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Got my boa just over a week ago, my first foray into amps/DACs. I think i'll write up a review from my slightly un-trained ear some point soon. But as yet i don't think i've listened to it enough, (first battery charge hasn't run out yet!).
One thing i can say already however, is that the interconnect cable supplied (not the one which can be bought from the site) isn't overly well built. The plastic covering snapped at one of the connectors on the first day i had it, leaving the cable exposed. Serves me right for being cheap i guess.
That appears to be all the will break though, the Boa is built like a rock, which makes a nice change to most electronic devices these days. Very pleased with it so far. Review to come soon.
Hmmm, on my work laptop running Vista I found that I was getting interruptions of up to 3s in the audio stream with a different DAC/AMP (and without ASIO4ALL). Then I discovered it happening using the onboard sound card. Some drivers lock up the CPU for much longer than they should. (Search for a downloadable DPC Latency tool from syscon.de (?) and IIRC something called MSRATTv3 from Microsoft. I haven't had time to debug my laptop yet and figure out which driver is doing it, but I've noticed driver latencies of several ms correlated with audio breaks.)
You can usually make things better by increasing the buffer length in your music player (or audio driver). If this fixes it it suggests that sort of problem. If it doesn't the problem may be deeper and more complicated.
I start running ASIO4ALL when I got the Boa and began with fairly short buffers. On my home WinXP box I had to increase the buffer sizes again because I would get small glitches.
Oh wow...that DPC program is helpful...I'm getting spikes all the way to the max 16000 microsecond part...on a hunch I used the hardware switch for my wifi and killed it...and immediately it stopped giving red bars.
Oh wow...that DPC program is helpful...I'm getting spikes all the way to the max 16000 microsecond part...on a hunch I used the hardware switch for my wifi and killed it...and immediately it stopped giving red bars.
Time to go find some decent wifi drivers I guess!
On my work Vista laptop I get interruptions of up to 5 or 6 seconds every few songs when playing music from a Samba share accessed via WiFi. I did a short test copying the files to the laptop and playing them from the local copy and didn't see any interruptions but a longer test is required. Maybe something very laggy in the network, and/or insufficient file caching in the player. Increasing the Winamp buffer size helps a little, but not much...
__________________ Speakers
Linux media server, FLAC, AV710 Optical, Rotel RSX1056, Spendor S9
Headphones
{Linux/Windows PC, FLAC, [ASIO], USB | iPod, ALAC/M4A/MP3}
{Pico | D2 Boa | iPod}
{MD5000 + Cardas grey | SuperFreqs | HD280 Pro | old HD465}
Hmm...I also run Vista Home Basic and we both have skipping problems...
Wonder if it's related or just a coincidence.
Just for full disclosure I run a Dell Vostro 1400.
Vostro 1400 here also. To fix the problem for me at least was to set Foobar to Real Time priority in the task manager and also give the program some buffer memory.
If you're WiFi is cutting into your USB thats pretty odd. Normally the only thing to cut into the USB is Anti-Virus, Firewalls, Printing stuff, so on and so forth. What Wireless card do you have in the Lappy Im running the Intel 4965N or whatever.
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OK guys, I have a small writeup for you. My friends recently asked me today (a few weeks since I first got my Boa) how I liked it. So at first I said, eh, its alright. It was great when I first got it but the "new toy" feeling has worn off and I am used to the sound signature. I hadn't really noticed it going above and beyond lately. Up until this point I had been afraid to do a direct A/B comparison with my headphone out on my laptop because I was worried I wouldn't hear a difference and I would have to admit to myself I wasted money. I was pretty skeptical coming into this. So I decided to try a comparison.
My source material was Jaco Pastorius' self titled album, ripped in lossless. I am listening through Grado SR80's and Foobar2000 is my player. Gain is set to low. I had just listened through the entire album through the Boa and switched back to the headphone out. As soon as the first note of the first song hit I almost crapped my pants. The difference is night and day. I'm not even really analyzing the sound that much, I noticed these differences in about 2 seconds, then listened for about 10 seconds more before coming to write this post. I was in shock. The bass on the headphone out is loose and uncontrolled, boomy almost. The highs were rolled back a lot and everything felt flat and lifeless. This isn't just a tiny difference type of thing, this was huge to my ears. The headphone out feels as if the music playing played through a speaker behind thick blanket and somebody turned up the "suck level" knob on the bass.
I then repeated the test a number of times on different tracks on the album. It stands true in every song. I have having more fun switching between my headphone out and my Boa to make comparisons than I have just listening to the Boa. Wow. It's like the Boa is telling me "you didn't waste your money" every time I switch sources.
I really was very skeptical about this whole thing and now my doubt has been revealed. For those interested, I don't consider myself a person with a very good ear. I can't tell the differences between lossless and good or even decent mp3's like some of the guys here can, or say that they can. I am a pretty casual listener and have only been into high end audio for about a year. This is my first amp purchase.
I hope this post can help convince other skeptics like myself or give some good insight as to how the sounds really will change when you plug in your Boa for the first time.
Edit: Just did more comparisons with Iron Maiden's, Power Slave. It sounds like the bass is underwater. What a muddy awful mess it is from the headphone out. Wow again.
Last edited by DayoftheGreek; 07-02-2008 at 05:53 AM..
If you're WiFi is cutting into your USB thats pretty odd.
I suspect Winamp isn't buffering enough of the file and for some reason when it goes to read the next set of blocks there's a lot of latency. It could be the server not responding quickly enough, or some issue on the network...
I tried copying files locally and didn't see the same issue after running for 3-4 times as long as the average time between long interruptions when playing over WiFi.
I'll keep looking at it when I have time (which may not be for a while).
__________________ Speakers
Linux media server, FLAC, AV710 Optical, Rotel RSX1056, Spendor S9
Headphones
{Linux/Windows PC, FLAC, [ASIO], USB | iPod, ALAC/M4A/MP3}
{Pico | D2 Boa | iPod}
{MD5000 + Cardas grey | SuperFreqs | HD280 Pro | old HD465}
I suspect Winamp isn't buffering enough of the file and for some reason when it goes to read the next set of blocks there's a lot of latency. It could be the server not responding quickly enough, or some issue on the network...
I tried copying files locally and didn't see the same issue after running for 3-4 times as long as the average time between long interruptions when playing over WiFi.
I'll keep looking at it when I have time (which may not be for a while).
When streaming over Wi-Fi no doubt you have hick-ups. Prolly not the Boa prolly the data travel via Wi-Fi and the other machine. Keep to local for SURE. Say you are running with G at max 54mbs. so 54/8 = 6.75 megs per second. Now throw in gettin the data through the router to the right IP and stuffs. Transfer rate normally around max of 3 megs per second. Now once it hits it needs to be processed and then shoved into the RAM. From there into Winamp and then into the BoA. Run out of RAM and it throws it onto VRam then from VRam to Ram To WinAmp so on and so forth. Tons of room for bottlenecks and data errors. Also not only this but the other computer and the total use of network in the home also can contribute to the issue. IMO Keep it Local or keep it on a External HD via Firewire or USB.
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