[spikyho]

Hey I'm looking to buy a DAC-AH however I don't have anyway to output a digital signal to this DAC since it does not have usb input. I have looked at some solutions to this problem such as the M-audio transit and the hagusb, however while browsing the m-audio website I have also come upon the usb and firewire versions of the "audiophile". I was wondering how much bigger this unit would be compared to the transit and if it is worth the extra cash. Also would it be better to get the transit and then a sound card like the juli@ or something like that for my PC or just the audiophile to use with both my laptop and PC. Thanks in advance.

-Ryan

 

[Garbz]

In the digital domain the transit and the audiophile should perform similarly. I have the transit and modded it for coax output. If you are DIY inclined then you can find the method in the DIY forum.

 

[Cha0$]

I have the audiophile USB... its a bit finicky especially the drivers. When it works, it does really well but sometimes it fails to get detected by the host system and needs to be plugged in again which is irritating to say the least. The USB version requires external power through a wall wart unlike the transit. The firewire version can be powered off the bus if its connected to a 6pin firewire port. Also it can both record and play at the same time at 96kHz/24bit unlike the USB which drops down to 48/24 whenever using more than one input or output.

 

[ya8282]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spikyho I was wondering how much bigger this unit would be compared to the transit and if it is worth the extra cash. Also would it be better to get the transit and then a sound card like the juli@ or something like that for my PC or just the audiophile to use with both my laptop and PC.

I'm trying to clarify what you are saying here. You would buy the Transit and then later replace it with the Juli@ or buy both and use them on the same PC? Both have digital outputs so there is no real advantage to using both.

Since the Audiophile requires an external power supply, it is not as portable as the Transit. However, having a linear power supply for the Audiophile might be an advantage over using USB as a power source for the Transit.

 

[spikyho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ya8282 I'm trying to clarify what you are saying here. You would buy the Transit and then later replace it with the Juli@ or buy both and use them on the same PC? Both have digital outputs so there is no real advantage to using both. Since the Audiophile requires an external power supply, it is not as portable as the Transit. However, having a linear power supply for the Audiophile might be an advantage over using USB as a power source for the Transit.

I was wondering if it would be better to get the transit for my laptop and then a juli@ for my desktop or buy an audiophile for both systems. However after reading through the thread I think that I'll be better of just buying the transit since the usb audiophile requires a wallwart. The coax mod also sounds pretty cool so I would probably just end up doing that. Thanks for all the input guys.

Garbz - could you link me to the thread where the transit is modded to coax output?

 

[Garbz]

The linear PSU makes more sense when using analogue outs not an external DAC.

I noticed someone at a hifi meet had the same problem with the audiophile. I have never had any problem with the transit. Install drivers, switch foobar to asio support and keep on dancing.

The coax output thread. I did the same thing except omitted the transformer since my DAC's input is transformer coupled and I didn't have any more suitable ones. Btw for others who stumble across this thread this idea can be applied to pretty much every device, and it is easy to do.

http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=131150

Also note don't be scared by the fine soldering to the pins. You do not actually have to solder to the chip's pins. There's 2 other points where you can get the same signal from. A resistor, and the ground from the bottom of a capacitor.

 

[spikyho]

I've eliminated the audiophile options because I need a portable solution that doesn't require a wallwart since I also need a line-out for my amp while im on the go. This has lead me to me to look at the hagusb and the transit. I've found the transit for about $60-70, while the hagusb is gonna set me back about $129 + ship. My questions is, is the sound quality of the hagusb that much better than the transit to warrant the price being twice as much? Also if I don't mod the transit to output through coax, will the sound from the toslink be that much worse than if I were to mod it (I've never soldered anything before)? Thanks for the help.

 

[fntms]

I understand from what I've read here that a lot of people use the Transit as a transport with toslink out with good results, I know I do (to my Zhaolou) and I have great sound (I find that I need to upsample to 96khz/24bits with foobar to avoid crackles, but I can play movies w/o any noise w/o upsampling...) The drivers are stable and the DS output is as good as ASIO in my experience, if not better (less jitter w/o upsampling). It's really nice that it's USB powered...

 

[Garbz]

The output between toslink / coax makes little difference in terms of being soundcard specifc. What I mean is that coax is better, but the only thing you would benefit from is finding a usb soundcard that has an isolated coax output, and these are few and far between. From one card to the other Toslink and Toslink are usually VERY similar.

fntms: Have you set the latency in your drivers to very high? Not doing this is the only thing that causes crackling in my output/dac. Also DS / ASIO sound very similar but in the end DS is still unable to produce a bit-perfect output. ASIO will, and I doubt jitter differences are present as this is related to the clock / hardware not the windows kernel mixer & directx vs ASIO

 

[spikyho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz From one card to the other Toslink and Toslink are usually VERY similar.

Wait, do you mean Toslink and Coax, if so I'll pass on the hagusb and grab a transit. Is the headphone output on the transit very good? I just got my Go-vibe v5 amp today and was looking for a good line-out solution since the headphone jack on my dell 700m isn't very good.

 

[Garbz]

hahaha sorry that was worded very poorly.

What I mean to say is there is a big difference between toslink and coax. Coax is inherently better as the toslink interface is really flawed for its application. However, if you must use toslink, there is usually no great benefit of one toslink connector say on the Audigy2, over say the M-Audio Transit. Most of these consumer cards have similar jitter specs, and the quality on the digital output then depends a lot on the drivers.

When you start getting into high-end cards (one of the cheapest being the EMU) then you start getting differences in outputs, but the benefit is usually masked by the toslink interface anyway.

So my recomendation is go for the Transit, at least there's a good guide with pictures available to mod it for coax output

On the transit topic as well, the analogue outputs are great, they far surpass any onboard sound I've tried, sounds better then the Audigy and Audigy2 I had (no idea about the new one though), and my Dell i4100's soundcard output was just crap and full of noise to begin with, so anything could beat that.

 

[spikyho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Garbz So my recomendation is go for the Transit, at least there's a good guide with pictures available to mod it for coax output

Thanks for clarifying, I really want to go for the transit, however I'm not sure that I could mod it to output coax. I've looked through the guide and being the serious DIY noob that I am, I don't think I'd even want to risk trying and then ruining a perfectly good $70 piece of equipment. If you're saying that Coax is that much better than toslink, do you think I should just go for the hagusb since I wouldn't have to do DIY?

 

[ilovesocks]

Whoa, the Audiophile Firewire does NOT require a wallwart. I had one and it can be bus-powered. Just don't plug in the wallwart.

EDIT: The drivers were great for me. I had no problems with it and the interface (though I rarely had to consult it) was cool-looking and easy to use. http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=139120

 

[spikyho]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilovesocks Whoa, the Audiophile Firewire does NOT require a wallwart. I had one and it can be bus-powered. Just don't plug in the wallwart. EDIT: The drivers were great for me. I had no problems with it and the interface (though I rarely had to consult it) was cool-looking and easy to use. http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=139120

Do you use it with a laptop or desktop? I was thinking about the firewire version however I think it needs a 6 pin firewire port and unfortunately my laptop only has a 3 pin. Also, do you know if a 3 pin oto 6 pin coverter will provide power to a firewire device?

 

[ilovesocks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spikyho Do you use it with a laptop or desktop? I was thinking about the firewire version however I think it needs a 6 pin firewire port and unfortunately my laptop only has a 3 pin. Also, do you know if a 3 pin oto 6 pin coverter will provide power to a firewire device?

Ah, you're right; it does require a 6-pin port for power. I doubt if a 3-to-6 converter would work. But maybe.