Quote: Originally Posted by Ben Diss I'm a little lost on this whole HDAM thing. I apologize if this was covered somewhere in the last 800 pages of this thread. - What does HDAM stand for? - How does the Earth or Moon compare to the OPA627? - Where does one buy and how does one...

Quote: Originally Posted by AudioPhewl The card would be - IMO - broadly comparable to the stock Zero. Possibly slightly better, possibly slightly worse. The real benefit of owning a Zero is how good it sounds with a little time and a few mods. I've got a modded Zero, and it would...

Quote: Originally Posted by Shizdan I go Prelude Through Optical to the Receiver Why are you considering getting the Zero? Strictly for the DAC? So your sound card doesn't do the decoding? People talk about the noise inside a PC as degrading analog sound quality so maybe...

Just use the Prelude -> Receiver. Are you using the Prelude to decode or the receiver? The prelude has pretty good analog outs on it.

I currently run my PC's optical output to a Zero DAC/AMP to Sennheiser HD-650 cans. The setup sounds pretty darn good. However, I may help a friend out by giving him the Zero and purchasing a new sound card - the HT Omega Claro Halo. The Halo has a built-in headphone amplifier and is supposed to...

FOR PC USERS I currently run my PC's optical output to a Zero DAC/AMP to Sennheiser HD-650 cans. The setup sounds pretty darn good. However, I may help a friend out by giving him the Zero and purchasing a new sound card - the HT Omega Claro Halo. The Halo has a built-in headphone amplifier...

Quote: Originally Posted by reflex Well... Auzentech also fully supports EAX and will be releaseing a new X-fi card with a built in headphone amp in January of '09. Auzentech, Inc. X-Fi Home Theater HD : World First soundcards for Music, HTPC, and Gaming. That's exciting...

HT Omega has a new version of their Claro card out that has a built-in headphone amplifier. It looks sweet! That way you can avoid buying a separate DAC/AMP. Of course, only Creative fully supports EAX.

Is there a mod to force the Zero DAC to default to: 1. Coax input (instead of optical) 2. Phone (amp mode, instead of preamp mode) It's annoying that I have to hit two buttons - after a forced delay - to listen. I almost always use Coax in, amp mode. Any ideas on a mod to make this...

Because you don't want thumping bass, I would get a 2.0 system. For the sub $100 range, you might check out: 1. Creative GigaWorks T40 Premium 2.0 Speaker System ($80 after $39 MIR) OR 2. Klipsch Groove PM20 2.0 Speaker System ($87)

Quote: Originally Posted by gyrodec Garret - I personally have serious doubts a USB cable can sound different, but there is a clear difference between streamed audio and data moved to an external HD. For streamed audio the digital clock is sent encoded in the timing of the data pulses...

Quote: Originally Posted by wavoman USB disk reads and writes have error-correcting and re-tries built in. No problem. This has nothing to do with USB digital audio transmission, which has hard real-time constraints -- deliver the bitstream in time as the music plays. This comes up...

Quote: Originally Posted by Quaddy garret, we are talking about real time digital streams as in music being transferred across said cable to a very fine implement such as a dac, no one is arguing that its mission critical for a hard drive to have such a quality cable for the mere...

CHALLENGE: Can any of you provide any proof whatsoever that a USB cable can have any effect on digital audio passing through it? I think you're all reciting old wives' tails (or old nerds' tails). If what you all say is true, than USB backup hard drives would routinely be corrupted - not...

lol wut?