Today we’re going to find out if the Douk U2 USB to Toslink optical and coaxial converter knows how to Linux. This was a bit of an adventure since the first unit never reliably powered on and the second was incorrectly assembled.
TL;DW Douk Audio has some serious issues in their QA department, if they have one at all.
Jackbox: Testing setup
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 1700 | ||
| RAM | Corsair LPX 16GB | ||
| Motherboard | MSI B350 Tomahawk | ||
| GPU | Nvidia Quadro 4000 | ||
| SSD | Samsung 840 | ||
| PSU: | EVGA 600 B1 | ||
| Firewire: | Syba SY-PEX30016 | ||
| Network: | Intel i350-T4 | ||
| OS: | Debian Buster | ||
| Kernel: | 5.4.47-rt | ||
| Desktop: | XFCE 4.12 | ||
Alsa setup:
Pulseaudio setup:
Jack setup:
Verdict: I’m unfamiliar with the Douk product line and the Douk U2 has convinced me to keep it that way. Poor build quality and unreliable hardware are not things I look for in audio devices.
Douk U2
Works out of the box
Ease of setup
Stability
Features
Pros
Sounds decent, if it works.
Supports 192khz
Cons
First unit did not reliably power on.
Second unit was not correctly assembled.
USB micro connector.
