Wow...  you are really hitting some key notes SaLX :-)   I didn't give much thought to an external DAC/amp until I heard my friend's Schitt Bifrost/Lyr combo coming out of his PC...  this is mostly for HD music while he renders graphics images, but regardless of application, the clarity and...

  Bifrost and Gugnir both have SPDIF inputs.       It has been a VERY long time since I used a Creative product, but I do remember them supporting Dolby Digital.  A quick scan of their product line reveals that at least a few of their products continue to support Dolby Digital Live as...

  Haven't had to deal with the Creative folks in quite some time, but in essence what the Creative DSP would have to do is process the audio stream and either loopback or route that stream into a Creative digital passthrough to a USB output.  Not impossible, but also not normally how soundcard...

Well we can't have you guessing at my intentions, so I'll make them clear...     What you are describing IS hard, which is what prompted me to repost.  If you don't believe that this type of project is difficult then please list the technical reasons why instead of making blank statements...

  I have also had to replace batteries on failed mobile devices in the past, but I don't think that this warrants the battery concern being expressed in this thread.  Have I replaced cell phone batteries, yes, on every cell phone I've owned or helped maintain, no.  Same is true of laptops. ...

  Hate to rain on the party,  but I just don't think its gonna happen as a DIY project.  SPDIF as mentioned previously is not a straight-forward conversion for ODAC or other USB-only DACs...  need a completely new design or a drastic redesign to make it happen.  Now combine this with USB Host...

  The software filters are used to open, unpack, decode, and transcode audio and video containers.  Other than that they perform no other transform on the media data, thus no image modification other than what may occur as an artifact of a transcode.   The video renderer is the beast that...

Wow...  what a great thread read this was.   Went from the woes of Digitalfreak's experiences with the DX-50 to the hints and tidbit demos of the ZX-1.  While I feel for Digitalfreak and the horrid UI experiences he was having, the ZX-1 news makes me optimistic for digital players and HD audio...

  All versions of MPC have internal filters which are required by design to open, unpack, and decode media containers.  This is what I meant by not being able to avoid filters with MPC.  You can avoid external filter installation, but not filters in general.     Good stuff shrimants, I...

  Does your phone have a Wifi interface and a headphone jack?  You could use that to access the wireless LAN using an appropriate app e.g. ES File Explorer on Android phones.  Then just use your favorite music player app to play the FLAC files.

  Wut?  MPC uses TONS of software filters e.g. Quicktime, Realplayer, Shoutcast, OGM, Matroska, etc.  I don't think you can avoid them.

Ugh...  could be you are picking up some bleed from the 60Hz AC to DC stage in the Bifrost power supply.  This is a complete guess, but it fits your symptoms.   Shielding or bypass cap problem?  In any case, I think you have definitely narrowed it down to the Bifrost.  Have you contacted...

Agree - ODAC is huge bang for the buck.  But the complexity of adding SPDIF capability would add significant size and cost.  You might be able to get away with less than $100 extra cost on parts and PCB design/redesign, but you likely also are going to have to program some firmware to support...

Have you looked at the Blue Yeti usb mic? Very reasonable at about $100, and superb quality.  Yeti has a built-in "no-latency" stereo out jack which will probably work with your GR07s.  Worst case, you could use one of the front speaker outputs on your motherboard/soundcard for your buds.

Hmmm... buying/building a converter for spdif to usb could get complicated and expensive.   For $139 (Amazon) you could buy a Fiio E17 which has an SPDIF input.  You wind up with a "spare" DAC which means sell it for some extra cash, or use it in another application.     My 0.02.