ZERO LINK: A new technology from SFORZATO and SOULNOTE in Japan (with sample WAVs)

[KyoichiOda]

Finally I have listened SFORZATO's and SOULNOTE's ZERO LINK products, postponed so long due to Covid-19 state.

Simply, I thought they are at top level.
In my view, at least same or better than dCS Vivaldi and MSB SELECT DAC.
Very high resolution like 8K display, much clear soundscape are the common character.
I strongly recommend listening them if digital audio is important for you.
I will describe the detail of each products in following posts.

 

[KyoichiOda]

SFORZATO has transport and three DACs on their catalog.
Very beautiful tonality, imaging are their character,
fits all music lovers.
Slim bass and natural attack and decay are other property.
They make listening music so cozy and eajoyable.





The details of ZERO LINK products will be on their website in a few months.

SFORZATO | Wellcome to next generation High End Audio

Wellcome to next generation High End Audio

sfz.world

Sadly it takes several months the products are available at distributors because of recent lack of electric parts and devices.
However, you are welcomed at their place near Tokyo to listen new ZERO LINK products.

 

[Addicted to hifi]

Hello everyone, this is my first contribution to this forum
because I would like to introduce a great step forward for digital audio in Japan.
Messrs SFORZATO and SOULNOTE have developed nice Network players/DACs,
but their technologies and products might not be well known overseas due to the language barrier, etc.

ZERO LINK is a brand new transport protocol and products (transport and DAC/player),
developed by Kyoichi Omata at SFORZATO and Hideki Kato at SOULNOTE.
Kyoichi Omata describes key ideas of ZERO LINK on facebook as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZERO LINK is the new digital audio signal (I2S, DSD) transmission standard established by SOULNOTE and SFORZATO.
The key of the ZERO LINK is that the clock master is DAC not Transport.

How to create the Best Performance DAC with inputs such as USB, LAN ?
The conclusion by the two companies was eliminating asynchronous operation from DAC.
ZERO LINK is what makes this a reality.

DAC works to convert digital data to analog signal in succession, to the rhythm of the sampling frequency .
This rhythm must be maintained without disturbance, and must be kept constant.
Data sent over USB or LAN comes at a timing that has no relation to this rhythm.
A given amount of data is sent in blocks, which must be arranged so that DAC can read them according to its rhythm.
The work of receiving and arranging the data, too, is carried out with timing unrelated to the rhythm of D/A conversion.

Imagine this. As you clap to a certain rhythm, next to you is someone who makes loud noises at times unrelated to your rhythm, beating a drum – tata, tatata, ta.... at a completely unrelated tempo and rhythm.
Wouldn't you want to shout at this nuisance to get out?
Completely shutting out hindrances to rhythm is the DAC portion connected through ZERO LINK.
It forces the USB, LAN that create rhythm-disturbing noise out to Transport.
It then transmits the clapping rhythm from DAC to Transport, and sends data one item at a time in step with the rhythm.
The result: no noise inside DAC other than your own clapping, letting you concentrate on D/A conversion without disrupting the rhythm.

What connects Transport and DAC is ZERO LINK. The format (e.g., sampling frequency) of songs played by the transport is communicated to DAC, after which DAC sends a rhythm fitting the format to Transport.
Transport then sends data in step with that rhythm to DAC, piece by piece. The connection method behind this mechanism is ZERO LINK.

https://fb.watch/3FSor_bzUv/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last weekend I had a chance to listen to this new technology in an audio shop in Tokyo,
with SFORZATO DST-Lepus transport (trial version) and SOULNOTE S-3 Ver.2 SACD player
which accepts ZERO LINK data transport.
Despite their being in trial, the sound was much better than the ordinary USB isochronous widely used.
Much more clarity, brightness and high resolution sound had me both surprised and amazed.
The difference in resolution of the sound source was readily discernible.
You can experience the difference by downloading and listening two WAV files on the links below:
DELA S100 -(optical fiber LAN)-> DST-Lepus -(USB)-> S-3 Ver.2
DELA S100 -(optical fiber LAN)-> DST-Lepus -(ZERO LINK)-> S-3 Ver.2

SFORZATO will release ZERO LINK transport and DACs in a few months,
DST-Lepus (ZERO LINK Transport)
DSC-Vela (DAC)
DSC-Dorado (DAC)
DSC-Grus (DAC)

SOULNOTE follows: release planned for July,
Z-3 (ZERO LINK Transport)
D-3 (DAC)

I hope all over the world audiophiles experience and enjoy the excellent sound.
SFORZATO
SOULNOTE

View attachment 75027View attachment 75028View attachment 75029View attachment 75030View attachment 75031

The superb engineer at SFORZATO is Kyoichi OMATA,
I'm Kyoichi ODA. This is a just coincidence, don't be confused!

