio fi les. There is no limitation by the
NA-11S1 audio DAC, as it handles 2ch PCM and DSD by DoP
provided by the PC / MAC. You can enjoy any fi le stored on your
computer and which can be played back by the media player on
the PC, as long as it will be outputted via the USB-A connection
on the PC. The USB-B port is on the player, here the NA-11S1.
The USB cable pointing to the Marantz needs to be a USB-B type one.
A quick overview of the USB-B possibilities:
1st It will bypass the audio board of your PC / Mac in order to avoid all
digital noise from your PC / Mac
2nd It will also be able to bypass the audio mixer in your computer
which is a source for distortion.
Ex: The mixer is the DSP of the PC where all sound from any software
will be mixed together and sent to the speakers, but in order to achieve
this mixing the DSP has to convert all different formats coming from
different software. This this will heavily modify the audio fi le and lower
the sound quality. When we bypass the audio mixer, the original audio
fi le will be outputted bit-perfect – no modifi cation to original signal
happens.
3rd The asynchronous mode as available on the NA-11S1 will give
control over the timing of audio data transmission to the receiver side
(USB-DAC), thereby minimising jitter for best audio performance.
4th It’s compatible with all fi le formats including DSD via DoP
(all the formats that your PC software player can read). This differs
by USB-DAC specifi cation.
For all these reasons, it is worth spending some time to investigate
these new possibilities, as more and more serious music companies
offer High End Audio tracks like FLAC HD in 24bits/192 kHz and DSD
fi les in 2.8Mhz / 5.6 MHz for download. This allows us to listen to music
fi les with the same High End quality that we had on Super Audio CD’s.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
In order to enjoy the best sound we will now explain how to make it
happen.
List of equipment
Audio Files, PC, Media Player on PC, USB-DAC cable, Driver for
USB-B DAC, USB-B DAC
PC / Mac A Player JRiver or Audirvana A good USB-A to USB-B Cable
Marantz NA-11S1 Driver NA-11S1
The music files
First we need high end audio files like Flac HD and DSF (DSD). In
case you don’t have any yet you can work with standard files too.
It is not just limited to FLAC HD or DSF as we explained before. All
formats can be played. However for the best quality you can get
high definition files downloaded from the internet. At the end of
the document we will list some web sites offering such high end
audio tracks.
Then we need a so called bit-perfect player
A common thinking is that digital is equal to digital, however this
is only the case if the data in the received file is “bit-perfect” to
the playback file. However, this often not the case if you are using
a PC as a source. In a PC the data signal has to pass many stages
of input and output before the signal will be outputted via the USB
connection to the USB-DAC.
First, the computer will use the on board DAC (Digital Audio Con-
verter). All computers have an internal DAC, generally of poor qual-
ity, simply because the primary purpose of such a machine does not
offer any guarantee in terms of quality sound reproduction. This is
why music lovers often use an external DAC. However it is not all
about an external DAC.
The OS “operating system” running on the computer itself contains
a set of functions responsible for processing audio streams more
or less “neutral”, ideally without altering them. This software layer
should not interfere with the characteristics of the signal, but in
practice this is not the case, so one source of distortion. And
ultimately, the incoming signal to the DA converter may be very
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