If I were you I'd spring for an External DAC. I actually considered purchasing a soundcard for my desktop, and replacing the plain wire to the headphone jack with a well shielded coax type wire before decided to get the DAC.   I have a desktop PC that has similar hum as you're describing --...

 apologies for multiple post, moderator please delete

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  I'm currently running HD600's with the Audinst HUD-MX1 as my primary setup for music playback.    I had pretty low excpectations -- I expected to hear a subtle difference, but was blown away at how much of a difference there was. Compared to my PC (Sony VAIO VGN-Z280) there was a huge...

I usually try to buy the CD's. For new releases I usually order from Amazon (usually the best price, plus free shipping). In the case of many older rock/pop bands however, the only CD's that are still in print are "remastered" versions -- which usually just means dynamically compressed more. For...

Quote:   Very true. Cars at typical freeway speeds (75 mph) have background noises on the order of 70dB+, attempting to "drown this out" (eg, crank the music to 20-30dB above the very high noise noise floor) places average SPL at dangerously high levels. While driving -- especially on...

Good question...   Many electric devices actually specify the power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) as part of the datasheet.   Most modern electronic devices start with AC, then rectify and filter it using a bridge rectifier into a somewhat noisy DC, but then filter that out to a...

For playback, I found that I was able to distinguish between high quality lossy (eg 320 kbps MP3 or AAC) and Lossless with some effort. Telling the difference between 96/24 and 44.1/16 required perfect listening conditions (eg, turning off all fans/noise sources in my apartment -- including...