2-in-1 Lightning Splitter Adapter for iPhone 7/8/X/7 plus/8 plus, Double lightning ports for dual Lightning Headphone Audio and Charge Adapter.

Hmmm.... I just got a Uspeed USB 3.0 hub, and powered the HUB with a 12 volt linear power supply designed for CNC machines - I bought a dozen of the CNC power supplies on eBay a year or so ago. When I plugged the MSII into it to see what a "real power supply" would do for it.... WOAH. That REALLY woke up the (previous model of the) MSII. Now it is getting all the current transients it wants off the power rails from the hub.  Uspeed USB 3.0 7 port Hub with USB 3.0 Cable and Power Adapter Backward Compatible with USB 2.0 .... Previously I managed to get some "decent" sound out of it by powering it with a Pluggable USB 3.0 card, but that was still lackluster... Not enough to get me to remove my 1 star review that I had up for a long time. In contrast to that, I can't STAND the sound of it when plugged into my mac mini USB ports, it makes my (hyper-acute recording studio golden) ears hurt in no time at all.... on my mac mini, to my ears, female vocals sound like bandsaws more than anything else... and I tried all the settings and on lots of machines and it did this on ALL of them. This is a problem that even the 25 dollar FIO DAC doesn't have, which means the MSII went into the closet for over a year. My one star review blamed the power supply and got some heated debate. Eventually I deleted the review because it just wasn't worth leaving up there, and I had some technical errors in it... Now I am beginning to think that all the nastiness is probably clock modulation from USB ripple, and/or oscillating power supply in the MSII due to inability of that black box power converter to drive current transient demands. So the chain is: USB 2.0 port on Windows 8 PC, Uspeed 7 port hub with massive 12 volt linear power supply in place of $2 wall wart, $25 Monster Cable USB cable, MSII DAC (old version in the trapazoidal shaped case), Homebuilt magnet wire/Vampire wire RCA cables, VCAN with VPSU, into Sony MDR HD7509HD headphones. THAT combination will drop your jaws. I also do some recording by plugging a CEntrance MicPortPro into the hub (and disabling the MicPortPro headphone amp in the windows sound playback configuration utility because it was knocking the MicPortPro into la-la land whenever it was enabled and plugged into the hub)... driving a high end active ribbon microphone and was getting studio quality recording on the MicPortPro and studio quality monitoring on the MSII/VCAN/7509HD combo.  CEntrance MicPort Pro UPDATE added Dec 2014:The 20 AWG power wires of a Belkin Gold USB cables really wakes my MSII up from the realm of the "useless". I now use it with that USB 3.0 card that takes a Molex power supply connector on the USB card that I mention above.The 20 AWG power conductors are comparable to lamp cord thickness, they deliver more current than a 26 or 28 AWG power conductor found in a typical USB cable.The Molex connector of the high end ultra-low output ripple PC power supply provides a lower noise ground connection and lower noise 5V connections compared to USB ports in a hub or provided by a USB port located upon a motherboard. A more stable power source with less noise is one possible contributor to an improved "electrical stability".I cleaned all the USB and RCA connectors with dental micro-applicators and 99% alcohol, including the Molex female connectors of the PC power supply and the Molex male located on the PCIe USB 3.0 board.The sound quality of material played back from hdtracks dot com in 24 / 96 is now in the realm of usable for sound studio purposes... which is to say, amazingly good. Unfortunately, being a USB only device, it doesn't get along very well with DAW software and pro audio hardware used in sound studios.Unfortunately, it still retains it's previous disappointing tendency to sound truly ear splitting and horrid on a typical laptop, mac mini, or PC when using a standard USB cable. Without the above mentioned higher quality 5V power and ground coming into the unit, my tentative "diagnosis" is that the MSII does not seem to be able to drive the current transient slew rate necessary to produce even a nominal sound quality output. On a typical laptop with a typical USB cable, my MSII sounds like an op-amp servo circuit with no AC isolation capacitors in an ear splitting servo oscillation due to lack of current availability that would be needed to drive the analog servo stage RCA output. It is a sound similar to an underpowered receiver driving high end speakers that make current demands that are too aggressive for the gutless audio amplifier. Demanding speakers tend to cause underpowered audio