[EliasGwinn]

That's great!!

One thing to be carefull of... With Mac OSX, there is a utility called "Audio MIDI Setup". It can be found in Applications/Utilities/AudioMIDI Setup. Be sure to set the sample rate in this utility to match the sample-rate of the audio you are listening to. Otherwise, it will convert the sample-rate, causing significant distortion.

Also, we recommend using the volume control on the DAC1, and keeping the volume in the software set to 100%. Software volume controls are rarely designed properly (iTunes is horrible), and will cause significant distortion.

Enjoy your DAC1 USB!!
-Elias

 

[lowmagnet]

Elias,

Have you tested out on Leopard yet to see if the volume control errors are corrected? I do miss sound check a lot since I have some punk/SKA in my collection and it's almost universally LOUD and compressed.

 

[EliasGwinn]

I have not tested Leopard yet.

I know what you mean about "Sound Check"...it would be a great feature if it was designed well.

 

[clarkc]

Thankyou Elias (and others) for the really interesting input in this thread.

Elias, you mentioned that you will post a guide to PC audio sometime soon. For newbies like me to this stuff, this sounds very useful. When can we expect this?

Thanks, Clark

 

[gracky]

Elias, with Macos X / Audio midi setup, output bits can be altered as well as sample rates. Won't it affect the quality of the digital out if the source file is in ordinary 16 bits?

 

[lowmagnet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gracky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Elias, with Macos X / Audio midi setup, output bits can be altered as well as sample rates. Won't it affect the quality of the digital out if the source file is in ordinary 16 bits?

The DAC1 is locked at [2ch-24bit] on my system, with no ability to alter it. And bit depth doesn't really affect sound quality like sampling rate does. Listening to 24-bit audio in 16-bit would be bad, but sample rate changes are worse.

 

[EliasGwinn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gracky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Elias, with Macos X / Audio midi setup, output bits can be altered as well as sample rates. Won't it affect the quality of the digital out if the source file is in ordinary 16 bits?

Great questions. It is ALWAYS recommended to use 24-bit settings when possible, EVEN WHEN THE AUDIO IS 16-BITS!!

The reason is: when you operate at 24-bits, you don't actually add or modify any of the digital data, you simply give the data a "bigger path" to travel through. The reason this is important when playing 16-bit audio is because certain software operations can cause a 16-bit word to turn into a 24-bit word.

One easy example is applying volume control. If you change the volume to 90% for example, the software will multiply all the digital audio data by 0.9 (or divide by 10/9). The result is rarely an exactly 16-bit word, just like dividing regular numbers often results in non-integer numbers. It usually has a remainder...which will require more bits (digits, or decimal places in regular numbers). If the data path is limited to 16-bit, the remainders will be truncated. That's analogous to dividing 10 by 3, and having a result of 3. With extra digits available, a more accurate result of 3.333... can be achieved.

This will be further explained in an upcoming e-update that we will be sending out shortly. If you would like to receive this e-update, and future ones as well, you can sign up on our website:

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/accoun...ribe_conf.html

Thanks,
Elias

PS: The exception to this: If your audio device is a 16-bit device AND if your player offers dithering to 16-bits (such as Foobar) AND nothing else downstream will result in 24-bit words (Volume controls, DSP and Plug-ins, etc), then it may be better to use the dither-to-16-bit setting. But, this is still a bit risky...

 

[EliasGwinn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowmagnet /img/forum/go_quote.gif The DAC1 is locked at [2ch-24bit] on my system, with no ability to alter it. And bit depth doesn't really affect sound quality like sampling rate does. Listening to 24-bit audio in 16-bit would be bad, but sample rate changes are worse.

This is true... Although, truncating 24-bits to 16-bit is very bad, so that's subjective.