Very nice.

 

[KyoichiOda]

SOULNOTE suggests ZERO LINK system named 'ZEUS', with DAC, transport, clock generator and clock cable.
The sound is active and direct, heavy mass sound flies from loudspeakers, this is my first impression.
Listened carefully, strong mass is consisted from so small particles, namely so high resolution.
These are balanced and established at very high level.
This should be one of ideal systems for many audiophiles.

Their philosophy and key idea on facebok:
?SOULNOTE thinks transient is much more important than measurements. We don't rely on the result of measurements, but listening to sound to find and decide the right way.
?The design standard of SOULNOTE is only "impressed by music, or not ''. Music is active, lives and more impresses by getting the whole from the source.
?It seems many audio products make their sound from 'dead' state by the idea based on static measurement results. However, 'dead' sound can never be revived.
?SOULNOTE is making every effort not to sound 'dead'. As a result, our products have unique technical style far from commonly used. These are for reviving 'SOUL' of music by getting whole from the source.


The details of ZERO LINK products in English will be on their website in a month.

SOULNOTE

Sadly it takes several months the products are available at distributors because of recent lack of electric parts and devices.
However, you are welcomed at their place near Tokyo to listen new ZERO LINK products.
They are looking for distributor / dealer in Europe except France and North America. Your help is welcomed too.

 

[CKKeung]

Soulnote gave the Hong Kong dealer a Z3 and D3 connected by the Zero Link to demo at the Hong Kong HiFi Show earlier this month.
It's a pity that the dealer has to return them to Japan after the Show, because many audiophiles want to have longer audition of them in the HK showroom.

Here is a youtube showing them in the dealer's room at the Show (from 9:30 onward) :

 

[KyoichiOda]

Soulnote gave the Hong Kong dealer a Z3 and D3 connected by the Zero Link to demo at the Hong Kong HiFi Show earlier this month.
It's a pity that the dealer has to return them to Japan after the Show, because many audiophiles want to have longer audition of them in the HK showroom.

Here is a youtube showing them in the dealer's room at the Show (from 9:30 onward) :

They sold so many, now SOULNOTE has plenty of backorders.

SOULNOTE returned the latest version of ZEUS products to Aria Audio. Audiophiles in Hong Kong can have audition shortly.

 

[KyoichiOda]

I listened SOULNOTE full system yesterday at Tokyo International Audio Show.

'ZEUS' digital system:
D-3 D/A Convertor
Z-3 Zero Link Transport
X-3 10MHz Clock Generator
RCC-1 Clock Cable

and
P-3 Pre Amplifier
M-3 Monobloxk Power Amplifier


(Chief engineer Mr. Hideki Kato is explaining ZEUS and M-3)

I have listened high end digital systems, dCS, Esoteric, MSB etc.
and believe SOULNOTE is absolutely at the highest level.
Of course it has very high resolution like 8K display, clearness
but that not all. They sound fresh, vivid and realistic. The atmosphere of concert hall reappears in front of / around you.

Preamprifier P-3 and newly developed power monoblock M-3 contribute much for total sound at high integrity.
I have experienced getting more sound details with preamplifier, only P-3 and Bespoke. Although the character is different, price of P-3 is less than half of Bespoke.
I strongly recommend P-3 and M-3 too.

 

[Addicted to hifi]

Hello everyone, this is my first contribution to this forum
because I would like to introduce a great step forward for digital audio in Japan.
Messrs SFORZATO and SOULNOTE have developed nice Network players/DACs,
but their technologies and products might not be well known overseas due to the language barrier, etc.

ZERO LINK is a brand new transport protocol and products (transport and DAC/player),
developed by Kyoichi Omata at SFORZATO and Hideki Kato at SOULNOTE.
Kyoichi Omata describes key ideas of ZERO LINK on facebook as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ZERO LINK is the new digital audio signal (I2S, DSD) transmission standard established by SOULNOTE and SFORZATO.
The key of the ZERO LINK is that the clock master is DAC not Transport.

