What do you guys think of the M-Audio MobilePre USB for $134 CAD? Can I do better for cheaper? If I get something like that, I'll also need a XLR-M to XLR-F cable as well, to hook up the mic to the preamp, right?

So, long story short is that I'm a newb, and wanted to toy around with a condenser microphone for general purpose PC usage, so I bought the Audio-Technica AT2020. The box arrived today. 1 - There's no desktop stand, so I'll have to buy one. 2 - The connector on the microphone is XLR. My...

I didn't get the PSU as I couldn't justify the extra cost at the time. It might be in my future though, although I bet that I'm going to get shafted with $30 of shipping for it if I do buy it, which was around the shipping for this unit, but justifiable given that the unit cost was high...

Well, after the comments I've heard about this DAC (even though there weren't that many people that had it), I just had to try it out. I ordered it on the 26th and it got here on January 7th (I live in Canada). I've been spending the last 3 hours listening right after coming home and taking it...

Quote: Originally Posted by Lavik This has probably been up for discussion before, but I haven't found a definite answer. Has anyone got this card to work with the 64-bit version of Vista? (I know they released a beta driver for the 32-bit version). I never tried, bit I simply...

I have plenty of bad things to say about this earbud, so I'll summarize it in one line: Don't get it.

Quote: Originally Posted by marillion64 to me the best cans you can buy for that kind of money is the 880, it's a cans good for all kinds of music and has a quite good soundstage too. I'm sure if you'll buy it you won't regret your choice Agree with this. I've listened to the...

Quote: Originally Posted by milkweg No duty on computer parts. To bypass brokerage fees make sure they use US postal service. All you pay is shipping and GST, that means no PST. OT, but whoa, it's milkweg from [H]ardforum. Didn't know you were around here as well.

Hmm... I might just settle for something cheaper. I've been taking a look at the HT Omega Striker and it looks to be perfect, at around $70. My only real requirement is a digital coax output and Vista 64-bit support.

Quote: Originally Posted by IPodPJ Yes, drivers exist for both Vista 32-bit and 64-bit. You can buy the card online for $129.00 brand new. Which Canadian e-tailer would this be?

Quote: Originally Posted by HFat I don't know that you've made a point that needs addressing. I just thinks it's funny to push RAID as something reliable on head-fi. As you can see, I'm easily amused. I've had nothing but good experiences with RAID because I'm not using it to...

Quote: Originally Posted by Redo Maybe backups to optical media. Backups to a second HD is cheaper than any RAID option, otherwise you're wasting money on mirroring without any extra HD space or you're throwing a good chunk of money into lots of HD's. @Redo: Not necessarily. RAID...

I'm considering getting this card for Vista 64-bit support, but I only see one distributor on the ESI site for Canada. I'll be contacting them later to ask them about it, but does anyone know of any other stores selling this card that serve Canada or are in the US but ship cheaply enough to...

Quote: Originally Posted by hempcamp Your point is not a valid one precisely BECAUSE we are not talking mission-critical, enterprise solutions! Sure, go ahead, RAID yourself silly --- but for what benefit? So you can show off your size? *Unless* you are using it for...

I have my music on a RAID 5 NAS and access it from there. For me, "user error" is not a big issue. I can't remember the last time I deleted media by mistake (I don't delete media -- am much of a packrat), much less remember when I decided to junk an entire folder with hundreds of media by...

Quote: Originally Posted by John_M I'm not "trolling." I was accused of the same thing on the thread querying the importance of amps, where I dared to suggest that they weren't in fact especially important at all. I know it's off topic on this thread but the other one got closed down...

Quote: Originally Posted by sugarinthegourd Cyrilix, see my first post on this thread. Compared to my Grados, I feel like the Sennheiser soundstage is almost completely between my two ears rather than out in front of me somewhere. As good as the SQ is, that's my biggest complaint about...

I'm surprised out of so many posts, no one has mentioned the Sennheiser 2-blob effect of the sound stage, which has good width on both sides, but to me, has almost no depth, and tends to make the cups sound very distinct (like the music on one cup is disconnected from the other cup). I...

Quote: Originally Posted by Aja Again though, why pay for a power section I'll never use, not to mention an extra 5.1 channels I won't use either? Umm... because even without those channels and those features, it's worth the money? Maybe you should read the 115+ page thread on...

XR-55/57. 'nuff said.

Soundcard (outputs digital to) --> RCA splitter (splits digital to) --> 1 --> Panasonic XR-55 Class D Digital Receiver --> Speakers 2 --> Zhaolu D2 --> M^3 --> Headphones

Quote: Originally Posted by 003 Ideally you want coax in both cases if you can isolate the noise. Maybe ERS paper wouldn't be such a bad idea but you need to ditch that sound card first. Unless the music you are playing was recorded at 48khz, when you play music from anything in the...

I tried it myself, and so far it seems to work well, although it does not support dual core encoding without the reference version, which is a trial (it's unfortunate as half of the processing power is wasted). I thought it was use something of a slowly updated codec, so something like FLAC...

Quote: Originally Posted by blessingx Try DBPowerAmp. Keep in mind WAV doesn't retain tags so you may want to convert MP3 to FLAC (which always needs a uncompressed step) all within DBPowerAmp. Can DBPowerAmp do WAV->FLAC as well as the FLAC Frontend though?

What is the free standard for MP3 to WAV converters? I'm having a little trouble with slow MP3 seeks with cue files, so I'm looking to convert all my MP3 to WAV, then WAV to FLAC. I already have FLAC frontend, but it won't take MP3 files, so I need to convert them to WAV first. Thanks.