[tedSmith123]

Sorry newbie question here. Just got the Zero DAC and wanted to start playing with mod. When you all said OPA627 + LT1364, do you all mean the OPA627 on the brown dog adapter on the large board and the LT1364 for the smaller board ? I've opened up the DAC and the smaller board has 2 chips. So I need two LT1364 to this mod, or just one chip ? If I only need one chip, which chip do I change ? I've attached a picture of the smaller board and circled the two chips in yellow ...

 

[Henmyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tedSmith123 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry newbie question here. Just got the Zero DAC and wanted to start playing with mod. When you all said OPA627 + LT1364, do you all mean the OPA627 on the brown dog adapter on the large board and the LT1364 for the smaller board ? I've opened up the DAC and the smaller board has 2 chips. So I need two LT1364 to this mod, or just one chip ? If I only need one chip, which chip do I change ? I've attached a picture of the smaller board and circled the two chips in yellow ...

You've got it right. You need two OPA627 + BD adapter on the big dac board, and two LT1364 for the small amp board (one in each of your yellow rings).

 

[Emanuel]

Hi!
I was going to ask a strange question maybe, when I saw "Henmyr" desktop configuration, that is very similar to what I'm planning to start up.
Maybe you can help me!
I'm also a creative user, but with the old audigy1..what Im asking is if the digital output is always active, as the analogic output, in every audio situation, like games, video and audio player, sound processing software (asio vst ecc..). That could be very fine for me, using an old sound card for the drivers, but with "upgraded" sound to enjoy music better. Hope this is possible. Thk!

 

[Henmyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emanuel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi! I was going to ask a strange question maybe, when I saw "Henmyr" desktop configuration, that is very similar to what I'm planning to start up. Maybe you can help me! I'm also a creative user, but with the old audigy1..what Im asking is if the digital output is always active, as the analogic output, in every audio situation, like games, video and audio player, sound processing software (asio vst ecc..). That could be very fine for me, using an old sound card for the drivers, but with "upgraded" sound to enjoy music better. Hope this is possible. Thk!

The optical digital output of the Xfi can be used for music, movies and games.

I haven't tried EAX while using optical out, but I did search on google, and it doesn't seem like EAX works for optical out, at least not with Xfi, and Audigy is probably the same. If you want to use EAX you will probably have to use the analog outs.

The Xfi asio works perfectly now in Windows Vista with latest Foobar2k and latest drivers (it didn't work perfectly with earlier versions of foobar2k and Vista, but windows XP had no problems with it).

 

[Emanuel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henmyr /img/forum/go_quote.gif The optical digital output of the Xfi can be used for music, movies and games. I haven't tried EAX while using optical out, but I did search on google, and it doesn't seem like EAX works for optical out, at least not with Xfi, and Audigy is probably the same. If you want to use EAX you will probably have to use the analog outs. The Xfi asio works perfectly now in Windows Vista with latest Foobar2k and latest drivers (it didn't work perfectly with earlier versions of foobar2k and Vista, but windows XP had no problems with it).

Thk for the answer!! That's very good..what in particular concern me is if I can get digital output from a processed sound, like this chain "analog line-in(guitar)--->vst software with asio driver(digitalization)--->digital output" Probably that its not a frequent topic, and maybe you can't answer me specifically, but thanks anyway. I'm planning to see if even the coaxial spdif output works, and someone says that works better. (i believe however that they speak of very subtle or inaudible differences)

 

[Penchum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emanuel /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thk for the answer!! That's very good..what in particular concern me is if I can get digital output from a processed sound, like this chain "analog line-in(guitar)--->vst software with asio driver(digitalization)--->digital output" Probably that its not a frequent topic, and maybe you can't answer me specifically, but thanks anyway. I'm planning to see if even the coaxial spdif output works, and someone says that works better. (i believe however that they speak of very subtle or inaudible differences)

Your post made me go look and see what is and what isn't working on my X-Fi Xtreme Music card, when using Optical out. The only thing that doesn't work is the CMSS-3D surround. EAX and the others work just fine.

 

[Henmyr]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Penchum /img/forum/go_quote.gif Your post made me go look and see what is and what isn't working on my X-Fi Xtreme Music card, when using Optical out. The only thing that doesn't work is the CMSS-3D surround. EAX and the others work just fine.

Did you try EAX in games? If you did and it worked it's great news.

 

[Penchum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Henmyr /img/forum/go_quote.gif Did you try EAX in games? If you did and it worked it's great news.

Ow, nope. Just the effects with the player.

I don't have any games loaded right now, maybe someone else can check it out??