How to create the Best Performance DAC with inputs such as USB, LAN ?
The conclusion by the two companies was eliminating asynchronous operation from DAC.
ZERO LINK is what makes this a reality.

DAC works to convert digital data to analog signal in succession, to the rhythm of the sampling frequency .
This rhythm must be maintained without disturbance, and must be kept constant.
Data sent over USB or LAN comes at a timing that has no relation to this rhythm.
A given amount of data is sent in blocks, which must be arranged so that DAC can read them according to its rhythm.
The work of receiving and arranging the data, too, is carried out with timing unrelated to the rhythm of D/A conversion.

Imagine this. As you clap to a certain rhythm, next to you is someone who makes loud noises at times unrelated to your rhythm, beating a drum – tata, tatata, ta.... at a completely unrelated tempo and rhythm.
Wouldn't you want to shout at this nuisance to get out?
Completely shutting out hindrances to rhythm is the DAC portion connected through ZERO LINK.
It forces the USB, LAN that create rhythm-disturbing noise out to Transport.
It then transmits the clapping rhythm from DAC to Transport, and sends data one item at a time in step with the rhythm.
The result: no noise inside DAC other than your own clapping, letting you concentrate on D/A conversion without disrupting the rhythm.

What connects Transport and DAC is ZERO LINK. The format (e.g., sampling frequency) of songs played by the transport is communicated to DAC, after which DAC sends a rhythm fitting the format to Transport.
Transport then sends data in step with that rhythm to DAC, piece by piece. The connection method behind this mechanism is ZERO LINK.

https://fb.watch/3FSor_bzUv/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last weekend I had a chance to listen to this new technology in an audio shop in Tokyo,
with SFORZATO DST-Lepus transport (trial version) and SOULNOTE S-3 Ver.2 SACD player
which accepts ZERO LINK data transport.
Despite their being in trial, the sound was much better than the ordinary USB isochronous widely used.
Much more clarity, brightness and high resolution sound had me both surprised and amazed.
The difference in resolution of the sound source was readily discernible.
You can experience the difference by downloading and listening two WAV files on the links below:
DELA S100 -(optical fiber LAN)-> DST-Lepus -(USB)-> S-3 Ver.2
DELA S100 -(optical fiber LAN)-> DST-Lepus -(ZERO LINK)-> S-3 Ver.2

SFORZATO will release ZERO LINK transport and DACs in a few months,
DST-Lepus (ZERO LINK Transport)
DSC-Vela (DAC)
DSC-Dorado (DAC)
DSC-Grus (DAC)

SOULNOTE follows: release planned for July,
Z-3 (ZERO LINK Transport)
D-3 (DAC)

I hope all over the world audiophiles experience and enjoy the excellent sound.
SFORZATO
SOULNOTE

View attachment 75027View attachment 75028View attachment 75029View attachment 75030View attachment 75031

The superb engineer at SFORZATO is Kyoichi OMATA,
I'm Kyoichi ODA. This is a just coincidence, don't be confused!

Love the sacd player.very cool looking.

 

[KyoichiOda]

Love the sacd player.very cool looking.

SACD Player S-3 is also at the top level.
The update programme, S-3 or S-3 Ver.2 to S-3 Reference is available now.
This includes feedback all technologies which were developed and adopted for P-3 and D-3.

 

[CKKeung]

SACD Player S-3 is also at the top level.
The update programme, S-3 or S-3 Ver.2 to S-3 Reference is available now.
This includes feedback all technologies which were developed and adopted for P-3 and D-3.

Hi KyoichiOda,
Please tell us more about the M-3 monoblocks and the new S-3 Reference.
Many thanks!

BTW in Hong Kong Bespoke copper passive preamp and P-3 preamp have similar prices.
I guess Bespoke is much more expensive in Japan because of import tax/sale tax.

 

[KyoichiOda]

Hi KyoichiOda,
Please tell us more about the M-3 monoblocks and the new S-3 Reference.
Many thanks!

BTW in Hong Kong Bespoke copper passive preamp and P-3 preamp have similar prices.
I guess Bespoke is much more expensive in Japan because of import tax/sale tax.

Hi CKKeung,

The details are on this page in Japanese:

NEXT PRODUCTS

www.kcsr.co.jp

S-3 Reference update
Naked foil registers
SOULNOTE custom relays
Strengthened power supply
Optimized circuit board design
Optimized current in each steps
New inner wire
Update to the latest firmware
ZERO LINK

M-3
Non feedback to drive speakers
Type-R circuit and new devices to optimize it
Only one input and output, exclude redundant feature
Huge toroidal transformer more than three times capacity
TB2 structure, whole amplifying block is insulated physically by special spikes to eliminate vibration from transformer throughly

I agree Bespoke silver version and a couple of mono version d-1 drivers are one of the best, hope to be compared with P-3.
There are no Bespoke silver and d-1 driver in Japan.

