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How can I add optical to my Laptop? NOT USB TO OPTICAL ADAPTER :( - Page 2

post #16 of 26
4/22/09 at 10:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by DoYouRight View Post
or would a usb to optical work. From A LOT of people the optical part of the iBasso D10 is better than usb. So does that mean the optical dac is better like the chip than the usb one? or optical is better than usb for sound? if its just the chip used in the device. than i guess usb to optical would work?
A lot of people are slaves to their preconceptions and peer pressure.

Have you actually tried it to see if you hear the difference? I can think of no reason why the pcm2906 in the ibasso d10 would do a poor job of letting you push audio over usb.
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post #17 of 26
4/22/09 at 10:26pm
Thread Starter 
Not yet i havent ordered the iBasso yet, next paycheck. However, I read all the reviews and atleast 5 members have macbook pros, ibasso d10 via optical to esw10jpns. So I feel it must really sound that much better. It would not be an issue if I stuck to vista as I have the x-fi expresscard for the optical out. But i want to switch to ubuntu as much as possible. The lack of drivers is killing me

The issue at hand is that I got the D10 over some others because it has optical and I am a person who even if I dont have something yet I want to plan out everything I will buy so I dont have to worry about it later.

Thanks for all the responses and help.

About the USB-SPDIF that you spoke of working on linux. Doesnt that defeat the purpose of the optical to the D10? I thought bypassing usb is what made the sound better. So wouldnt usb>spdif>ibasso be just the same as usb>ibasso?

Or is the optical decoder on the D10 what makes it sound better and as long as I access that even if I goto USB its ok?

Ive been trying to figure out how to get optical on this laptop for weeks for this reason.
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post #18 of 26
4/22/09 at 11:13pm
first of all, digital audio is not hard (didn't I hear that somewhere before?)

opto, coax, it doesn't matter. usb, it doesn't matter. the dac matters. how you deliver the bits - it does not matter.

don't get all in a tizzy about digital outs. if you are on linux and the card works, it works and you are all set.

it really is that simple.

stop listening to people who spend all their time worrying about things that don't exist, as problems.

digital audio 'just plain works' 99% of the time. the 'better sound' is only in dacs. ONLY in dac. sending bits across just plain works - in almost ALL cases. I'm not lying.
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post #19 of 26
4/23/09 at 12:09am
I disagree with linuxworks. I'm not lying But then again, USB would seem the easiest solution.
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post #20 of 26
4/23/09 at 1:02am
Thread Starter 
-_-
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post #21 of 26
4/23/09 at 2:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1UP View Post
I disagree with linuxworks
just curious, why?

for me, I have some experience with spdif and building spdif circuits. I've found that almost ANYTHING lets the bits fly thru. cables in tolerance, and also very much OUT of tolerance - it all just plain works.

in the last week I designed and built an spdif switch. I found what works and what doesn't.

spdif is VERY tolerant. more than most people give it credit for.

do you have experience you can relate or is it just your 'feel' that makes you think some bits are more equal than others?

a transport is the easiest thing to get working. only the dac is 'hard' and even that is not hard today.

when I say 'trust me' I say that because I have design and building experience to say that. and you?
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post #22 of 26
4/23/09 at 12:04pm
Well, don't want to derail this thread but it's just my empirical/subjective experience; different transports and inputs make the same DACs sound different; over S/PDIF, coax, USB...so I believe that jitter and the implementation of digital input circuitry are important variables in sound quality and unfortunately it's NOT easy to find it's been done "right". Just my two euro cents.

Oh, and your reference in building and having built is no stronger than mine listening (and tweaking). You might have as much cloth ears and ear wax as I, and hey the guys at TI et al are no engineering dummies either, but I still think a PCM270x (for example) sounds like crud, still preferred Stereovox coax cable over any other except the ART UByte with BNC-BNC, still preferred BNC over the dongle that came with my 0404 PCI, still disliked all optical interfaces, even into things like the Dac-1 and Bel Canto stuffs, wasn't impressed by the HagUSB's performance, NEVER found a transport-DAC combination that was actually better than a high-end 1 box CDP, blah blah blah
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post #23 of 26
4/23/09 at 12:43pm
and I've never heard a 'bad' transport. lots of badly mixed music but never ever had bit errors or timing errors so bad it would affect the sound. just never happens. a lot of people are CONVINCED it matters, though.
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post #24 of 26
4/23/09 at 1:58pm
Fair enough!
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post #25 of 26
4/23/09 at 2:02pm
As far as pushing bits to a dac goes, the quality of the receiver feeding the DAC is a major contributing factor, and can enable combinations where a good dac and a good transport don't sound good together.

The long & short is that the receiving end of the digital link is a much bigger contributor to jitter than the transmitting end. Unless the transmitter is just utterly terrible.
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post #26 of 26
4/23/09 at 5:11pm
Thread Starter 
WELL! I was talking on irc and found something out. A tutorial for x-fi on ubuntu. Somehow I didnt realize there was different drivers between the silver expresscard x-fi extreme and the newer black one. I have the old one and as such there are linux drivers for it under soundblaster not x-fi for mine with a picture. I downloaded em and Im about to try em out Ill let you know how it goes. If it works I dont have to buy ANYTHING! HELL YES more money for cans! woot... if it work...
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