 

[EliasGwinn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clarkc /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thankyou Elias (and others) for the really interesting input in this thread. Elias, you mentioned that you will post a guide to PC audio sometime soon. For newbies like me to this stuff, this sounds very useful. When can we expect this? Thanks, Clark

Hopefully we will have this available in the next week or so. We will be sending an e-update email announcing it. If you would like to receive this and other e-updates, you can sign up at:

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/accoun...ribe_conf.html

Thanks,
Elias

 

[lowmagnet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EliasGwinn /img/forum/go_quote.gif This is true... Although, truncating 24-bits to 16-bit is very bad, so that's subjective.

My mistake, I wrote the above incorrectly. Truncating 24 to 16 is very bad. Running a higher bit-rate than your source data on Mac OS X is also bad. but not as bad as truncating data. Sorry.

 

[Lord Chaos]

I received my DAC1 USB yesterday. In a word: excellent.

After I got the DAC1 for use with my Squeezebox I wanted better sound from the Powerbook because it's the computer I'm using most of the time and its headphone output is noisy. I started looking for USB devices... and that's about when the Email arrived from Benchmark. I ordered soon thereafter, and took home serial number 29.

Pipe organ music is one of my standard tests because I've heard a lot of real pipe organs so I know what they should sound like. I've never found a satisfactory system... until now. The Powerbook/DAC1 USB/Shure E500 combination has none of the subtle raspiness that has afflicted organ music in other systems I've used. It is simply a delight to listen to.

Thank you, Elais, for your comments here. They help me understand how this device works.

 

[SamNOISE]

EliasGwinn

Wow the dude's been one patient cat in answering all of these audiogeek questions! I suggest you post an address that we can send a bottle of fine Vino & our best chocolate to!

I'll attempt to diverge slightly from the topic that is being hammered to death:

What is your take on using the BenchMark DAC1 as a simple preamplifier / DAC? In my case, I have been musing over a combo-DAC / Preamp such as Benchmark's product between my CD player or laptop and the power amplifier (PSAudio HCA-2).

Many have suggested that this is not an idea situation as they feel that the preamp stage in products such as the DAC1 would be inferior to a 'classic', stand-alone preamplifier.

Now, I'm not one to use bass / treble / balance etc controls - nor do I care about input switching etc. That said, do you feel that the built-in preamplifier in combo products such as the DAC1 are every bit as 'transparent' as any high-end preamplifier?

Tnx. for your time man.

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com

 

[Lord Chaos]

The DAC1 manual specifically addresses this, and the USB version has internal jumpers for optimizing the output level. They highly recommend using the DAC1 in place of a pre-amp, which is what I'm going to do as soon as I get things arranged.

I have the Powerbook connected to the DAC1 through USB. I'll use the S/PDIF from the PC, and then connect the DAC to my power amp. When I get the Mac Mini music server I'll use one of the other inputs for that. Then I'll get rid of the CD player, pre-amp, etc.

 

[Scrith]

Quick question about the new DAC1 USB:

Other than the USB support, is there anything new (or improved) about the DAC section of the DAC1?

I am a previous DAC1 owner (both a 2004 and an early 2006 model, which sounded different, by the way) that switched to another DAC that, in my opinion, sounded slightly better than the DAC1 (which I attributed to the resampling that was happening in the DAC1 in order to deal with jitter). I am using an external box to convert USB to S/PDIF (and wouldn't mind eliminating this USB box from the chain if I could replace my box+DAC with a new DAC1 USB and get sound that is at least as good).

By the way, I always found that resampling up to 96K using a high-quality resampler (such as the Secret Rabbit resampler in Foobar2000) improved the sound with the DAC1, which I also attributed to the (relatively) poor job the DAC1 was doing in resampling music from 44K all the way to 117K (a guess...I don't remember the exact value of the data rate the DAC1 uses internally). Has the hardware that is being used to resample the data to the internal rate changed at all?

 

[Audio_newb]

Two questions, one for lowmagnet and one for Elias. Firstly, low, I was wondering how your new Benchmark setup compares to your Spitfire rig. Any thoughts would be great as I'm trying to justify the cost of the new Benchmark to myself.

Elias, thanks for answering all our questions so far both here and over at the stereophile forums. I was wondering whether, now that there is a usb connection we might see future firmware updates and whether you guys were still working on anything like that. Thanks.