AUDIOBYTE

HYDRA-Z

Hydra Z front
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TECHNICAL

IMPROVEMENTS

Hydra Z benefits from all the qualities of the X+, and even more. New clocking scheme allows shutting down one of the two main oscillators when not in use. By reducing the mutual interference between clocks, better phase noise performance can be obtained. The power supply section was moved to a different chassis for best results.

Hydra Z internal
Hydra Z perspective

AUDIO GRADE CLOCKS

Unlike other products which only specify "low jitter clocks", here is exactly what you will find inside : 2xCCHD-950/957 type from Crystek. These are real audio grade clocks. You can check real graphs for them here. These clocks are system masters. In order to remove any jitter induced by the FPGA circuit itself, special retiming is applied just before the Hydra Z outputs.

ARM PROCESSING

FPGA TECHNOLOGY

All USB audio transactions are made through a powerful ARM3 processor. Therefore Hydra Z supports any sample rate available (384k PCM, DSD128) while being future-proof for any extension.

As all AUDIOBYTE digital products, the Hydra Z uses cutting edge, custom digital processing developed into a Xilinx Spartan6 field-programmable gate array. The fpga is the “heart” of the Hydra. This advanced programmable circuit is offering a bit-transparent processing and signal conditioning to all outputs. It also gives the ability of the Hydra to output raw dsd audio streams.

MASTERCLOCK OUTPUT

Unlike other products which only specify "low jitter clocks", here is exactly what you will find inside : 2xCCHD-950/957 type from Crystek. These are real audio grade clocks. You can check real graphs for them here. These clocks are system masters. In order to remove any jitter induced by the FPGA circuit itself, special retiming is applied just before the Hydra Z outputs.

Hydra Z backside
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COMPONENTS

AND LAYOUT

Hydra Z backside white

Hydra Z benefits from all the qualities of the X+, and even more. New clocking scheme allows shutting down one of the two main oscillators when not in use. By reducing the mutual interference between clocks, better phase noise performance can be obtained. The power supply section was moved to a different chassis for best results.

technical specifications

GENERAL:

Power consumption : 0,7W

Dimensions : 240 x 170 x 45MM

Weight : 1,2kg

CONNECTIVITY:

Inputs

USB receptacle, type B

Outputs

S/PDIF, 75 ohm coaxial

AES/EBU, 110 ohm XLR

BNC 75 ohms

I2S over HDMI (LVDS)

Toslink

Wordclock BNC

SUPPORTED SAMPLE RATES:

PCM

44.1 KHz, 48 KHz, 88.2 KHz, 96 KHz

176.4 KHz, 192 KHz, 352.8 KHz, 384 KHz

DSD

2.8 MHz (DSD64) - DoP, native

5.6 MHz (DSD128) - DoP, native

11.2 MHz (DSD256) - native (via ASIO)

22.5 MHz (DSD512) - native (via ASIO)

BIT DEPTH:

32 bit over I2S output

24 bit over S/PDIF, AES/EBU, TOSLINK

COMPATIBILITY (USB):

Native MacOS 10.6 and later

ASIO, WASAPI, KS, DS drivers for Win XP to W8 32/64 bit

Recommended players : Foobar2000, Audirvana Plus, Jriver etc.