I have a Zhaolu 2.5C DAC. The line-level output is too high for my integrated tube amp. I tried to add a volume control and extra resistors to lower the output level and make it variable. But I screwed up big time. During the desoldering and soldering, I managed to burn the PCB pretty badly; now...

I already have a Cmoy. Will look into turtle beach USB plus ground isolator. Thannks!

Thanks for recommending the Turtle Beach usb and Nuforce uDac. My only concern is both of them are powered by USB bus. The USB bus on that workstation could be very noisy. I also looked at Musiland Monitor 2. It has its own power supply, but doesn't have hardware volume control. How hard...

What would be a cheap usb + DAC combo that would produce OK sound on a noisy Linux workstation? I spend lots of time everyday work on this Linux workstation, which is very noisy electrically speaking. From the $5 sound card I can hear hard drive seeking, video card refreshing, etc all through...

One reason against the use of WMA or Apple format is that you never knows when will they drop support for the current format, or what if MS decides to automatically/secretly add DRM to all YOUR WMA music found on your hard drive? What if MS does some trick so that your next generation ipod...

Let's say a few years down the road the newest hotest music player changed to blah blah blah, and it does NOT support MP3, WMA, or Apple, what do you do? If your music collection is in FLAC format, it will be easy to turn them back into WAV losslessly, and then convert them into whatever format...

Thanks cotdt for the Zapfilter picture! It looks like you no longer have to solder to those tiny SMD resistors, right? Another question: How feasible is it to add a volume knob somewhere after Zapfilter but before the RCA or XLR outputs? I'd like to simplify my setup to bare minimal without...

Quote: Originally Posted by Garbz No passive solutions I could think of could split the signal without causing jitter to go through the roof. If they exist they would impact SQ. Why can't you just use a RCA Y-splitter? I know the cable is supposed to be 75Ohm but I have done that...

Yes it was Audigy 2 NX. I did install the latest driver from Creative. To get bit-identical output for DTS CDs I need to manually set the SPDIF output frequency to 44.1k. It worked pretty well, even under linux. The only problem for Linux is that the SPDIF output frequency can only be set in...

Guys, you don't need KernelStreaming or ASIO for bit-identical output. I had a Audigy NX usb sound card in the past and it plays 16bit 44.1k DTS CD fine using DirectSound and foobar. My receiver will show DTS when a DTS track comes on. If it is not bit-perfect the sound will be white noise...

OP, I believe your sound card only does bit-perfect output at 48khz. An cheap card that does bit-perfect at 44.1khz is the chaintech AV-710. You should be able to find plenty of discussions in the computer-as-source forum.

Thanks Ori! Just did it. Can't say how big a difference it makes. There is a little bit more bass. On a different note: my DIY passive volume control failed miserablely. The main culprit is the bad RCA jack. I used two Radioshack single-gang audio-taper pots in dual-mono setup and two pairs...

Hi I would like to do the DC-blocking cap bypass on my Zhaolu 2.5C. However I'm not sure which cap is the DC blocking cap. Here is a photo. Could anyone please point out the correct cap?

Can anyone confirm whether Zhaolu 2.5C has the DC blocking caps? I have 2.5C but I'm clueless as where to look.

Anyone has modded 2.5C yet? I have a 2.5C and it looks to my untrained eyes there are only TWO opamps (2604) on the output board. Is this the result of eliminating the XLR output? So I will get better sound by replacing just those two 2604 with something better? By the way, there seems to be...

Thank you daggerlee! It worked like magic. Now all I have to do is clean up all the mess and sit back and enjoy!

Thank you for sharing the schematic, Daggerlee! One question: Do you know why does it work? I'm wondering whether all it does is to connect the 110 power source to the transformer directly. My reasoning is that the marking on the transformer indicate that its input is 110v. So I guess PCB...

Hi I just got my brand new Zhaolu from China. Due to my own stupidness I never give the voltage difference beteen US and China any thought. Now I hooked everything up but it is not working. I guess it must be the voltage. In more detail: When powered up, the LEDs on the front panel works...

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruach Your fuse problem may be due to the specs and tolerance of MIC (made in China) fuses. I will normally replaced these fuses with fuses that I can trust to do the job. So that they don't blow? Fuses are made to blow!

Hi I'm going to buy a Zhaolu DAC 2.5 with cs4398 chip pretty soon and I need some input on how to get the best of my system. My system consists of: . Chaintech av710 digital out. . Pioneer VSX-D 850 AV receiver. . Bryston 3B power amp. (it has no volume adjustment) . NHT ST-4 tower. ...

Today I played with it a little bit more. Found out that "Digital Output Only" must be checked in order to get 44.1khz output. But then I got no output on the headpone jack. Not a big problem as I can always plug it to the receiver.

Quote: Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver You mean the Audigy2 NX? If that's the case, then you still cannot get bit-perfect output at 44.1kHz. And since that USB sound card lacks hardware audio acceleration, everything (including resampling to 48kHz to match the Audigy2 NX's hardware...

Out of curiosity, I tried Direct Sound 1&2: DTS signal get through correctly, as long as "allow hardware mixing" is enabled. Also tried waveout, receiver shows DTS logo but not making any sound. the "SB" indicator lights up occasionally, don't know what's that.

I did the test as you pointed out with my wrist watch. I have only one DTS sound file, foobar shows 4:39. When played, it took 4:39 or 4:40. I did it again with a regular file, same result. The receiver doesn't show any infomation when playing 44.1khz or 48khz but will say 96khz when I choose...

After reading on this forum, I finally realized that the reason for my DTS sound track file playing like white noise is because I'm not sending bit-perfect signal from computer to receiver! I have two sound card, one Audigy Gamer the other USB Audigy NX. I need that Audigy for its 1394 port...