DDC

If you're new to the channel, please consider And if you Today we'll be looking at the Doke Audio YouTube Pro. And to speak about the big elephant in the room, yes, Doke already has a product named YouTube Pro. Doke, you really got to do better in t I'll be calling t And you can differentiate the YouTube Pro 2025 edition because of the outputs. You will see USB-C on the new version, whereas the old version has a USB-B input. However, the internals are quite a bit different. Today we're talking about the newest 2025 version. So what is the YouTube Pro? Doke calls it a digital interface, but it's a DDC or digital to digital converter. In the case of t But the YouTube Pro does a little more in that it isolates electrical signal from your computer as well as giving you a better clock signal with its internal master clock. The YouTube Pro does not have a DAC built in, so no digital to analog conversion, you will not get any analog music out of t So let's take a closer look. It's all that al On the front we have a few LEDs and these will light up for our sample rates, PCM and DSD and you'll see blue for PCM, red for DSD. On the rear we have one digital input on USB-C. T An I squared S on HDMI, Tosnick optical and digital coaxial. On the bottom of the unit we can select what audio class we use for our USB and down at the bottom we have that toggle UAC1 or UAC2. We also get a diagram of the pinouts on the HDMI and I suppose taking a look at the inside, our signal comes in on t We have t And the biggest upgrade from the last U2 Pro to t If we move over to the bottom left we'll see t Dope did give you some space for a larger clock and it looks However, it is not hot-pluggable, you can't just unplug t 8V Bailidian in a 1532 SMD package. From there the reference signal goes back into the XMOS and 44. 1 and 48kHz files use the XMOS's internal clock. And now files are source code output so no resampling here. From there the signal goes to this section in the upper left to handle the spit of conversion where we also see a pulse isolation transformer most And t For $70 it looks great. For testing what I did is that I connected my MacBook Air, I'm going USB from a hub to the Dope U8 DAC and then I'm going USB from that same hub over to the Dope U2 Pro converter and then sending the converter's 3 digital outs, Toslink, Coaxial and I2S over to that U8. On the computer now I'm running Roon and the great t So if I go down here you'll see that I have the U8 linked with the U2 Pro w Roon allows you to send multiple signals from a computer so I can have multiple DACs or multiple sources playing at the same time. T Another t You have to be careful with your settings because a lot of times Windows might be converting your DSD to PCM automatically and there might be a setting in Windows where you can undo t With Roon though I'm able to send DSD and PCM. Let's give you an example here. Now this is 2021 Say Something by Gabriel Mervine and I have this alb As you can see right here I'm playing over USB and the DAC is picking up 192 kHz and the U2 is showing the same on its blue LED. With the DACs remote control I'll cycle through the inputs, I squared Still showing 192, optical 192, digital Coaxial 192. Now I'll go ahead and pause that track and you'll see down here at the bottom that it is the PCM version and now I'm playing the DSD version. You'll see that the U2 Pro now shows a red LED, it is under USB at DSD 64 so 1 times DSD, you'll see that down on the bottom left in Roon as well and I will cycle through inputs. I squared S again DSD, optical DOP and Coaxial DOP. So you can play your DSD files just fine, you will get them over DOP via the spittifs and DSD direct from the I squared S and the USBs but either way you will play DSD. Again just make sure you have that setting for your computer to not convert DSD to PCM. I also tried connecting my iPad directly to the U2 Pro using the lighting to USB-Cable and it would not power the U2 Pro. However with my Google Pixel 8 and a USB-C to USB-Cable I was able to power the U2 Pro just fine, I was able to play Tidal and that sent the signal over to the DAC, that worked out just fine. And for listening I used headphones and I started off with the Sivka Robins. I did start listening with the headphone amplifier of the Doki U8 but it just doesn't have enough power to really tell the differences. I wanted to crank the power a little bit more to see if I can pick up on differences and dynamics. So I went with the SMSL SHX that has a ton of power, the first t It really did sound great. I couldn't pick up on anything that I didn't However once I went through the U2 Pro and switched over to I2S I did notice that the bass improved dramatically. It was quite a bit deeper, tighter and more controlled, much more texture in the bass. So that was somet Switc But I really couldn't pick up much difference other than that bass. So I decided to change headphones and I went with somet I moved up to the SJY Horizon Carbon, a planar magnetics, quite a bit tougher to drive but boy can you hear the difference now. Once again that bass is impressively tighter and deeper going I2S or TOS link. I did find that digital coax didn't sound as good to me. I really did prefer the U2 Pro via I2S and TOS link. Honestly I thought that the I2S with the horizons just added a little too much crispness around the vocals. However the imaging and layering was the best with the I2S. TOS link tended to soften that being said any of the three connections via the U2 Pro were definitely better than going direct USB into the Doke U8. I don't know if that has to do with the reference clock inside of the U2 Pro or isolation from the computer but I can definitely tell you there are differences but for the price you pay I t And I'll share what I use the majority of my time listening. I am around 50 years old and I am definitely a Kel Banks is one of TDE's in-house producers and a rapper himself with a super smooth flow and I really And I understand that this alb Some of my favorite tracks are 400, Hop Out Yo Feelings w The Super Soulful Stay With Me and Mama Pain another excellent track. But all in all an excellent alb Kel Banks, Rota. Now going back to the U8 Pro most of my listening was done through Rune and Tidal so those tracks are usually in PCM. When I did do DSD listening I have to tell you that the differences are quite a bit less noticeable. Bouncing back and forth from all of the three outputs of the U2 Pro it was really difficult to hear any difference at all. And even going from the U2 Pro to USB on the U8 that difference in the bass was quite a bit smaller now. And you really had to listen for it. And I'd say you really only hear it for critical listening and not when you're just playing music and doing your chores. So I don't know if it's the way that the converter handles DSD but the gains are definitely better with PCM. Well that's all I have on t