[Teerawit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth I have now tested it with the short cable that comes with the Bithead, and found no difference between the USB and Optical. Only having USB for digital output is certainly not a reason not to get this!

Good to know!

And having three simultaneous digital inputs gives it alot of flexibility indeed

 

[TheSloth]

Who ever said anything about using windows...?!

I'm not using the iTunes or system volume controls (both set to full). I understand that they may still be interfering, but my question was really a technical one of what in the digital stream going through the cable determines it's 'volume'?

 

[Teerawit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth Who ever said anything about using windows...?!

You got me there!

Maybe the processing from USB to S/PDIF? no idea really...

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth Who ever said anything about using windows...?! I'm not using the iTunes or system volume controls (both set to full). I understand that they may still be interfering, but my question was really a technical one of what in the digital stream going through the cable determines it's 'volume'?

when an analog signal comes in and it goes thru the op amp and poots out an analog signal to your headphone, that's one volume level. when a digital signal comes in and the DAC poots out an analog signal to the headphones, that signal probably is coming outta there at a different volume level, just fyi.

 

[TheSloth]

Just updating with my experiences after burning it in pretty hard for another 36 hours.

I don't really understand the concept of electrical burn-in, and even if someone came up with a detailed physical explanation, it would probably be beyond my physics anyway. So, leaving that aside, it seems that the sound of the DAC in particular has cleaned up a bit. Compared to my Monarchy DAC, the sound through the internal DAC, though excellent, seemed to exhibit some lumpy resonances in the mid-high bass/low mid section which was quite fatiguing during long listening sessions. Placebo or not, it seems that these resonances have decreased significantly, smoothing out the response even further.

I'd appreciate Tyll's comments on his experience with his own amps, and if he finds 'burn-in' to be relevant to Headroom amps. There is something in the Bithead FAQ that mentions it needing 40 hours to sound it's best, but apart from that, burn-in is not mentioned elsewhere on the site, or in the manuals.

As an aside, I think it's great to post comments/questions on a commercial product, and get comments and answers from the founder of the company that made it. Much more satisfying buying experience. Thanks to Headroom and Head-Fi!

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSloth As an aside, I think it's great to post comments/questions on a commercial product, and get comments and answers from the founder of the company that made it. Much more satisfying buying experience. Thanks to Headroom and Head-Fi!

You're welcome, and I'll echo that, "Thanks to Head-Fi" with a big shout for Jude. This place wouldn't exists but for his faith that we'll keep working on becoming a strong community and that we won't forget to anti-up and contribute to the bandwidth that it takes to keep it running. So, thanks to you to, Sloth, for being a contributing member...and for taking advantage of our Head-Fi discount.

I think that there is such a thing as burn in. I tend to think that your "head" burns in probably just as much as the gear as that big psychoacoustic adaptive filter between your ears does its job. I reckon that our amps are 99% of what they're going to be right out of the box. But I do believe parts do break in and sound smoother over the first little while. My problem is that I rarely listen to a brand new piece of gear with the sort of obsesiveness that someone who has just bought a new toy does and I also listen to too many different things, that adds up to never getting to experience just "how much" a piece of gear "breaks in".

As for what break-in is...well, that depends on what is doing the breaking in. In headphone and speaker drivers it's usually considered that the surrounds (the mechanical suspension system that attaches the driving element around its perimiter to its housing) loosen up a bit and become more uniformly flexable after a bit of use. Electronic componants don't have any mechanically moving parts in the normal sense, but as electrons move back and forth through the part electrostatic and electromagnetic fields expand and colapse through the body of the part. Audiophiles posit that the dialectric and permiability (a materials electrostatic and magnetic impeading character respectively) propertives of componants go through an alignmant process that causes the part to sound less grainy.

 

[Solude]

Here is how Cardas describes burn in:

http://www.cardas.com/content.php?ar...Cable+Break-In

Its about the only non voodoo writeup I know of. Its based on cables but applies to pretty much everything. As for USB vs. Toslink output level assumming the same data 1/0 is passed to the DAC it should result in the same volume. Attenuation over long runs of USB cable may make a 1 a 0 but that would be some serious attenuation. Digitally I believe lower volume is from bit shifting.

Thomas knows this better than I do.

 

[TheSloth]

edit: removed - more relevant impressions below.

 

[TheSloth]

My computer has been broken for the last week, and only came back today. Therefore I had to go back to my old system of using my QUAD 99 CD-P (a $1500 CD player), and got used to it again. Anyway, I went back to using the DAC in the Desktop once the computer returned, and I'm really wowed by it. I had gotten used to my 'old' CD player again, so when I changed to the Max DAC I was shocked by the level of detail, vibrancy and bass power that it had, over and above that of the QUAD. Headroom have a real winner with this, and another very happy customer. I think it's a real testament to the quality of an audio product when you like more and more as you listen to it. It usually goes the other way round, with an intial excitement at a 'new' sound gradually turning into irritation at the ever more apparent flaws...