I've had a lot of luck running my Dragonfly Black off my Mac. It sounds great. Yesterday I tried running it off the USB port on a Raspberry Pi v. 3 with Volumio loaded. In this configuration the music sounds more distant, almost like it is coming from down the hall (I'm using amp / speakers...

Hi.  According to Wikipedia the max power that usb can provide a device is 5V, 0.9 amps.  Does this limitation only present an engineering challenge for DAC/Amp designers or is there a definite, line-in-the-sand practical limitation on the ability of a USB powered device to power hard-to-drive...

Hi, I've been listening to my HD598s for about 9 months and like them a lot.  The thing is that I keep reading how they are slow but I don't know what that means.  Can someone please describe how the sound of a fast headphone would be any different than a slow one? Thanks

Are there any differences between DACs and component quality CD Players that make comparing their SQ difficult?  For example, is a generic CD player more likely to add coloration to the sound than a generic DAC?   I ask because I recently purchased a Modi hoping to get close to as good a sound...

Do you think these statements are generally true or false:   "Moderately priced DACs can benefit a computer audio system quite a lot because built-in computer audio can sound pretty bad.  Moderately priced DACs are not beneficial for component grade CD players because mostly they tend to sound...

I have a new Marantz CD5004 and find the headphone out is not as detailed or forward as I would like.  Could I change the sound significantly just by adding an amp or should I plan to get an external DAC as well?  The CDP has a Cirrus Logic CS4392 built in so I don't know if I should look to...

Ok. I get the whole bit about digital info vs. analog info but I'm particularly interested in USB powered DAC/Amps so I've gotta ask. My rather unscientific observations tell me that the performance of these devices varies with the amount of power that they receive from the source. So my...

I've already learned my lesson that one should never open Windows Media Player on Windows 7 but today I did so accidentally and it immediately began screwing up my tags.  Is there away to make this stop?

Setting aside (if possible) questions of file support and player availability, I'm interested to know other opinions on Mac vs. PC in the area of system level USB Audio transport (forgive me if my terminology is awkward).  I have been using a new Surface 2 (ARM processor), a 4 year old Dell...

Is there some technical reason that Sennheiser couldn't make normal impedance versions of their HD 600, 650, 700 or 800 model headphones?  I understand that there are historical and market reasons that they don't, but could they do it, if they wanted to.  I guess the sound wouldn't need to be...

Some headphones are considered hard to drive due to their high impedance while other headphones, like most planar magnetics, are considered hard to drive in spite of relatively low impedances.  My question is: do each of these two types of hard to drive headphones require different amp...

Maybe the question is not whether you can tell the difference between 256 and 320 and lossless but whether your DAC can?

So you came over here looking for ways to improve the sound of your system but after looking around a bit you find that it's kind of easy to become obsessed with this stuff.  You're noticing that audiophilia is a disease, and a very expensive one.  My advice is to set some ground rules for...

I'm kind of old but my idea of an amp was something that takes a line level signal, amplifies it and then sends it out, usually to speakers.  But things in the headphone world are different.  Now, it seems that the headphone out on a DAC/Amp frequently packs less punch than the line out (my...

Hi! So, taking Schiit as an example: the price of their highest end DACs and amps is 750% the cost of the lowest end units.  That is quite a spread.  I can understand that kind of spread on amps but I don't see how there can be that much difference on DACs. Given the fact that the Modi is by all...

       

Hi,  I'm fairly new around here but it seems like there isn't a logical place to post about small, portable USB powered D A C / Amps.  Posts about these devices seem to be spread all over.  Just saying.

So, I'm a big fan of Italian popular music.  I might as well share a bit, for anyone that may be interested.   I'll begin with the new CD by veteran singer Elisa entitled: "L'anima vola".  Known for writing songs in English, this may be her first all Italian lyric album - which is OK with me...

OK.  This is kind of silly but here goes:   I'm getting the Senn Momentums from my wife for Christmas.  Lucky me.  I'm also planning to get either an HRT Microstreamer or a Dragonfly.  I would like this device to be able to fit in the center compartment of the Momentum's case.  The larger of...

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It seems to me that getting digital music data delivered from computer to D A C should be pretty straight forward.  I believe a USB2 connection has more than enough bandwidth to get the data where it needs to go reliably. So what's the point of having special drivers for certain USB DACs? Does...

Hi,  I'm thinking I'd like to upgrade from one very basic system to another, slightly less basic system.  Right now I am running a pair of  Sennheiser HD 448s off a Nuforce uDac-2.  I'm thinking I'd like to switch to Sennheiser HD 598s running off a Shiite Modi/Magni combo.  This upgrade will...