I've owned the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 and 5.1. They were fine computer speakers, but I also had a B&W/Arcam system in the next room for actual music listening. I think you would be able to get much better performance from a bookshelf system, even if you don't go expensive. I had a friend with a...

Agreed. A problem I didn't know about before was telephone radiation. I have unshielded studio monitors for computer speakers, and I can tell when I get a phone call by the sound of crackling doom coming from the speakers about 10 seconds before it rings. So, don't leave a cordless or...

Quote: Originally Posted by drarthurwells Still in development - soon to come out. I love my Lehmann (no USB) - nothing better. Click on link at top of site. But soon does me no good now . And the Desktop Maxed is much more than the Lehmann... unless the Lehmann's USB port...

Quote: Originally Posted by drarthurwells Lehmann Black Cube linear - new model with USB as well as line inputs. I tried the Micro with Desktop module. Lehmann costs more but is much, much better - but not portable (except in a car with inverter). I saw that mentioned for...

Quote: Originally Posted by nblis So Audio, how do you like the DAC? I assume you put the maxed out dac? Can you compare it to any other dac? Also, do you use crossfeed? I'm just curious about your amp. Did you think about waiting and purchasing a home or max amp? Noel I played...

(erased) What I said was true on Mac. I missed that you're on PC. Sorry.

Quote: Originally Posted by nblis So Audio, how do you like the DAC? I assume you put the maxed out dac? Can you compare it to any other dac? Also, do you use crossfeed? I'm just curious about your amp. Did you think about waiting and purchasing a home or max amp? Noel Well, my...

Quote: Originally Posted by DatHak512 Does anyone know if the Desktop Amp comes with a USB cable? So far, i understand that it comes with the power adapter (15v wall adapter) and the amp. Anything else? No USB cable. And it takes the same digital-camera styled cable as the micro...

Well, you might try a USB headphone amp. Mine (Headroom Desktop Amp, Headroom Micro Stack, and the Grace m902 - all from Headroom) just arrived tonight to demo, but so far, the amp portion of the Desktop Amp (maxed options with matching Power Supply) and Grace m902 have both been rather good. I...

The MicroAMP accepts line-level input, as from a computer sound card, or the MicroDAC. The MicroDAC accepts optical, coaxial, and USB digital inputs. The MicroDAC and the SB Live would be doing the same thing here - the SB Live uses the PCI bus as its digital input. They both accept digital...

Quote: Originally Posted by SV_huMMer Audeo, could you please tell a bit more what U think about Waveterminal? Namely, it was on my list of external soundcards for music listening. I do have a headphone amp, but I am very unlikely to spend on an external DAC in the near future. So my...

I'm on Sprint PCS, and I get it too. Now I just leave my mobile in the other room. Mine gets the static intermittently, which is, I assume, the phone checking with the network for status and what not. My speakers should be shielded, but I'm not sure. Buying more speakers with more shielding...

Once you encode with a lossy format (as MP3, AAC,... but not FLAC and ALAC or WAV or AIFF, which are lossless formats), any further codec changes results in quality loss*. So no, basically, converting your MP3s at this point is a bad idea and won't help. AAC tends to be a better codec than MP3...

I have no experience with external media drives, but definitely get one that will etch the surface of the CD with a laser - LaCie calls it LightScribe... that is so cool. I would be surprised if external drives at the same rotational speed on the same bus type would differ greatly for ripping...

Quote: Originally Posted by clackman what about firewire card+ dac1? The DAC-1 doesn't clock, so you would just need stable optical or coaxial (coaxial being better, usually) output from the computer. Of course, the DAC-1 also has jitter reduction, which means that the differences...

Back in the dark days of only having dual 120 GB hard drives, I ripped to 256 min. VBR MP3 in iTunes. Now I'm reripping my entire collection into ALAC... what a pain. I wish I had been smarter and just spent a little extra on some extra hard drives when I started ripping four years ago. When...

Quote: Originally Posted by clackman what about M-audio's firewire cards? The M-Audio will probably not sound as good as a more expensive recording solution. However, unless you're going to be recording multiple inputs, or syncing the soundcard to an external DAC's or other clock...

Is the $300 limit no longer an issue? If you're just looking for sound quality, and not multiple inputs and outputs, then you don't need the bandwidth of firewire. That said, firewire interfaces can have very good sound quality, since they're usually meant for recording, which demands a...

The DAC-1 is also over 3 times the price and includes an amp.

Yeah, it has water cooling, and when you open the side panel, there's a clear plastic sheet of duct work that you have to remove before you can access anything. The CPUs are IBM 970fx, derivatives of the Power4 architecture. When I woke the computer this morning, the CPUs took about two...

Or copy them to your Mac and then let the Mac do its job.

Did you try connecting an external monitor? That should probably work, since in the laptops that I've seen taken apart, the DC-DC board - where the power plugs in - is very near the video cable to the LCD, and all this is right on a hinge, which is bad in terms of wear. Anyway, let support...

Why not test the M-Audio stuff - the Audiophile USB, FireWire Solo - or the ESI Waveterminal? Either head over to a store that has them and bring a comp and some headphones, or order them online with a return policy. I've only had experience with the Audiophile 2496 internal card, but I was...

Quote: Originally Posted by Kram Sacul What's with the concern over HDD temperatures? It's a computer, not a pet. You use it, not worry about it. If anything will overheat and blow up first it will be my P4 Prescott, which hovers around 50c most of the time. It's built for the heat...

Having never heard those headphones, my guess is that you could go pretty high for source and still hear improvement. I haven't ever looked at the 0404. My desktop is a G5 with built in optical, which I connect to a Benchmark DAC-1. The rest of my computer listening is done on laptops, so...