[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed Sweet, what Jamey is this then?

Jamey@headphone.com is our Operations VP at HeadRoom.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens Jamey@headphone.com is our Operations VP at HeadRoom.

Thanks to you.

 

[Jamey Warren]

We try to leave ourselves a little breathing room on our website status. If you call, you will probably get a little more accurate estimate but, our website usually displays our best guess for availability.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamey We try to leave ourselves a little breathing room on our website status. If you call, you will probably get a little more accurate estimate but, our website usually displays our best guess for availability.

I'm in the UK and I'm disabled, two reasons for it not being easy to phone.

Am I right in thinking things like the MicroDAC are made to order, seeing as how there can't be a huge demand?

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

No. We make them as fast as we can, it's just not fast enough sometimes.

 

[Chri5peed]

Got it today, along with my internet connection!

Wow, I gotta say its the biggest improvement of anything I've bought, apart from headphones probably...

 

[angler31337]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed Got it today, along with my internet connection! Wow, I gotta say its the biggest improvement of anything I've bought, apart from headphones probably...

Please post your impressions when you have time!

-Angler

 

[Chri5peed]

My initial impressions are superb. I listened to a Queensryche album that had just sounded okay before, considering I had a fair setup then. It sounded really great with the DAC. Plus on a song with an orchestral intro it blew me away with how beautiful it sounded.

I don't go for the highly-technical audiophile terms, I'm not 100% sure what they all mean, so I won't confuse things.

I reckon proper impressions won't become apparent for a few weeks, like most things. Plus if it burns in...

I have a picture in my photobucket album:

I've attached both the amp/DAC to the underside of my PC desk with industrial strength velcro strips(and I put a bit of superglue on to make it extra-strong), this way they don't take up any room and they're easily detachable if I want to use them portably.

Thats a 6inch Cardas HPI mini-mini. I've also switched the 1/4 plug on the 595s for a 90° Switchcraft mini-jack, which I got free! I live right by the UK distributor.

Its extremely well-made too. The Optical lead is a £10 job, I understand optical signals are all the same over such a short run?

 

[caramelsoul]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed The Optical lead is a £10 job, I understand optical signals are all the same over such a short run?

For your optical cable i would suggest you get at least a glass one. They can be had for £20 for a half decent one.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by caramelsoul For your optical cable i would suggest you get at least a glass one. They can be had for £20 for a half decent one.

Aren't we entering the realms of people who think expensive power cables make a difference? How can a beam of light travelling 1.5Ms through a static cable possibly be enhanced?

Its like looking in a mirror. A fancy $5000 one gives you the same reflection as a $20 mirror.

Plus I had my work cut-out to even find a 1.5M Toslink to mini.

 

[angler31337]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed I've attached both the amp/DAC to the underside of my PC desk with industrial strength velcro strips(and I put a bit of superglue on to make it extra-strong), this way they don't take up any room and they're easily detachable if I want to use them portably.

I was wondering how you did that. Very nice touch!

-Angler

 

[solbergg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth They use very different DAC's. The Aria uses a USB/DAC all-in-one chip that is quite convenient, but in the grand scheme of things not a great 'audiophile' performer. The HeadRoom DAC uses the same chip as the Aria to convert the USB into S/PDIF which it then sends to a Crystal CS4398 (a very, very nice DAC if implimented well). USB is not a very good transmission method for digital data, incurring a significant performance loss due to hightened jitter (measurements of devices show jitter to be between 3 and 100 (!) times higher through USB than through optical to the same device). If you can find a way to use optical or coaxial input, you will get by far the best results.

Actually, USB can be quite superior to s/pdif if it is wired correctly. In the microdac's case (I'm not sure about the Aria), I agree it is better to stick with optical since the USB cable just converts to the s/pdif interface anyways. But, there are devices that enable a direct connection between the dac and the USB, often referred as a G2S interface. Hopefully all pc-source dacs will utilize this interface in the near future.

 

[immtbiker]

Your idea to mount it under the desk is a good one. Nice job!

 

[rimsy]

Personally, I don't percieve much of a difference, if any, between USB and a plastic TOSLink cable that I bought with the stack. Maybe in the long run and with a better built glass one, the difference would become more pronounced. I think that there are many variables to USB connection. Do you think that the quality of USB controller implementation varies vastly between motherboard manufacturers?

On a side note, I can't pinpoint any particular improvement of Overture over Revo 5.1, but the music is simply more engaging now and the differences between quality of recordings are much more aparent now. Take this with a grain of salt though, as I didn't attempt any thorough comparison of the two and I should factor in the influence of Coda. I'm really looking forward to upgrade my Coda's original module to Desktop 2k6

.

 

[Chri5peed]

My amp has been in that position for months and has not moved once, I've taken it off lots of times too.
The MicroDAC although bigger, without batteries its as light as a cloud.

I took it off easy last night too, I took the rubber surround off the back panel so it would sit flush against the underside.

People say Velcro is unsightly, I agree but you don't see it when its in use. Plus as I'm never going to sell either it doesn't matter anyway.

I'd recommend using a bit of superglue. I'm using extra-strength Velcro but even then the glue is not as strong as the Velcro connection, especially using parallel strips.