SPECIFICATION. Featuring world’s first industrial High Speed USB Isolation technology from Intona.
Provides galvanic isolation up to 2.5 kV to the USB bus in all speed modes: Low Speed, Full Speed and USB 2.0 High Speed (480 MBit/s). Plug & Play transparent operation, no drivers needed. Supports all USB-Audio formats and sample rates. No separate power supply needed; ultra low-noise linear regulation onboard. Reinforced USB Connectors: Type-B on PC-side, Type-A on device-side.
At first I used the JCAT USB Isolator in a relatively modest system consisting of a Windows 10 laptop, M2Tech Evo DAC Two Plus, and System Audio Saxo 5 active speakers. But using the JCAT in my big rig also brought sonic differences and allowed me to use the Isolator with the JCAT USB card, so that’s where I did my review listening. JCAT USB Card FEMTO. JCAT USB Card, PCIe to USB Audio card for desktop PCs, is the ultimate solution for computer audiophiles who want to achieve the best sound quality from their USB DACs and USB-to-S/PDIF converters.
Housing made of brushed aluminum. Dimensions: 13 x 6.5 x 2.5cm. Weight: 170g.
DescriptionThis is a USB card designed to transfer high quality audio content from a PC to an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) or a USB-to-S/PDIF converter. It includes an external or internal power input and two USB 3.0 ports. Used individually or together, the JCAT USB Card and USB Isolator improved virtually every aspect of the sound. The noise floor was lowered, and resolution was enhanced. In general, things seemed more relaxed and less, well, “digital.” Transient impact improved, and the sound was more transparent. Soundstages were higher, wider, and deeper, and imaging and focus improved. Within soundstages, voices and instruments had more focus and weight.
There was less distortion and glare on high-frequency peaks, and the midrange, including voices, was cleaner and richer. Bass was firmer and better defined.The JCATs thrived on digital downloads of well-recorded music. In Billy Cobham’s often subtle drum solo in “Anxiety/Taurian Matador,” from his Spectrum (24-bit/96kHz FLAC, Rhino), the prominent snare drum was now concretely placed at center stage. I could viscerally feel the initial impact and flutter of the hard-struck drum skins, and the subsequent decays were much longer and more detailed.
Jan Hammer and Tommy Bolin’s duet on, respectively, Moog and guitar was now much more present and involving.“Have a Cigar,” from Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (16/44.1 FLAC, Columbia), segues into the title track with the sound of an old-style analog radio tuner being dialed through several stations, including one broadcasting the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4. Even in this brief linking segment — a recording of the radio in David Gilmore’s car, in the parking lot of EMI’s Abbey Road Studios — it was apparent that the JPlay products were making possible wider, deeper soundstages and more detail — even the interstation static was crisper and better articulated.Due to its slide, the trombone has the greatest range of notes of all brass instruments. This was beautifully demonstrated by Charles Mingus’s Mingus Ah Um (DSD64, Columbia/Legacy), the second part of which is full of trombone melodies and solos.
The JCATs nicely exposed the sometimes subtle note changes in these passages. While I’ve heard greater timbral definition with some very-high-end servers, the JCATs weren’t at all shabby in this regard, and eons better than the sound without them.In Diana Krall’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You,” from Krall’s Doing All Right (16/44.1 FLAC, IMC Music Limited), her brooding voice was now more textured, the background “blacker,” the attacks of her piano notes cleaner and more penetrating.