|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
86.61.122.36
Hi there !
Right now i am using sound blaster audigy 2 value sound card connected to pioneer A-307R amp and some year 1978 hitachi LS340 speakers. From this you can gather that i wouldn't dream of calling this hi-fi. My goal is getting as good sound as i can on my very limited budget.
I bought an external usb DAC, Sabre ES9023: http://hifimediy.com/DACs/sabre-dac-uae23
I plan to test it today so i am wondering what would be the best way to do that. Should i hear a difference with new DAC even with low quality MP3's, like 128kbps ( for instance youtube music videos ) or will i only hear the difference in sound using cd quality music ?
Follow Ups:
Thank you for all the replies !
I installed DAC, i didnt have to buy any new cables since i already had 3.5 jack to RCA from when my sound card was connected to amp. I noticed 2 huge differences.
1) noise level. I kind of hoped that DAC would solve that but i never imagined it would be solved to such extend. Before when i put volume to 50% on my amp, there was a very loud hiss coming from speakers. Now even when i put it to 100%, i have to listen very carefully to hear anything at all. I recorded this difference with my mobile phone. Ofcourse mobile phone recordings aren't relevant in compating audio quality but that way u can see the difference in hiss level. Its huge, i am going to post the recording here.
2) bass is stronger. Today when i was listening to music the way i always do i went next to my speaker and i saw the big spaker cone moving in and out. Normaly they didnt move no matter how loud the volume was, except when i was playing with some equalizer programs. Now it is all on default, no equalisation of any kind. I think it is louder also, on the same settings. But bass is stronger, a lot stronger.
As for sound quality ... i did notice the difference, for instance parts of song i never heard before .. but to some extend this can be atributed to me listening more carefully.
This little device came with its own asio driver. Also a little program that has some settings in it. Things like playback and record stream ( playback audio format is set to 16 bit, 44100 Hz atm, is that allright ?), there is also asio cpl which has a setting for asio buffer size, right now it is on auto adjustment but i could change it. under asio driver status it says non active and bits per sample is set to 16 bit ( i could set to 24 bits). I also set volume to 80% in windows since it always hits tops ( i wanted to prevent any bad sound from going into red zone ).
I think my next purchase should be speakers, since 1 of the speaker cones on left speaker is not working ( luckily the smallest one :)) )
let the madness begin!
congrats, the USB gets the sound card out of the case of the computer so you will hear less noise. You will want to listen to CD quality FLAC files. I'll put the link to the FLAC web site, but most good players will play them for the computer such as Foobar2000 which can be found at http://www.foobar2000.org
I love the sound of the Audigy, I have one too, I put it away in storage for a time when I will eventually build another system, it will be quite awhile before that happens as well due to limited scope of planning and structural requirements.
If you have listened to the new DAC already what do you think? That looks cool from what I see. It really is hi-fi on a budget, also don't get too caught up in upgrading, just try to enjoy the music.
I would have put the $40 towards a little tri-path kit amp first...
In any case, I would just listen to it. You will need a 1/8" stereo to dual RCA "computer audio cord" which cost $5 or $10.
Plug the cord from the DAC into the receiver's inputs.
You will need to pick this DAC as your default sound device. See if there is an ASIO driver available for this DAC, or what drivers they provide. It may just rely on a 'default' OS supplied USB driver, in which case you don't need a special device driver at all...
Listen and compare! At the very least, the $40 will provide you with something to try and some fun a/b comparison stuff to do.
Cheers,
Presto
there are crappy DACs. Your ears will tell you if there is improvement of not.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: