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In Reply to: getting started in computer-based audio posted by Abbey Road on April 12, 2007 at 12:49:55:
I will save you some trouble... Get a good USB S/pdif (digital) adapter and an external DAC, or if you can find one in your budget, get a DAC that has USB support built in.Trust me... I have spent the last few weeks troubleshooting, and anything you can do to avoid having to work with a soundcard is more than worth it in the end. There are so many problems with sound cards that even a very technical minded person like myself can get frustrated with. Almost all the problems that pop up with sound cards and audiophile quality audio are undocumented by manufacturers and finding a specific answer by wading through hundreds of forum posts can be daunting. With many sound cards it isn't even possible to get a clean bit-perfect signal at all, and many of the ones that work are very expensive and come with pro-level features you will never use for 2 channel music.
I am just saying... you can avoid all that by simply using a USB s/pdif adapter and a DAC.
I would recommend using a Trends UD-10, it has good clock and every type of digital connection to use with all types of external DACs and it isolates everything else in your chain from your computer's power supply.
You would follow all the instructions you might get (in many other threads here) for how to setup your media player correctly to play the files you want to use for your music, and use the USB adapter as the audio device. Works like a charm.
Follow Ups:
Instead of going from USB-> SPDIF and SPDIF-> I2S-> DAC,why not just get a USB DAC and go from USB-> I2S-> DAC?
Why convert to SPDIF if I2S is the "final language" you want to talk?
Once "they" come out with a way to have multichannel USB solutions that go straight I2S I am in. (I seem to love my tri-amping techniques far too much and need six channels and not two).
But for the rest of the world who uses 2 channels and speaks with passive crossovers, this would seem to be a good solution.
Looks like Steve is there:http://www.empiricalaudio.com/frComputer_Audio.html#Off-Ramp I2S
I have read about it, I know it is a DAC chip's native protocol, if you will, but at this point there aren't so many dacs that have the port, and not everyone is going to be up to modding their gear... hehe, one wrong move and you have an expensive paper weight, or that is what many believe.I think that s/pdif works pretty well as a universial standard, and it works well over longer runs... can I2S go more than a few feet?
I don't know... I like these USB dacs that have the usb/digital(s/pdif,I2S) conversion inside the dac. This can basically eliminate alot of these jitter problems that pop up with s/pdif and it sure is convenient. I see this as the future more than mass acception of I2S as an alternitive to s/pdif... at least with PC audio.
Y,I am a sound card guy at this point. Show me a usb solution that will allow active crossovers for tri-amping, and I'll think about it. Otherwise, i use my dac for headphone listening. i just didn't like it as much as my soundcard, even when using a single amp.
Plus, all I need is another thing sitting on a shelf, with extra cabling.
I am curious, because I was trying to figure out how to do active crossover in software... I had a sub and it sounded like crap with just using the pre out of my integrated. I had no way of rolling off the lows of my mains as the sub did not have an output for the mains to use it's crossover. I ended up selling the thing, and I looked everywhere but even though my soundcard had 5.1 compatability, the crossover only worked on media with an actual LFE channel. I would have LOVED to be able to have a crossover in software to try out with my music.
Lynx 2b.It has 6 analog outputs, 2 for bass, 2 for mids, 2 for highs, or what ever combo you need.
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