[yellafella321]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Svperstar That may not be the case. I know the highest end Audigy 4 has a nice CS DAC on it. The same DAC is sold by Headroom for like $299.

can anyone confirm/refute this?

 

[silvalis]

IIRC, the audigy4 has CS4398 dacs on it which are the same used on the headroom home dac.

 

[RockinOut]

DAC MATH

DIGITAL SOURCE + DAC + AMP + PHONES =

HEAD-FI MATH

HEAD-FI - $$$$$ =

 

[Bones13]

I can't say "dramatic" difference, although, "different" is probably a better word to use than "better". I would feel myself to be an inadequate audiophile to tell you the difference though.

If your gonna take the time to read this board a lot, but have a sensitive wallet. I would take the conservative approach and spend the time redoing your music files (at least those that you own or have access to the CDs for) to a lossless format.

I find my Spitfire to be only nominally better than the 1212m output. If you have a sound card you can live with for now, save your money for a more expensive DAC if you are looking for a dramatic improvement. DACs keep getting better and less expensive.

 

[Sean H]

Quote:

Originally Posted by yellafella321 can anyone confirm/refute this?

Remember - implementation is key. You could put the worlds best DAC chip in a unit that has a very poor power and analog section and it will sound like total crap.

 

[twc5964]

thanks for the insight....guess i'll wait awhile and do like Bones mentioned.I am converting all my mp3's to a lossless format and that does help slightly.

 

[Clutz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by twc5964 ok...I'm currently encoding certain music folders to wma lossless(quality 100,96khz,2ch,24 bit vbr..as high as my sound card allows) and comparing the same to wma pro 440.....man,I'm so far behind the times....I never paid attention to lossless encoding until now. So,your impressed with the Dac-ah ? You have some Klaus components..lucky you ! I've got so much more research to do on Dacs etc.....thank god for this site .

Don't encode to 96kHz - encode to 44.1kHz for cd audio. CD Audio is 44.1kHz, encoding at 96kHz won't improve the sound - it will degrade it.

 

[twc5964]

ok thanks...well,i've pretty much encoded everything to that now....I can go back an encode to the lower hz rating i guess.

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Svperstar That may not be the case. I know the highest end Audigy 4 has a nice CS DAC on it. The same DAC is sold by Headroom for like $299.

Actually 4 of them.

jiitee

 

[Ferbose]

What DAC chip is used has little to do with sound quality.
Power supply and jitter rejection are extremely important, and so all other factors in analog circuit design.
People can take dinosaur-age 16-bit DAC chips from the 1980's and design a super hi-end DAC, and it's called Zanden and jaw-dropping expensive.

 

[jiiteepee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferbose What DAC chip is used has little to do with sound quality. Power supply and jitter rejection are extremely important, and so all other factors in analog circuit design. People can take dinosaur-age 16-bit DAC chips from the 1980's and design a super hi-end DAC, and it's called Zanden and jaw-dropping expensive.

Yeah, and that would be just for audiophiles, to the same ones, who're willing to pay 3000$ for wooden knobs for their amplifier to "get better" sound out from their 100000$ system

<-- (wondering, if the piece on top of the head is a bass reflex speaker?)

But as for an example, Audigy 4 Pro and X-Fi Elite Pro are equipped with quite good quality compnents, but the utilization is poor (maybe on purpose).

jiitee

 

[RockinOut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ferbose What DAC chip is used has little to do with sound quality. Power supply and jitter rejection are extremely important, and so all other factors in analog circuit design. People can take dinosaur-age 16-bit DAC chips from the 1980's and design a super hi-end DAC, and it's called Zanden and jaw-dropping expensive.

Yup, I agree.

 

[5ergo]

So if you have 2 DACs and you want to know which one is better. Is the only way to just listen to both?

btw in $700 range this one is hard to beat:
http://www.presonus.com/centralstation.html
(does not support HiFi speakers)