[Budley007]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zoide Could you elaborate on the DAC1 vs. 1212M difference, please? Thanks

Paging Mr. Iron Dreamer...Mr. Iron Dreamer, you have a call on the white coutesy phone...

Edit: actually, I think there are several threads comparing the DAC1 to several different sources. I only mentioned Iron Dreamer because he just upgraded to a DAC1 with positive results. There are others here equally qualified to respond.

 

[Scrith]

Iron Dreamer's Benchmark DAC1 vs. audio cards thread is here .

As for my experience, I found the DAC1 to be a nice upgrade over the 1212M. But not as big a difference as going from a "regular" audio card (Audigy 2) to the 1212M. I think my ratings were (out of 10):

Benchmark DAC1 = 9.5
E-mu 1212M = 6
Audigy 2 = 1

 

[Zoide]

Thanks, Scrith.

There's no need to page Mr. Iron_Dreamer

I'd already read his thread, but just wanted another opinion from another person so as to have a more complete view of things. I don't want people thinking I don't use the search function or ask things multiple time to the same person

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrith could you recommend some music, or if not a particular piece of music then a sound typically heard in music, for which I might detect a difference between the normal and upsampled sound? And those games sound amazing when I let the DAC1 do the digital-to-analog conversion, rather than the cheap DAC that's on the motherboard.

Artifacting from this upsampling in foobar or winamp is heard easiest to me with instruments with high "attack". This could be like percussions. It gets soft and loses detail.

 

[Scrith]

You're right Ian, I can hear it...and my wife can hear it too (without me telling her too much about what was going on during her quick tests). Even a small resample from 44K to 48K is noticeable when you're listening carefully, particularly in percussion (as you said). I think there is no question that if you have something like a Benchmark DAC1, you're really best off just letting it figure out what to do with the signal, rather than trying to resample it on the source end.

So...I'm going back to using the analog in from my other sound card (well, after giving the 1212M one more chance at games, I guess). There's still some interesting things going on with the ins and outs of my 1212M: optical out to DAC1, analog out to my computer speakers, and analog in from other sound card / future TV card. Hmm...so what am I going to do with this extra optical cable?

 

[skitlets]

does upsampling to any rate cause a loss of quality? I'm interested because when using kernal streaming, I'm forced to resample to 96k in order to get any output with my av-710.

edit - when selecting high-res mode, i think the card also natively outputs at 96k

 

[lan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skitlets does upsampling to any rate cause a loss of quality?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scrith Even a small resample from 44K to 48K is noticeable

The upsampling is only as good as it's algorithm. In the case of winamp and foobar, I dont really find it better so I'd say only with these programs there is loss to any rate. I can't say how other algorithms are.

 

[breez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by skitlets does upsampling to any rate cause a loss of quality? I'm interested because when using kernal streaming, I'm forced to resample to 96k in order to get any output with my av-710. edit - when selecting high-res mode, i think the card also natively outputs at 96k

At least 3.10b (also a I believe) drivers allow you to use regular two channel mode with the better DAC without forcing into any specific samplerate. It acts weirdly though, if chaintech is the default device you need to do a switch between high-res mode and regular at startup to get it working, with another soundcard as default device it works without switching. I'm forced to use the card this way because the inputs mess up when higher than 48KHz is used with the card.

 

[skitlets]

Yeah, I can run out of the higher dac port without enabling high-res mode, thus avoiding resampling. I'll compare between resampling and non-resampling once my house quiets down. Mom's cooking, blender is on, it's pretty noisy and just about impossible to do any critical listening with open phones.