First, I would like to thank everyone on here, and Head-Fi. Your information is terrific, as is your dedication to excellence in audio.
[size=xx-small]I used [/size]to[size=xx-small] have a very high end system. It was a Linn system with 9 different speaker boxes, each box having either 3, 5 or 7 speakers in each box. Every speaker had its own amp, and each amp had a dynamic filter in it for each dedicated freq range. Every wire also was tuned for a certain freq range. So the 7 speaker towers up front had 7 dual wires going to it, driven by 7 amps with 7 dynamic filters built into the amps, with selected wires for those freqs. Also had the Linn player for the cds, which played the SACD and DVDA formats, and it had a DAC built in for the 24/192k sound. So it was pretty awesome. Linn even flew over 2 engineers to look at it and study it. They then built an identical system for the Queen back home. [/size]
[size=xx-small]But I lost everything in the crash in 2008, including house, cars, everything. Left with clothes on my back. So I miss having good audio.[/size]
[size=xx-small]Since then I have acquired a good Linux computer and I am running Ubuntu 12.10 with a Sound Blaster SB400 and Grado SR325 headphones. Using your info I think I have achieved 24/192 output. I am using DeadBeef for the program. I chose the output to be set at SB Audigy 2 Value (400), ADC Capture/Standard PCM device Playback Direct Hardware without any conversions. Also set the secret Rabbit Code to automatic samplerate and a target sample rate of 192,200, and quality algorithm to since_best_quality. For the ADplug I set it to prefer Ken emu over Satoh, and then set the ALSA output plugin to no ALSA resampling and release device while stopped. Preferred buffer size is 20000 and preferred period size is 1024.[/size]
[size=xx-small]I do not know what some of these do, but the 24/192 recordings I do have on my hard disk do sound pretty good. [/size]
[size=xx-small]Can you comment on what I have done and if there is an improvement, or have I done it correctly? Your kind advice is appreciated, and I have the people on here so knowledgable that I take your advice to heart. [/size]
[size=xx-small]Also, would your recommend another program, or is DeadBeef good enough to do this. I have noticed that some others like Gmusicbrowser. Would this be a better program, or is the GUI better in people's estimation.[/size]
[size=xx-small]One more question. I am thinking about getting an Emotiva DAC XDA-2 (wish I could afford the Stealth DC-1) that uses USB input for my headphone driver. Do devices like this need special drivers, or is that handled by the Linux OS? Will the bits be passed directly to the USB bus and then to the external DAC for conversion, or is there some processing done before they are passed? It seems like the programs will pass directly to the USB bus if the preferences are right. I have emailed Emotiva with these questions but have not received an answer back yet. If Linux recognizes one USB device, will it recognize all the others that are also DACS? That is, is one DAC the same as all the other DACs to Linux?[/size]
[size=xx-small]And the last question, if I do the above, would it benefit me to use the output of the DAC to go into a tube headphone amplifier? Would I gain anything? [/size]
[size=xx-small]Thanks again for any help that you throw my way.[/size]
[size=xx-small]Best Regards to everyone.[/size]