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I'm considering an external DAC to use with my computer. I know there are several dacs with usb input but there seem to be some pretty cheap used ones without usb.
Can you recommend some usb to s/pdif converters out that will feed the signal unmolested and play nice with linux.
I've been hearing that some folks are having some luck with getting the EMU 0404 USB working in linux. My 2 attempts at this got some sound to come out but it was very distorted. Maybe someone on this forum knows more.
Anyway, this would be a good choice if someone got it to work.
I would like to get the 0404 USB if anyone has a proven way of getting it to work in Linux correctly, but everything I´ve read on the subject seems like it would be hours of trial and error just to get some inferior signal out of it.
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*Iriver H120 (rockbox)mp3 player with Px100/ Westone UM1 for portable use.
*Nicely burned in (years) HD280pro for work
*Er15 earplugs for work
*Cmoy Amp (hardly used, dissapointing)
*Ubuntu PC -> HAGUsb -> Keces DA-131 -> NAD c740 -> Wharfedale Diamond 9.1
The 0404 uses proprietary drivers, while a lot of other DAC's use the standard USB Audio driver.
The standard USB Audio driver leaves something to be desired, as it only supports synchronous transfer and is prone to jitter (in my understanding, anyway).
Using the 0404 in Windows lets the device use a (better?) transfer method, but means that it's not cross-platform.
I could be wrong on all of that, but I think that's how it works.
Will a Cheap-O USB dongle soundcard with digital out not do the same job for €5 ? After all you are only going to use it to output the digital signal to an external DAC.
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*Iriver H120 (rockbox)mp3 player with Px100/ Westone UM1 for portable use.
*Nicely burned in (years) HD280pro for work
*Er15 earplugs for work
*Cmoy Amp (hardly used, dissapointing)
*Ubuntu PC -> HAGUsb -> Keces DA-131 -> NAD c740 -> Wharfedale Diamond 9.1
Will a Cheap-O USB dongle soundcard with digital out not do the same job for €5 ? After all you are only going to use it to output the digital signal to an external DAC.
Unfortunately no, there's a lot more to the digital outputs than just 0 and 1s (or high and lows if you are into electronics and logic states).
If you look at the signals and if the designer did a really bad job, you'd see stuff like degenerated square wave (looking more like sawtooth now) or square wave that rings uncontrollably, or jitter and whole host of other issues.
Don't think it is possible to hear difference from different digital sources? Well, give it a try, you will hear a world of differences from different digital sources, especially from a certain price point and up. (Below a certain point, the price is just too low to make it good... and let's just disregard that...)
I have recently just compared digital signal from PS3 and my Sony CDP-X5000, both are fed through a digital signal shaping circuit that also double as a selector, and then fed to DA-131.
The result is PS3's digital output is simply "muddier" than CDP-X5000, the sound from CDP-X5000 is just clearly more detailed and enjoyable.
Recommend linux friendly usb converter
Linear Mode
