Oh, but oh why do people insist in using laptops as digital audio sources for high-end DACs? Laptops are designed for low-power computation, not for high-quality, low-noise digital audio output. Since I've been playing in the digital audio domain, and knowing a bit about hardware and software from many years of experience at my day job, I've been repeatedly baffled by the bull-headedness and aggressive ignorance of those who insist in using basically unsuitable sources to feed their prized audio systems, just because they somehow believe in the label "general-purpose" in "general-purpose computer." They may be general-purpose for munging bits (and not even that, but that's a whole different story), but that says nothing about their fitness for controlling delicate digital-and-analog circuitry. You don't use a backhoe for brain surgery.