 

[Pricklely Peete]

Isn't bit perfect playback impossible with a Audigy 1 ? I seem to recall the EMU chip on it samples everything up to 48 khz. I could be wrong about that...it's been a while since I've had a creative card. I know the new X-FI series chip does not do that. My current SC is an Auzen Prelude which uses the X-Fi chip......it's fine as a transport to the Zero, although I prefer a CDP SQ wise feeding the DAC.


Peete.

 

[Enthusia]

Wait the current x-fi's do not resample to 48hz? I always thought they did...

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ex...50/index2.html

I found a thread pertaining to this question, at the bottom, MikeW says:

Quote:

Alot of "professional" gamers use headphones actually, almost exclusively for Counterstrike. I prefer my headphones for games over my speakers, (Klipsch Promedia 5.1). Yes, the speakers are better at positioning, but the subtle details definatly come though better on the phones, and the headphone+amp completly dwarfs these speakers, so it's not really a fair comparison. I've said it before, and i'll repeat, creative gets alot of flac for the 48hz resampling, but it's required for the sound card to function properly. You can't mix 22 khz, and 44.1 khz, and 48 khz, and 96 khz audio all at the same time and apply effects to it, unfortunatly many games use one or a mix of all of the above frequencies at the same time for their sound effects. Therefore Audigy/x-fi resamples everything to 48 khz. It's been that way for a long time, and there's good reason for it, people need to understand that Creative cards are a gaming card first, and a music card second and not expect audiophile performance out of them. The X-fi is creatives attempt to fix these shortcomings, basically with raw performance, the resampler in x-fi is superb, i've tested it myself and it's noticebly better then Foobar's software resampler. Udial plays back fine for me, as long as I don't go though my amp, which is tube based, so it's gonna muck that file up no matter what, I also take udial results with a grain of salt, I guess it can be usefull, but it's easy to obsess over.

Not sure if it's the truth, but it does make sense.

 

[Penchum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enthusia /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wait the current x-fi's do not resample to 48hz? I always thought they did... http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/ex...50/index2.html I found a thread pertaining to this question, at the bottom, MikeW says: Not sure if it's the truth, but it does make sense.

I'm not sure anyone is, totally.

There is a difference on how X-Fi handles gaming audio and stereo audio output to a DAC. Example: I'm using Vista with X-Fi optical out to my #1 Zero. If I manually set the freq to 44.1 and leave it there, WAV files sound fantastic. If I manually change it to 48 and leave it there, the WAVs will sound OK, but different enough to notice and just different enough to dislike, a little. So, I leave mine set at 44.1 and have this set as the default.

Gaming is a whole nother matter.

I'm fairly certain most have their X-Fi's set to be controlled by the game, and in the game, they specify whether they want surround or EAX and those things. If the game pushes a 44.1 sound file, the X-Fi will resample it to 48, for compatibility reasons I believe. This matches somewhat with what that fella was saying in the quote you gave.

I don't know if this helps or not, but it is the extent of my understanding on this topic, so far.

 

[ccschua]

Has anyone tried replacing the stock power cord with single crystal copper cable like acoustics zen el nino or harmonic technology AC10 power cord, etc. Will the power cord give obvious difference in terms of smoother vocal and wider soundstage ?

 

[sum1]

I'm just wondering who will support the warranty of this dac/amp if you have a problem with it? Is Tianyun(Is this the manufacturer?) taking care of the warranty or after sales service?

 

[Citizen86]

In regards to the X-Fi conversation, I am throwing out a guess here, but I had one for a while, the Xtremegamer, and I believe that it should work fine as a transport for music. There was a reason why it had 3 different modes you could set it to: movies, music creation, and gaming. I believe Movies and music creation modes allowed bit-perfect optical out, while gaming mode I don't think did.

Even music would sound different in gaming mode and the other 2 modes, so I would assume that it was actually pretty important to have your card set to the right mode for what you were doing. But I'm pretty sure that you could have optical out and have it set to bit-perfect playback, just maybe not in gaming mode.

 

[donjiva]

Finally got my zero [the upgraded version with opa627], only 5 days to Seattle

. Still in burning-in period but I'm loving the sound!
Currently I hooked it with optical straight from motherboard built-in realtek soundcard to zero.

Got few questions :
1.when playing flac song from foobar for the best quality, should I use the resampler? If so what khz should i use?
2.what output data format should i use? 24bit or 16bit with dithering?
3.Will upgrading my optical cable will make the sound better?
4.the seller give me an optical-usb adapter. should I use this or connect it straight with optical?

Thanks!