[saturnine]

I've recently discovered a site that sells upgrade chips for my Parasound DAC. The stock Parasound is 16bit/48khz max, would it be worth the price to upgrade it to 24bit/96khz? The upgrade kits are selling for around $180US..

http://www.audiotuning.de/index.html?1-54-digital.html

 

[Garbz]

Do you have a 96khz source that outputs digital? And I mean a true one, not your computer where directx resamples the sound to match the frequency expected.

Even my DVD-A player for most of the discs doesn't output 96khz, It does on 1 though. And on that it doesn't audibly make that much of a difference.

 

[saturnine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz Do you have a 96khz source that outputs digital? And I mean a true one, not your computer where directx resamples the sound to match the frequency expected.

I do, but have to use KS in foobar along with the resampler. I'm mainly wondering if upgrading to 24bit would improve the sound any..

 

[sgrossklass]

Ha. Fed Google with "parasound 1500 dac" and one of the first results was a discussion of just this upgrade. Apparently what gets changed are the S/PDIF receiver chip (CS8412 --> CS8414, thus 24/96 support) and the digital filter (NPC SM5813 --> BB DF1704). Apparently the DF1704 gets set to slow roll-off mode by default (a touch rolled off at the upper end of the spectrum, but with better impulse reproduction in return). The DAC apparently already has PCM63P chips of best grade (K), these still look good on paper and with a good I/V and output stage and low-jitter master clock should also sound like it. The biggest gain is to be expected from the digital filter change.
Advantages of 24 bit? Hmm, mainly when playing back lossy material, or stuff you've recorded in 24 bit yourself (as to be recommended).
As for whether the upgrade is worth it over a new DAC (or something like a 1212m), hard to tell. If the Parasound gets "the rest" right, then I'd guess it is.

 

[sgrossklass]

Quote:

Originally Posted by saturnine I do, but have to use KS in foobar along with the resampler.

You have to...? Why? (The resampler, not KS.) Could it be that your AV-710 is not set up correctly? You must choose an operating mode for digital out that does not confine the sampling rate to 48 kHz only; then you'll get a checkbox for automatic sample rate selection, and with that you should be able to get bit-perfect 16/44 audio to the DAC provided the Wave volume slider is set to max.

 

[saturnine]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgrossklass As for whether the upgrade is worth it over a new DAC (or something like a 1212m), hard to tell. If the Parasound gets "the rest" right, then I'd guess it is.

The Parasound is actually an upgrade from a 1212m

I found the Parasound to be much more "organic" sounding for a better lack of words, and much more detailed than the 1212m or modified 0404. Thanks for the above info though, I've done a few searches but mainly what I found was in German & didn't translate well. Most of my music is in 16bit FLAC, so I'll hold off on the upgrade for now.

Quote:

Could it be that your AV-710 is not set up correctly?

I've been having lots of problems with this AV-710, either the drivers are messed up or the card itself is. It occasionally doesn't output unless a sample rate is specified in the resampler, which is very confusing. I've decided to grab another 0404 for optical out, Patchmix is just so much easier. One thing about the AV-710 that bugs the hell out of me, is that when switching from one sound file to the next the DAC errors, and makes a loud clicking sound before locking on again. Neither EMU card did this.