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Audiotrak Prodigy Cube--Has anyone heard of this

post #1 of 31
3/10/09 at 3:07am
Thread Starter 
AUDIOTRAK Prodigy CUBE External Sound Card - eBay (item 120380769665 end time Mar-20-09 19:52:04 PDT)

Has anyone tried this, or heard anything about how good it is: since i'm in the market for a DAC/Amp, and this is inexpensive, it fits the bill perfectly.
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post #2 of 31
3/10/09 at 7:11am
I've heard it in my stereo system, using the lineout. It sounded at least as good as my regular source (Hercules DJ Console). The bass was tight, the mids were a bit forward and the highs were rounded a bit. All in all a great source with at lot of features
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post #3 of 31
3/10/09 at 11:00am

I own it

I'm quite happy with it - though i'm thinking about upgrading and just using the coax spdif out.

It supports USB 96khz/24bit, it's easy to swap opamps (socketed) and it's relatively cheep.

I agree with mark.s on the sound - i'm using it with a pair of JVC HA-RX700.
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post #4 of 31
4/2/09 at 9:55am
Does anyone know if this supports 24/96 on a Mac?
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post #5 of 31
4/2/09 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Currawong View Post
Does anyone know if this supports 24/96 on a Mac?
It does - i'm using it with an iMac and it's possible to output 24/96.
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post #6 of 31
4/2/09 at 9:19pm
Fantastic. I shall get one today. I've had to put up with a crappy M-Audio Fast Track Pro that basically lied on the box and wont output better than 24/48.
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post #7 of 31
4/5/09 at 11:37pm
Just read that your Ref 1 refuses to work with it.

My Parasound DAC-2000 did that to me once, when I used a cheapo USB-SPDIF based on the UDA1321 with it. Apparently it just couldn't take the amount of jitter coming from the device, which was in the nanoseconds :O
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post #8 of 31
4/6/09 at 1:50am
Turned out that the PLL in the Ref 1 had trouble locking on to the signal. That was fixed by flicking a DIP switch. The rest has to do with power in my apartment being crap and/or needing a power conditioner.
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post #9 of 31
4/10/09 at 7:26am
This is interesting. Do you think putting the Cube between the Compass and my laptop to make use of the Coaxial will benefit me in terms of SQ? I also plan to get the upgraded DAC19MK3 in the future which may not have USB input so this could be useful for that too.
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post #10 of 31
4/10/09 at 7:54am
I'm not sure, to be honest. It might, or it might not. When I tried it, the Compass sounded a bit softer than I remembered, but I'm not sure if this wasn't jitter making it sound a bit softer (this going by a CD player modifying article I read where the person modifying it had the proper gear to measure this and noted that large amounts of jitter caused the sound to be softer but less detailed).

There's still a bit of weirdness with my Ref 1 and this thing, so I'd wait until you have your new DAC before deciding.
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post #11 of 31
4/12/09 at 9:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Currawong View Post
I'm not sure, to be honest. It might, or it might not. When I tried it, the Compass sounded a bit softer than I remembered, but I'm not sure if this wasn't jitter making it sound a bit softer (this going by a CD player modifying article I read where the person modifying it had the proper gear to measure this and noted that large amounts of jitter caused the sound to be softer but less detailed).

There's still a bit of weirdness with my Ref 1 and this thing, so I'd wait until you have your new DAC before deciding.
Softer as in smoother ie. less treble detail/quantity? That's interesting. I always associate jitter with digital sound like harsh highs or something like that and the occasional pops/crackling sounds.

Well, it turns out that the DAC19MK3 is going to have USB input after all but I really miss being able to upsample to 24/96 with the other inputs.
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post #12 of 31
4/12/09 at 10:25am
Have you got any 24/96 music though? If not, then it wont make any difference IMO.
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post #13 of 31
4/12/09 at 2:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Currawong View Post
Have you got any 24/96 music though? If not, then it wont make any difference IMO.
No unfortunately. Up-sampling to 24/96 just seems to be the norm around here no?

That leads to another point. Will using the DAC19MK3 via its USB output will suffer in terms of SQ? It will be connected to my laptop of course as transport.
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post #14 of 31
4/14/09 at 4:10pm
I got the Prodigy Cube about a month ago and swapped it's opamp with a OPA2107 that I had lying around.
Comparing it to the Prodigy 7.1 HiFi using the same OPA2107 I think the Cube has deeper and tighter bass, cleaner highs and slightly more detail.
Pretty neat little DAC, great value!
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post #15 of 31
4/23/09 at 7:21pm
the Korean website says that you get bit-perfect windows drivers, is that also the case on XP?

and the headphones output max impedance is rated for 300Ω, but what happens w/ 600Ω headphones? very low volume ? really not usable ? it's only got 1 op-amp apparently, so my hopes are pretty low
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