"Now I need to correct a couple of things: First, Aluminum ABSOLUTELY conducts heat better than steel. Whether or not this makes any difference in case temperatures is another topic (bottom line: not really). Inversely, you are correct that aluminum is "noisier" (i.e. it has a lower internal...

Ah, by modern I mean a CPU that understands how to throttle down power consumption based upon load. I am aware the CPU I have for power users is long in tooth. I am curious on the Athlon 1700, are you under clocking? If so, and you are playing lossless formats with some degree of...

I tend to agree about underclocking, but with modern CPUs do you need to do it? My experience you can just run a typical load, and in the case of playing music it is a low load, and just turn down the fan. For instance I am running a 2.4 ghz P4 that is constantly on, and when I am playing...

Why Itunes vs other lossless formats? Generally speaking, aluminum cases are more noisy than steel, and contrary to what people have heard they do not conduct heat as well as steel. Aluminum resonates vibrations too easily. I have a case from Lian Li, although it was not advertised as a quiet...

I like the emu-1212m too. I have owned a quite a few DACS, including several in the 4-6k range. It compares VERY well to those DACS, and for some attributes bests them! Enjoy!

Hi Sigma and Publius, Thanks for the suggestions. I will try the album list component. If either of you have time to download and install MediaMonkey, I would like your comments on how it supports navigating thru a music collection and any other suggestions on customizing FOOBAR to be...

Ok, I know what I about to say may be heresy, but I think FOOBAR has a fatal flaw. If you have a large collection of music, unless I have missed something, FOOBAR does not provide an easy way to organize and select music to play. Yes, I have tried the 'columns' plugin, but was unable to get...

Hi, I have a Benchmark too, and I think it is very nice. What sound card are you using as a source? Lynn

Does anyone have experience with the Mini-Dac? How does it compare to the Benchmark DAC-1? Thanks.

One more thought. Is it possible that your defective keyboard is the issue? It is well known that problems with keyboard polling can cause similar affects to an IRQ problem. Trying another keyboard may be the ticket.

I suspect that it not an IRQ problem if your motherboard is fairly new (last couple of years). Modern motherboards using Windows have resolved the IRQ conflict issues by virtualizing the hardware. You should be able to change the PIO to something like "DMA IF AVAILABLE". Perhaps a firewire...

Another thing to check is the DMA setting for your harddrive. Check in control panel system settings under your primary and secondary drive controllers. Sometimes, when there are i/o errors, (for instance on a CDROM drive attached to the same channel as your harddrive), and Windows will turn off...

Thanks for the info on the 404 (I have the 1212 so I was not sure). By the way, I totally agree about sample rate. I have tried upsampling using both software and hardware, and for CDs 44.1 always sounds the most natural to me. The upsampled sound sometimes seems clearer with what appears...

Hi, It would be interesting to hear from someone who has actually tried both the EMU-404 and Audiophile 192. I think the EMU-404 also does 192 (I know the EMU-1212 does). So, both cards do support the same sample rate. The big difference is in the DACs and perhaps associated components...

Has anyone researched to find the sound card that has the highest quality SPDIF? Is it better to use a USB SPDIF source vs. a PCI card? What do you recommend? Thanks.