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Due to how the compact dimensions of this duo enforced their own socketry layout—on both ends to eliminate a traditional bare front—some users could prefer to orient these components sideways for most convenient wire routing.
Inspecting the boxes, I had a few questions for Christine. What was the USB 5V output for? An input would support PC charging but an output? And why could their 384kHz DAC not handle the 352.8kHz sample rate? And why was there only a single clock rather than two to support the 44.1 and 48kHz families of sampling frequencies with dedicated oscillators? Lastly, not spotting an FPGA or processor to act as separate USB transceiver, should one assume the anonymous DAC chip handles it all?
"The 5V output is for the power improvement of other brands. The U Power is not only for our own UC192 and UD384 but can also upgrade products like the Calyx 24/192, Onkyo ND-S1, Lindemann 24/192, NuForce uDac, Creative X dock and the various Squeeze Boxes.
"The list is actually quite a bit longer. The iPhone and many MP3 players can all run off external USB 5V power to significantly improve their performance. The battery supplies of the usual mobile equipment require a DC/DC converter to step up the required output voltage. Our U Power's two 3.7V cells net 7.4V power which gets stepped down to the 5V with a superior low-noise linear voltage regulator.
"Re: the USB transceiver and DAC chip, yes there is only one single chip on which we collaborated with the chip's design company. To protect our intellectual property we simply can't say more about it. The absence of 352.8kHz support is essentially a limitation of this chip but we do have an ongoing development plan and will propose another DAC with 352.8/384kHz support in the future. Re: the TCXO, our engineers assure me that this one is extremely accurate for all sample frequencies to not require more than one superior single clock."