circuits that cannot match the current slew rate demands of the load to undershoot current and voltage followed by straining and overshooting in a pattern of oscillations, emitting a shrill audible shriek that sounds like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I bought one of these for my home laptop/stereo combination and I loved it so much I did two things: upgrade to the Music Streamer II Plus because I believed it would be just that much better (it is), and donate the Music Streamer II to the public radio station I manage in Mendocino County, CA (KZYX 90.7). I did that and we installed it in our main studio. It meant that every one of our volunteer programmers who brought their playlist in on their laptop, could play the music as if they were playing CDs. The improvement was obvious and big. So we bought another Music Streamer II to put into one of our satellite studios (large distances through coastal mountain terrain = long driving distances so we have several studios). What we discovered is that the Music Streamer II emits, when it has the audio leads plugged in, a frequency at 90.7 that cancels out our own 90.7 radio signal so that we can't monitor ourselves. It seemed so crazy that we had to conduct tests and so far it's true: the Music Streamer II will cancel out the 90.7 FM signal when certain (possibly less shielded) radio tuners are in close (within 3 feet) proximity to the unit. It's very strange and makes no sense at all to me. But in order to improve the broadcasts of programmers who bring in their laptops to play their program, we have to look elsewhere for high quality no-brainer DAC. In the chance that Music Streamer people read this, please get in touch.

UPDATE 2012-10-21After running my HRT Music Streamer II (MS2) and playing music and HD videos mostly non-stop for four days, I can now settle down to normal listening.The MS2 is a great little DAC for its price/class (price/class is emphasized). Bass is punchy, soundstage is expansive, and there's clear detail across the frequencies. My MS2 sends output to an Emotiva mini-X a100 amp, driving a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 10.1 speakers via Zentara bi-wire cables. No doubt, the Emotiva amp, Zentara cables, and Wharfedale speakers play a major role in this great-sounding setup. All components go together great.The Eagles' Farewell Tour concert sounds incredible from a PC in a 14x16 feet room. Journey's concert DVD is loud but tamed and articulated. Classical CDs from Tine Thing Helseth and Hilary Hahn sound full and bright. Like any audio processor, it's garbage in--garbage out, so don't expect miracle from the like of YouTube videos. Your original CDs, DVDs and lossless files should sound great, though.I was previously using a Wadia 151 PowerDAC on this PC but it was overkilled, and I wanted to use the Wadia somewhere else. There is no contest between the MS2 and Wadia, but then the latter costs about 6 times more. This does not mean MS2 is not good. Far from the best but its clarity is leaps and bounds over any PC sound card. All it means is that comparing the MS2 and Wadia is not a fair assessment but, generally speaking, the more you spend the better quality you get, up to a point.If this is sounding like a review for the entire audio system, it's because the MS2 will be good only if you also have good speakers, cables, and amplifier. Don't expect it to turn your boomy Cyber Acoustic or Logitech PC speakers into audiophile. Even the Diamond 10.1 speakers, which are considered easy to drive, require stands and careful placement to get the best. I let them sit on top of shock-absorbing soft padding on a desk, which is still great as computer speakers, but not ideal.Here are some links to pro reviews:[...][...][...][...][...]ORIGINAL REVIEWThe HRT Music Streamer II has received very good reviews from the audiophile community and I'm not going to add anything to all the good things that have already been said. My good rating is for a good product, not a reflection of my bad experience with the seller.My review is about the seller, Kraft Street Audio. When I ordered, there were 8 items in stock ready to ship next day. Yet, my order was in a "Shipping Soon" status for 4 days before it's changed to shipped. It's only going from Hebron, Kentucky to Tampa, Florida but it's been held up in Orlando for 2 days now, according to tracking. I ordered on 10/1 and will not get it until 10/12 (I'm not holding my breath based on the history of unexplained delays). This is not acceptable. All my previous orders from Amazon never took this long, even with the free shipping.If you are going to order this product, you should skip Kraft Street Audio and choose other sellers.