[TheSloth]

Congratulations on putting your common sense before your credit card!

I'm not surprised you want to stick with the Micro Stack - it's really fantastic. Though, I expect that within the next year, you will be revisiting this question on multiple occasions.

 

[ken36]

Congrats on the decision. There are so many conflicting opinions on the USB vs digital/optical debate my head spins. I am sticking with USB, for now.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ken36 Congrats on the decision. There are so many conflicting opinions on the USB vs digital/optical debate my head spins. I am sticking with USB, for now.

Yeah, I tried my hardest with USB. I really did. But that ASIO thing is just too flakey, one minute it's working the next it isn't, and you haven't changed any settings.

So I dropped $100 on a Creative PCMCIA sound card with an optical out, and the Micro Stack is sounding SO sweet.

And the portability factor is huge as well. I'm in London right now, listening to my 650's through the Stack on 9 volt batteries as I type.....

 

[mkozlows]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel Yeah, I tried my hardest with USB. I really did. But that ASIO thing is just too flakey, one minute it's working the next it isn't, and you haven't changed any settings. So I dropped $100 on a Creative PCMCIA sound card with an optical out, and the Micro Stack is sounding SO sweet.

You don't actually NEED to use ASIO with the Micro DAC via USB; you can just use the normal drivers -- and if you're not using ASIO with the Creative device, it's the same as not using ASIO with the Micro DAC (or actually worse, since most Creative things resample to 48KHz for DSP processing).

 

[rpaul]

Foobar using DirectSound 2.0 (to USB output) works fine for me.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mkozlows You don't actually NEED to use ASIO with the Micro DAC via USB; you can just use the normal drivers -- and if you're not using ASIO with the Creative device, it's the same as not using ASIO with the Micro DAC (or actually worse, since most Creative things resample to 48KHz for DSP processing).

ASIO is required to do bit-perfect streaming via USB, since Kernel Streaming over USB is not available. ASIO is not directly compatible with the Micro DAC, so you need to use ASIO4ALL as a proxy sound device. This is the flakey part - sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't with no settings changes.

The Creative device is not being used for and resampling. It's a straight Kernel Streaming digital out, bypassing KMixer as well.

 

[nspindel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rpaul Foobar using DirectSound 2.0 (to USB output) works fine for me.

It will work, of course, but it's not bit-perfect digital. You're still going through the windows mixer, which as discussed in several other forums does not render bit-perfect.

 

[RnB180]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nspindel Micro Amp rocks, my friend. Afraid you've got some more money to spend.... So anyone care to comment on sound quality of the Micro Stack on batteries compared to the wal wart or desktop power supply?

I get more juice from the wall supply then the batteries. I decided one day to turn up the equalizer to ultra bass on the iriver, and slowly raised the volume, I was testing out how much bass the little amp could drive before clipping the cans. I did this with both the batteries and brick. the batteries got to underpower levels fairly quicker then the brick. The brick got too scarey loud sounding for me to test out the max output before underpower issues. I also notice the led bulb is significantly dimmer on the amp when switched to battery as opposed to external.

 

[DVasdekis]

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