Not too bright. Efficient enough to be driven well by an iPod. Less than $200 would be nice. Any recommendations?   P

Helpful, but just the word "install" can be enough to set off my alarms. I can take out a hard drive and replace it, boot from my backup and be right back where I was with a lot more space to play, but "install" in a Windows machine causes red flags to pop up all over my little luddite brain...

    Quote: If you define "nicely" as playing the native sampling rate without shutting down iTunes, re-setting to the rate of the file, then re-launching, this is absolutely correct. And if you have enough hi-res files to pay for this convenience it is a good reason to own Pure Music...

After all the voodoo cooks down to a roux, digital audio amounts to data, noise and timing. So if you have a bit-perfect stream, good galvanic isolation between the computer and the first analog stage (which resides inside your DAC, by the way), and your DAC is capable of managing jitter to...

Properly implemented, the differences between modern, high quality DACs are incredibly small to inaudible. That doesn't, of course, stop audiophiles from hearing them as dramatically describable.   P

Quote: Bixby, unless you either have very unusual speakers (actives or top-notch full range single drivers) in a very carefully measured and treated room, or a pretty bad headphone system, it is very unlikely that your speaker system is more revealing than your headphones. It's true...

Quote: Not sure I get what you mean by "damping" in a digital cable.   P

Quote: Galvanic isolation and shielding are not the same thing. Shielding keeps interference out of a specific cable. Isolation, as were talking about it here, endeavors to remove the electronic noise of the digital signal chain by breaking the chain completely before it enters the...

Quote: I would agree that there is often no logical explanation for what audiophiles hear, and you're right that your halide should be addressing jitter and isolation adequately. I don't know what it is you're hearing. I only know that there is no reasonable explanation for it being a...

I've tried both Amarra and PM in my systems and I didn't hear a difference. I think I know why: Bits are bits, but they aren't the whole story. The whole story is data, noise and timing (jitter). If you're running bit-perfect, data is taken care of. There won't be any difference between players...

Elias -    Sorry if this question has already been asked somewhere in this 200 pages, but do you hear a difference between usb and optical implementations on the DAC1?   P

Quote: I can't imagine how you're getting that result unless your speaker is right on the wall, but ok...   P

Yep, lots of newbies in the computer audio section. Lots of gamers and youngsters for whom "computer audio" = a decent sound card and a cheap pair of powered speakers. But really, I'm not sure which is worse, this, or the crowd that thinks $5,000 DAC is a good investment and there is such a...

Quote: More or less. Jitter is certainly real, and you may even be able to hear abnormally high amounts of it, through very quiet gear, over reference headphones, at high volume levels, if you're listening for jitter instead of music. Enjoy that. And there are plenty of great redbook CDs...

If you really want to keep it simple, do what this old man does; pre-set iTunes to rip to lossless any audio disk put in my computer, then automatically reject it when finished. It doesn't get any simpler.   P

"Warm" is pretty hard to define, but if you feel you need a bit more bottom end, try boosting a couple of db at 80hz. If you want to smooth out harsh highs, try a small dip at 2 and 4k. It's really hard to say without hearing your system in your room, but iTunes eq can be pretty effective. Just...

Stretch your budget to $275 and you can get a Beresford 7520. DAC, preamp, headphone amp and good quality on all three fronts.   P

The hiss is not 320kbps files. It's not the phones either. The phones are just revealing it. Keep searching.   P

Quote: Of course terms like "harsh" and "boom" represent the fuzziest kind of subjectivism and what I think they mean might not match your ideas, but "Brilliant Corners" is pretty well-recorded, and the cymbals and bass sound good on my systems. So I would guess your 650s aren't getting...

Yes, the big high-impedance Senns need some current, some headroom, but more than enough can be provided by a pretty inexpensive, properly-powered op amp, and it is possible that one of those is on your sound card. Not terribly likely, but possible. Find out for yourself. Put on a recording with...

Most of what you get from an outboard DAC is isolation from the noisy environment inside your computer. A MacBook isn't very noisy. Most of what you get from a headphone amp is enough current and headroom to drive a difficult load. Your Senns need it, your Dennons don't. The Benchmark is a fine...

Didn't we just have this thread?   P

Has anybody compared the two in a blind listening test? Because there seem to be quite a few people asking for dates, specs, pictures...trying to determine through some other means than listening whether or not they have the "right" one. A digital transport, if competently designed and executed...

Forget about the sub, stretch your budget just a bit and get a pair of Berhinger Truth. They're ugly as sin. The build quality (fit and finish) is pretty dismal, but as far as sound is concerned, they punch WAAAAAAY above their weight. 8" woofers deliver enough real bass instead of the boom and...

    Quote: You missed, or ignored, the important part: "They never go back." You can talk all day about value and print all the hardware comparisons you like, but what he said is true. People leave Windows after years, after many machines and point-whatevers of the OS. They leave fully...