Quote:     I appreciate your feedback. We all benefit from 503 myths dispelled.   First question: Sending your own 192khz recordings to the UD503 in unaltered PCM, versus allowing the UD503 to upsample to DSD, versus upsampling to DSD via your PC using DSD256 and outputting to the UD503...

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Thank you. The DAC is complete again.   According to other threads, the Sparkos opamps are supposed to be used without the additional riser. They are mostly for shipping protection, I believe. While rolling and testing though, it might be smart to keep them in place until they find a final...

A small magnet or something came out, about the size of the opamps. Does anyone know where it came from?     The sockets I used. Slightly smaller than the pcb pads.     With some bending, they went in. The Sparkos came with their own riser.     Adhesive ERS Sheets for the top lid.

With PCM to DSD playback software available today, DSD is always important, and it is how the 501 sounds best. For music listening, always use the USB and upsample all PCM to 5.6MHz. Without playing in DSD mode, the 501 would be useless to me. Yeah, I could use my Audiophilleo to feed the 501...

  No wonder I had such problems inserting DIP sockets. The pins on the sockets were getting splayed out to the point of getting loose and popping out; I had to re-insert a few of them. All op-amps rolled have gotten stretched out as well.   The two NE5532 were replaced with the Sparkos...

  Quote:     The s/pdif output of an AP is not "numbers". It IS an analog waveform. Subject to attenuation over distance, reflection and return loss, etc.   I am looking at an AP2 myself, but even with the low jitter performance I'd prefer a standard power socket to use with power...

I have 50 hours on it so far. Once I have at least 30 days experience, I come out with the DAC reviews on another website. The process of listening, judging, and living with DACs defies what is popular on head-fi--posting "first impressions". There is too much inner debate, checking old...

With ac set for 74 degrees and blowing across the audio system, it stays room temperature. If I turn off ac, allowing ambient temp to reach 78 degrees, it reaches the warmth of a laptop power supply. Not hot, but very very warm. In a hot climate I have no doubt it would overheat.

I wouldn't order from their Gigalab e-shop. My order did nothing for a week and was never charged. So I bought on ebay instead and it shipped the next morning.

I drew up a basic design in mspaint, and am trying to get a woodworking company to build this for me. Basically a bunch of wall mounted floating platforms. The approximate location is above the bed, so I can stow them as I get sleepy right before nodding off. Probably round off the bottom...

Sennheiser PC150. Those were my favorite phones and I could plug them into any source without worrying about ear pain, until I broke its cord. All the other phones I've used have been unlistenable at one time or another due to the splitting treble: -SR225 -HD600 -SRS-2020 -EH 150 Very...

I bought a Stax SRS-2020 4 years ago. It sounded great at first, but gradually sounded worse over time. It lost all bass response, and started sounding bright and thin as it broke in. In terms of matching the speed and detail, the best combo I had was a Sennheiser HD600 powered off a modified...

Quote: Originally Posted by audioengr The Monarchy DIP is one that can help if there is a lot of jitter. It uses a $2 crystal oscillator to upsample the input stream asynchronously. A key part of my PC audio chain, and I wouldn't be without it.

Are you perhaps using a USB extender cable? Do you often have to restart tracks, because no sound is coming out when you first hit play?

Yes a cd player will sound better, but not if it is a Discman.

It's not going to cost you any money to download an ASIO output plug-in and test yourself. I can tell the difference with ASIO. But kernel streaming... I doubt actually works in the majority of cases.

Quote: Originally Posted by xenithon 2. I believe the best option is indeed USB. Often you hear of external soundcards / USB interfaces with their own PS which is separate from the PC (i.e. does not use the USB power, thus being cleaner). I think however, that this is only important if...

Is it a high frequency "beep" or "deet deeet" sound in morse-code like pulses, or just a low frequency continuous buzz such as a ground hum problem? If it's the higher frequency type, you might try picking your GSM cellphone off your amplifier, or turning it off completely.

If all you want is PCM output it is simple. Female mono RCA to 1/8 mono male minijack coupler is all you need to convert. I can't answer your other questions, because I am unfamiliar with your speakers and multichannel audio in general. I will say the X-Fi has an option to pass Dolby...

Quote: Originally Posted by Alucard ...How should I get the best possible sound to a dac? The regular X-Fi has only a 1/8"mini coax digital out, and there is no such digital cables. Go to Radio Shack. Buy a 1/8 mono mini to RCA mono coupler. Done. Photo below. RCA side should be...

This is the best way so far, as far as the DAC. wood chassis, battery power

Quote: ...the biggest reason why I have a hard time believing in burn in is because I have yet to hear someone who didn't like the sound from their headphones after burn in. Let's take care of that right now. My Stax SRS-2020 Basic System II sounded worse and worse as time went on...

Quote: Originally Posted by cosmopragma I need a soundcard with excellent digital out for a jitter sensitive DAC. I prefer optical, but coax is also an option. I don't care about analog out or gaming capabilities. It has to be better than the RME Digi 96/8 PAD I already own. How good...

ERS Sheets. Adhesive version is $30/sheet. Works well on digital chips and power supplies.