TwoFiveOne
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2005
- Posts
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These days I listen pretty much exclusively to Lossless/APE > Airport Express LineOut > Supermacro 3. Results have been extremely good.
Wanting to take it the final, bit-perfect step, I ordered a Headroom MicroDAC the day it became available. Yesterday it was delivered.
Since I run Windows XP I was committed to the Airport Express because of its total bypass of the Windows sound system (Kmixer.sys) where you can have "you've got mail" notifications and all sorts of other crap mixed in with your headphone audio. Totally not for me.
So my objective was to use the mini-toslink output of the Airport to present bit-perfect input to the MicroDAC.
Indeed it works. But only technically, and only once the music is playing.
Here are the 2 major usability "gotchas":
1. You get a "tick" through the system whenever you click PLAY or interrupt the stream by clicking another tune. The tick is just a few millisec immediately before the audio starts and the higher your volume, the louder the tick. No music is lost as reported by others with the AE and a different DAC. Once the music is playing, it's great, really great (a topic for another thread.)
2. Periodic noise through the chain when on Stop or Pause. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not and I don't have the answer as to what causes it. This is not noise like hum or hiss, but sounds like "crickets in distant trees on a calm summer eve." And the higher the volume, the louder the "crickets." This is new to me but then this is my first standalone DAC.
Initial research into this says the AE doesn't have a local clock for the DAC to sync with (no doubt to achieve a price point) and presence/absence of these gotchas depend on the sophistication of the muting capabilities of the DAC. If that's the case then maybe the MicroDAC is expecting a toslink input more sophisticated than the AE.
For sake of completeness, the MicroDAC works perfectly with its USB input. With both USB and toslink inputs simultaneously hooked up to the MicroDAC it's really quite easy to do the A/B comparo thing. Sound is great and maybe I'll report more studied impressions in the future.
I don't know what my game plan is but wanted to lay this out there for discussion and maybe get some more info.
Peace to all...
Wanting to take it the final, bit-perfect step, I ordered a Headroom MicroDAC the day it became available. Yesterday it was delivered.
Since I run Windows XP I was committed to the Airport Express because of its total bypass of the Windows sound system (Kmixer.sys) where you can have "you've got mail" notifications and all sorts of other crap mixed in with your headphone audio. Totally not for me.
So my objective was to use the mini-toslink output of the Airport to present bit-perfect input to the MicroDAC.
Indeed it works. But only technically, and only once the music is playing.
Here are the 2 major usability "gotchas":
1. You get a "tick" through the system whenever you click PLAY or interrupt the stream by clicking another tune. The tick is just a few millisec immediately before the audio starts and the higher your volume, the louder the tick. No music is lost as reported by others with the AE and a different DAC. Once the music is playing, it's great, really great (a topic for another thread.)
2. Periodic noise through the chain when on Stop or Pause. Sometimes it's there, sometimes it's not and I don't have the answer as to what causes it. This is not noise like hum or hiss, but sounds like "crickets in distant trees on a calm summer eve." And the higher the volume, the louder the "crickets." This is new to me but then this is my first standalone DAC.
Initial research into this says the AE doesn't have a local clock for the DAC to sync with (no doubt to achieve a price point) and presence/absence of these gotchas depend on the sophistication of the muting capabilities of the DAC. If that's the case then maybe the MicroDAC is expecting a toslink input more sophisticated than the AE.
For sake of completeness, the MicroDAC works perfectly with its USB input. With both USB and toslink inputs simultaneously hooked up to the MicroDAC it's really quite easy to do the A/B comparo thing. Sound is great and maybe I'll report more studied impressions in the future.
I don't know what my game plan is but wanted to lay this out there for discussion and maybe get some more info.
Peace to all...
