Product Description
We love the freedom USB audio affords, but few among us are satisfied with its performance.
Connecting computers or music servers to DACs is problematic because USB, which connects the two together, has a number of limitations—chief among them, compromised sound quality.
LANRover is a breakthrough product that solves the persistent problems and shortcomings of USB audio. Placed between the computer and your DAC, LANRover regenerates newly formed packets of 2-way data that separates the noisy computer or server from the sensitive DAC—becoming an indispensable element in any high-end audio chain. Once installed, you’ll no longer need (or want) any other product in your music’s path.
Jitter and power supply noise, sometimes data losses, challenge even the most carefully designed DACs to sound their best when connected to USB. Further, USB is a fragile 2-way transmission medium with a maximum length of 5 meters permitted before it is unusable. The longer the cable, the greater the degradation. Even the quality of an appropriate length USB cable matters. Customers spend hundreds of dollars for the best available in the hopes of reducing these failings to acceptable levels.
Computing platforms are noisy and jittered environments, rarely optimized for digital audio, which is why ancillary software products like Audirvana, Bit Perfect, and Amarra—as well as hardware accessories that attempt to clean up the interface are so popular.
The PS Audio LANRover solves this fundamental interface issue entirely and, at the same time, offers the freedom to isolate the computer or music server in one room of the home, and the DAC in any other—all without compromise.
Setup is as easy as it gets. LANRover is a matched pair: one near the computer, the other near the DAC, and separated by Ethernet cabling (CAT 5 or 6), or a home router. No additional software or drivers are necessary. For a computer or music server in the same room as the DAC, simply disconnect the existing USB cable (between the computer and DAC) and insert the LANRover pair, separated by any length of Ethernet cabling. If the computer or server’s in another room, the same setup applies, separated by a wired home router (like the one you use for your internet connection).
It’s easy, simple, and the results are nothing short of breathtaking. Truly a component you’ll not be able to live without once installed.
Bottom line. Until you regenerate and isolate USB audio with LANRover, you’ve no idea just how good your computer audio system can sound.
- Regenerates, cleans, and reclocks USB audio data
- Galvanically isolates DAC from computer or music server
- Buffers and retimes audio data irrespective of computer or server
- Removes any need for separating 5V from USB cable
- Eliminates computer jitter
- Removes computer digital and power supply noise
- Increases possible distance between computer and DAC from a maximum of 5 meters to 100 meters
- Works over home LAN router
- Place computer or music server in one room and DAC in any other
- Dramatically enhances sound quality of USB audio
- Works with PCM or DSD audio
- PCM to 352kHz, single or double rate DSD
- Requires no additional software
- Works with any installed USB driver
- Windows, Linux and Mac compatible
LANRover USB Transporter
USB connects computers to all sorts of things: printers, mice, hard drives, CD players, memory sticks, and DACs. USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an excellent interface for computers and peripherals, but less so for sensitive high-end audio equipment. USB connections tie computer power supplies, grounds and noise to connected devices—an unimportant fact for a printer, sonically degrading for a sensitive DAC.
Audiophiles spend a great deal of time and money dealing with USB’s pollution and shortcomings: exotic cables, filters, hubs, and external power supplies among the many. Unfortunately, none work as well as we would hope for. Like the challenges inherent in repairing our homes AC power, filters and Band Aids help, but do not solve the problem. Regenerating new power for AC, or new audio for USB, does.
PS Audio’s LANRover is unique among USB audio connection devices. Inserted between the computer’s USB output and a DAC’s USB input, LANRover provides 100% galvanic isolation while regenerating new jitter-free audio data for the first time.
Removing computer generated pollution has major sonic benefits. For perhaps the first time, a new level of clarity emerges from a velvety blackness. Space around each performer is noticeably enhanced, while the glare of digital’s edge is replaced by a fullness in the lower registers that’s startling. Soundstage width and depth is noticeably wider and deeper and performers now seem in the room on some recordings. The improvements are remarkable.
LANRover is a matched pair solution to the problems of USB audio. The first of the two devices connects to the USB output of the computer or server. Here, timing, noise, jitter, ground, and power supply voltages from the computer are abandoned, and a new individually packetized datastream is regenerated. Unlike USB audio packets, these new data are in a different format, one that does not suffer USB’s shortcomings. Data are regenerated in new form and sent over a Cat5 cable in the same format as music you might download from a distant server. Just as you can download and share high resolution music over the internet without compromising performance—and send it next door or around the world—this newly generated data is impervious to distance or cable types.
Once regenerated, data can now travel as near or as far as you need. Use the supplied 1 foot long CAT5 to connect the regenerator to the reclocker to clean up your audio, or route that same data through your home network to distance the computer from the DAC, and the shocking level of improvement provided by LANRover in each case is identical.
USB Audio
USB audio forever changed the face of music reproduction, storage and distribution. From the wild-west-sharing/pirating-days of Napster, the iTunes revolution, streaming services like Tidal, Spotify and Pandora, to modern download services like HD Tracks, Blue Coast Music, and others, the computer changed the way we interface with our music. And USB has been the connection of choice for getting music out of our computers and into our DACs.
Even the advent of the music server, itself nothing more than an audio optimized computer, primarily connects over USB. But digital audio did not begin with USB connections and computers. Instead, we relied upon S/PDIF to connect our well designed sources to our sensitive DACs—and still correctly worried about performance loss. We have known the shortcomings of S/PDIF for years, and built devices and DACS to overcome them. But then, USB came into the picture and suddenly, quality was even more at risk.
Computer manufacturers and USB standards committees aren’t Audiophiles. High-end audio is a niche market of caring music lovers concerned with quality performance. We spend great deals of time and money optimizing our systems for best performance—and connecting music sources to DACs over USB seem like Déjà vu for those among us growing up first with vinyl, then the CD and its S/PDIF connections and issues.
Fact is, there’s likely nothing in your home with the same level of noise, radiation, and pollution as generated by a computer. The thought of hard wiring such a noise infected device to a sensitive high-end DAC feels like walking a healthy child into an infectious ward. DAC manufacturers work hard at isolating their products from the expected onslaught of dirty grounds, noisy power supplies and jittered streams of data. But they haven’t yet succeeded in completely isolating the problem, and many are a long way away from ideal.
LANRover solves this problem by physically and electrically isolating the computer from the sensitive DAC. And LANRover works with any DAC and any computer or server.