Killer unit here that's basically new... I'd take it if budget allowed.

Ah, ok thanks. I'm still a bit confused, as the receipt looks like you originally ordered this as a LIM back in October. Appreciate the clarification!

The sticker on the back says "MIL"... not to be confused with "LIM".

PM sent.

Cool, thanks for the input - I think it was most likely a driver thing then... I have since reverted back to the default windows drivers, with the thinking that I don't need the Realtek software running as well when I'm just outputting s/pdif...  All works well so far.

Hmm, interesting... good to know that there are even instances like this.  It hasn't happened again, so it's tough to trouble shoot whether it was indeed my server or something else in my system chain.

Having set up a new system, I had a curious thing happen the other night where I had no sound playing through my music server... which is otherwise very consistently stable.  I'm running everything up to date, with Win 7, Foobar, and Wasapi.   Has anyone ever experienced an instance of...

Hey everyone, I have a USB DAC... it sounds fine with the exception of these clicks and pops in my audio. I'm using Foobar on Windows 7 on a core2 duo laptop with 1 gig of ram. I've tried both KS and Wasapi... both have the same problem, although KS is less pronounced. I've adjusted my...

closed

Ya... that makes sense. Well, I'll give it a little more time, but... wow.

Directly from Teradak? I thought I was buying directly from the manufacturer by buying from Vintage_Audio_Labs on eBay...? I think this is Kevin's eBay account. If Teradak is Michael, whom I'm not really sure how he fits in with the operation, he told me he wasn't going to be able to do an...

2 days and counting waiting for a response again. I'm sorry everyone, I have to whole-heartedly recommend that nobody buys a Valab at this point. Given you MAY have a great experience with them, it's only fair that I throw in my subjective experience into the collective. You're definitely...

I could - but that would take hours of work. It's not worth it to me. Then, maybe I find a dead OPamp and have to order another one anyways. I responded to Michael last night telling him that this doesn't sound fair to me. I offered to buy a new one at full cost, and split return shipping...

Haha, I don't know. It doesn't sound like Michael is making DACs from the last e-mail he sent... it's all new to me. In his last e-mail, he said he wouldn't be able to do a replacement. That was sent right after Kevin finally wrote me back, telling me he could do a replacement. The only...

Hmm... but doesn't it sound like Michael wants me to contact the reseller (aka, Kevin)?

Getting a little frustrated. I contacted Vintage_Audio_Labs a few days ago, then again shortly after - never received a response. I contacted Michael yesterday and did receive a response. He asked me some basic tech questions, to which I answered. The reply I just received was: "I thought...

Well we shall see how Kevin handles it. Is this common for him to take so long to reply to e-mails?

Ya, it's a bummer... good to hear that my amp / pre-amp will be fine though. The weird thing about this is... I have probably 75-100 hours on it already, and it worked fine until a couple days ago.

haha, ya thanks wood. So this static - is there a such thing as a harmful signal coming out of a DAC? Like, maybe massive amounts of unwanted current of some sort? Or is the static just line-level, as if it were in the original recording it's self...?

Soooo I've been running my DAC continuously for a couple days and this noise is still persisting. Again, its like a rhythmic static noise that cuts in and out... quite loudly. For some reason the manufacturer isn't responding to the message I sent him through eBay. Is there a better way to...

Thanks for the info, Wood. That's good news - so maybe I don't have to lose my DAC. Any idea what causes this? Is there any danger to my amp in this condition, or is it just signal level distortion?

Hey everyone. My Valab DAC just failed . This is the newest 2009 model. It has hardly been used. I've always had it plugged into a surge protector with a high quality power cord. It always had plenty of ventilation as well. There is still a signal, but it is accompanied by a loud scratchy...

Interesting... I'm not sure why it would be better though... I mean they both use similar chips and high quality components...

Anybody have a valid comparison between the two?

Any other reviewers that can compare the two?