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The AV-710 was always recommended, but is no longer available readily at the incredible price.
I use the M-Audio 2496. Some other options are the ESI Juli@, and on the higher end you have the Lynx offerings. Just as CD transports are said to differ in quality, PCI ones are said to do that as well. I'd go with a coaxial instead of optical spdif out, just for the sturdiness, but that's just my personal not-very-enlightened opinion.
Edit: Do not get the Revolution 5.1 for digital out. Drivers are terrible.
The AV-710 was always recommended, but is no longer available readily at the incredible price.
I use the M-Audio 2496. Some other options are the ESI Juli@, and on the higher end you have the Lynx offerings. Just as CD transports are said to differ in quality, PCI ones are said to do that as well. I'd go with a coaxial instead of optical spdif out, just for the sturdiness, but that's just my personal not-very-enlightened opinion.
Edit: Do not get the Revolution 5.1 for digital out. Drivers are terrible.
Hi Fungi
This is the set up I'm using in another room...
The problem is that the Constantine sounded much better when I had it connected optically and not nearly as robust from the USB...
same rig, without the Woo3, at one of the NY meets, using the optical out of the Shuttle...
But a Stello DA100 replaced the Constantine,
so I took the Constantine and the M^3 and set it up with the laptop in the upper picture in another room. Now I'm stuck with the Constantine's USB implementation unless I can find another way to convert the USB to optical or coaxial, but I am also concerned, that as mrarroyo said, any converters I use "will also add their distortion and "flavor" to the sound."
Now I'm stuck with the Constantine's USB implementation unless I can find another way to convert the USB to optical or coaxial, but I am also concerned, that as mrarroyo said, any converters I use "will also add their distortion and "flavor" to the sound."
It's still a digital stream, there is no "flavor".
It's still a digital stream, there is no "flavor".
That's what I would have thought, but if that's true, there should be no difference in sound between the Transit, Edirol, and the much less expensive Turtle Beach Advantage and Behringer when their respective digital streams are used....
and then taking it one step further, if a digital stream is a digital stream, why should any of them sound better than the built in USB in the Constantine?
The TBAAM isn't bit perfect IIRC.
I think after bit perfect, the other issues are jitter and clock rate. I don't know much about them and they are controversial, but just a thought.
The TBAAM isn't bit perfect IIRC.
I think after bit perfect, the other issues are jitter and clock rate. I don't know much about them and they are controversial, but just a thought.
Do you know if the Behringer Contrastique has is bit perfect?
FWIW, I use a UD-10 for hooking my Paradisea+ to my laptop via coax output...
To me, a big improvement over native USB...it has optical, coaxial and BNC output.The transport from audiomagus.com sounds very similar and is $115 + shipping from Seattle area (less than UD 10 ($139.95?). Also adds AES output...YMMV
Phones: Senn HD580 (new version modded & de-veiled) w RAL Senn Cryo-Silver cable - Grado RS-1 - ATH AD2000 - Denon AH D5000 w Markl Mods -- Sold: Bose Tri-Port ("the beginning”) - Senn HD280 Pro - Senn HD600 x2 (old versions) & HD650 x2 (old and new versions) w Cardas, Zu Mobius, Headphile Senn v2 Blacksilver cables - Grado SR125 - Grado SR225 - Grado SR325i - Grado GS-1000.
Accessories: Signal Cable Black Magic PCs x2 - Iron Lung Jellyfish PCs x2 - CT Cryo Silver ICs x6 - Shellbrook Silver Mini IC - RnB Audio Sky Blue Mini IC - Caig Pro Gold - Walker SST - Herbie‘s Tube Dampers.
It's still a digital stream, there is no "flavor".
Any electronic device, no matter how well is made or how expensive will introduce its own distortion. Even if the distortion is 0.0001% it adds to the already present distortion and if you use the root mean square to calculate the cumulative distortion the individual little numbers start turning into larger numbers. So yes there is "flavor" added.
USG, I went and read a little on your DAC. It appears to be a 16bits NOS DAC, that being the case how much better would an USB to Converter to Optical to DAC versus USB to DAC be? I remember reading that now USB2 will transmit up to 96khz if it is so what would an additional "box" improve?
Any electronic device, no matter how well is made or how expensive will introduce its own distortion. Even if the distortion is 0.0001% it adds to the already present distortion and if you use the root mean square to calculate the cumulative distortion the individual little numbers start turning into larger numbers. So yes there is "flavor" added.
Now I am confused, did you mean distortion or flavor.
Your original post says
Of course they will also add their distortion and "flavor" to the sound.
BTW, what distortion gets translated to in reference to bit-by-bit data stream? Are we talking about jitter here, does it actually flavor the sound? Digital receiver still receives same bits, the timing may be off but still the same exact data.
Originally Posted by mrarroyo
USG, I went and read a little on your DAC. It appears to be a 16bits NOS DAC, that being the case how much better would an USB to Converter to Optical to DAC versus USB to DAC be? I remember reading that now USB2 will transmit up to 96khz if it is so what would an additional "box" improve?
USB receiver and USB/SPDIF implementation can make a world of a difference even for 16/48.
Last edited by Andrew_WOT; 05-22-2008 at 08:24 PM.
Linear Mode
