Description
Audiobyte Hydra Stack
The Audiobyte Hydra Stack is an extremely high quality headphone streaming system, ready to stream and amplify your music to your headphones.
Your ultimate digital companion, cutting edge technology to enhance every musical experience. Proprietary Audiobyte cutting edge technology, hand-built and individually tested, engineered for the purity of sound.
This system is sold as a stack and is our own demo equipment in very good condition. See below a description of the three components of the stack.
Audiobyte Hydra.VOX – A Unique Audio Experience
The Audiobyte Hydra.VOX is a unique D/A converter with a headphone amplifier and external power supply. Its entire architecture is built from the scratch using Audiobyte proprietary technologies. Every feature was developed through extensive research to provide a natural audio experience.
FPGA DAC
The VOX is built around a Xilinx 7-series FPGA device. FPGA = Field Programmable Gate Array – a piece of silicon which allows development of custom hardware. All main functions of the device are specifically made inside the Xilinx device which is updatable, meaning new software will refresh the dac on the hardware level.
Discrete 1-bit technology
The architecture of the VOX is pure 1 bit. All incoming sample rates are converted inside to a sample rate equivalent to DSD256/512 (firmware dependent), after which analog conversion is done using current segment technology.
Signal Processing
Attaining a high performance 1-bit converter requires extensive digital processing. In order to keep a pristine sound quality, the processing must be done in a resolution higher than the music itself. Using 80 DSP cores running at 200 MHz and 68-bit processing, VOX has enough computing power to preserve the transparency required by the most demanding audiophile.
Phase Correction System
A unique feature of the Hydra.VOX is the seamless integration between analog and digital filters in orders to preserve accurate phase of the audio signal. It is well-known that any analog low-pass filter will add a phase distortion input-to-output altering sound quality.
To avoid this from happening, the digital filters inside FPGA are programmed to exhibit a “mirrored” phase response, thus cancelling the phase error from the analog domain. The result is a perfect phase response over the audio band.
Isolated I2S
The main input of the VOX is I2S, therefore this input is fully isolated to a prevent any possible noise leak from the audio I2S source.
Femtovox Clocking System
The quality of the conversion clock is crucial in a high-speed 1-bit system. The VOX uses a high-quality DPLL clock generator which is integrated into a jitter reduction architecture. By design, it does not require any Asynchronous Sample Rate Conversion solutions to achieve this.
Analog filter/buffer
While trivial in general applications, the analog buffer stage of the 1-bit DAC is a critical component. Not only must it eliminate the residual noise, but also it should have extreme performance in terms of low distortion and noise floor. In the VOX, the analog buffer stage is realized using low noise bipolar discrete devices.
dsd pure path
Another feature of the VOX DAC is the possibility to directly convert DSD256/512 signals, bypassing all internal processing. This is possible only on USB and I2S inputs. Please note that volume control will not be available if this setting is active and headphone output will be muted.
Customization and user interface
The VOX is a versatile software defined DAC. This means that many features, graphical interface and even the sound signature are not fixed – they can be changed by updating the firmware.
At the moment, we are developing 3 distinct firmware versions, called Rocket, Bullet and Torpedo, each one with its own sub-versions. Even the most demanding audiophile can find the perfectly tailored sound.
The DAC can be controlled directly on the touchscreen or via control app available for iOS and Android.
Headphone amplifier & preamp
The VOX has a 35-bit data path and a very high quality 32-bit volume control, therefore can drive directly any power amplifier. The built-in headphone amplifier is entirely a bipolar discrete design with a max power of 3W/16 ohms.
Audiobyte Hydra.ZAP
External power supply
The VOX is entirely powered from the Hydra.ZAP dedicated power supply, which provides analog power for the headphone amplifier, digital voltage and an ultra-low noise reference voltage.
The ZAP is the VOX-partner dedicated low noise power supply. It can be fully controlled via touch-screen display or with our custom remote-control app for Android abd iOS. It provides clean power supply for the VOX line-up: symmetrical analog, digital and reference voltages.
DIGITAL SUPPLY
The Digital supply is a low noise, low impedance, ultra-capacitor based power supply. It features a large capacitor bank of 2 x 310 Farads. The charging process is a seamless, microprocessor-controlled process with progress tracking graphics on the ZAP display.
REFERENCE SUPPLY
The ZAP provides a very clean reference power supply needed for the VOX. It is made using discrete regulation and can be manually changed in case the ZAP is used independently.
ANALOG SUPPLIES
For the headphone amplifier, the ZAP has a section of complementary adjustable discrete regulators. These are shunt mode high rejection stages based on proprietary Audiobyte technology.
monitor & control
The Hydra.ZAP has extensive monitoring and control capabilities. All voltage values (except reference voltages) and current consumption is shown in real time on the product display. The complementary analog voltages powering the headphone amplifier can be manually adjusted in fine steps or by directly input of the voltage.
Audiobyte Hydra.HUB
The Hydra.HUB is a complete digital audio transport solution, handling a variety of inputs to a I2S LVDS output, acting like a full digital preamplifier. It’s packed with a lot of features that enhances the experience and quality of life of even the most demanding music lover.
Is it a reclocker?
YES. Incorporating a high performance digital PLL, it offers a -60 dB jitter attenuation from input to output.
Is it an upsampler?
YES. Hub integrates a high-quality DSP engine (80 DSP blocks in parallel) which will upsample input signal to high rate PCM or DSD. The upsampler can be switched off (bypassed) through control menu.
Is it a format converter?
YES. It has the ability to convert PCM to DSD or DSD to PCM. Everything is done at studio quality, without any sonic degradation.
Is it an USB interface?
YES. You can connect it via USB to any PC/MAC and is ready to play asynchronously and bit-perfect.
Is it a digital receiver?
YES. Equipped with S/PDIF, AES and Toslink inputs, it can handle any classic digital source, cleaning it from jitter and performing optional upsampling.
Is it a network streamer?
YES. Just connect your HUB to the network and will become endpoint for your Roon server, HQplayer network audio adapter, Airplay and DLNA renderer.
Is it a digital preamplifier?
YES. Using a 32-bit volume control, the HUB can drive directly digital active speakers or any other compatible device.
Can it make French fries?
Not yet.