 

[CKKeung]

Hi CKKeung,

The details on this page in Japanese:

NEXT PRODUCTS

www.kcsr.co.jp

S-3 Reference update
Naked foil registers
SOULNOTE custom relays
Strengthened power supply
Optimized circuit board design
Optimized current in each steps
New inner wire
Update to the latest firmware
ZERO LINK

M-3
Non feedback to drive speakers
Type-R circuit and new devices to optimize it
Only one input and output, exclude redundant feature
Huge toroidal transformer more than three times capacity
TB2 structure, whole amplifying block is insulated physically by special spikes to eliminate vibration from transformer throughly

I agree Bespoke silver version and a couple of mono version d-1 drivers are one of the best, hope to be compared with P-3.
There are no Bespoke silver and d-1 driver in Japan.

Thanks!

Glad to learn that S-3 Reference now has a digital output in form of ZERO LINK.

 

[KyoichiOda]

Thanks!

Glad to learn that S-3 Reference now has a digital output in form of ZERO LINK.

Some S-3 users said it sounds much better with X-3 and RCC-1.

 

[TDX]

Are they selling internationally? Not much information.

 

[SCAudiophile]

I spoke with the designer via email a few times and then he actually just picked up the phone and called (very nice touch). We did our best to communicate as I do not speak Japanese however he said he would definitely build for a US customer so I'm guessing the same answer would
be there barring any important prohibitions for a given country. The other thing I asked him about was dual-AES input from transports that
provide that; he said it was technically possible and would do it for a transport-dac pair bought from SOULNOTE if I heard him correctly. He
went on to say that he thought ZERO-LINK between their units with an assist from my external 10 Mhz Cybershaft clock that he was quite
familiar with (or now their 10 Mhz clock offering which looks great) would be superior.

Definitely thinking....

My only quandary is the variance from DAC chipsets that I know the sound of or from Esoteric's new in-house built DACs which are so amazing.

 

[TDX]

What’s their email address? Maybe I can ask him some questions as well

 

[SCAudiophile]

SOULNOTE

 

[Tuckers]

When I was developing digital playback systems we ultimately landed on using a 10Mhz Rubidium Atomic master clock fed to transport and Dac as the best system. It did more to making digital sound sound like analog than any other tech 12 years ago. This was pretty much before audio quality asynchronous USB and Firewire chipsets like Xmos etc. were in production. (I still have an Antelope 10M atomic clock which I recently put up for sale on Reverb!). So I can understand why this system could sound good. Using the DAC's clock as reference in a system is nothing new, but not common. Using a DVI connector for clock signals is unusual.

 

[SCAudiophile]

That Antelope 10M has pretty high phase noise and therefore effective jitter (in the thousands of femtosecond range according to an independent set of lab tests I saw at one time). More recent developments in master clock assemblies and the circuit and PSU treatment around them have yielded vastly better and lower phase noise and effective jitter (on the order of 34fs and above). I agree with you regarding all the other advances around async USB and other circuits and chipsets; I do still see a good place, at least in systems I've heard and my own for an external 10 Mhz master in addition to, not instead of good clocking "near to the DAC circuit". particularly where multiple device sync is needed.

SOULNOTE apparently feels the same as they've partnered with an industry leader that is known for making "crucible" level 10 Mhz assemblies and components (BVA/Sforzato) that others use to measure themselves against.

The use of a DVI connector though is indeed unique. It's quite possibly to leverage the additional conductors and pin-outs in the same way that HDMI cables are now used by Esoteric for example for a while now for their ES-LINK4 and ES-LINK5 protocols to leverage the cable spec, not the HDMI spec itself. Same for HDMI use for I2S which is starting to gain some real momentum (Holo May DACs and many devices).

 

[KyoichiOda]

I suppose it has been believed that the performance of 10MHz clock generator relies on spec of clock device, OCXO, Rubidium and so on.
SOULNOTE X-3 changed this in Japan. Power supply, square wave , 'unstable' fittings etc. contribute so much. Its OCXO is not so high quality. However, X-3 is better than 10 times price clock generator.