[ryry1]

   
I guess the problem is that we don't even consider the computer sound cards as DACs. However, technically they, of course, are. 

So I checked with Schiit and they had some of the 4490 Bifrosts in stock in black, so I went ahead and placed the order.  I decided against the multibit for now, I think the regular Bifrost will be a worthy successor to my sound card.  Freeing up room in my PC case is the icing on the cake.  Truth be told, I have had a Soundblaster sound card for years, but even as a hardcore gamer, nothing supports the old X-Fi tech anymore (and hasn't in years) so having an internal soundcard literally has no advantages for gamers or music lovers alike.

 

[520RanchBro]

  So I checked with Schiit and they had some of the 4490 Bifrosts in stock in black, so I went ahead and placed the order.  I decided against the multibit for now, I think the regular Bifrost will be a worthy successor to my sound card.  Freeing up room in my PC case is the icing on the cake.  Truth be told, I have had a Soundblaster sound card for years, but even as a hardcore gamer, nothing supports the old X-Fi tech anymore (and hasn't in years) so having an internal soundcard literally has no advantages for gamers or music lovers alike.

Half the time I use my 4490-frost, it's for gaming. You'll love it! There's a handful of people that prefer it to the Multibit as well.

 

[madwolfa]

  So I checked with Schiit and they had some of the 4490 Bifrosts in stock in black, so I went ahead and placed the order.  I decided against the multibit for now, I think the regular Bifrost will be a worthy successor to my sound card.  Freeing up room in my PC case is the icing on the cake.  Truth be told, I have had a Soundblaster sound card for years, but even as a hardcore gamer, nothing supports the old X-Fi tech anymore (and hasn't in years) so having an internal soundcard literally has no advantages for gamers or music lovers alike.

 
Agree.

 

[Letmebefrank]

  So I checked with Schiit and they had some of the 4490 Bifrosts in stock in black, so I went ahead and placed the order.  I decided against the multibit for now, I think the regular Bifrost will be a worthy successor to my sound card.  Freeing up room in my PC case is the icing on the cake.  Truth be told, I have had a Soundblaster sound card for years, but even as a hardcore gamer, nothing supports the old X-Fi tech anymore (and hasn't in years) so having an internal soundcard literally has no advantages for gamers or music lovers alike.

 
I use the toslink output from my Xonar DX to my Modi2Uber, and it is dead silent. The Xonar DX has built in tech to specifically push 24/192 over toslink without degradation, so thats one of the main reasons I bought it. I use the "hi-fi" setting which turns off all processing and just sends the pure signal straight through to the DAC.

 

[ryry1]

   
I use the toslink output from my Xonar DX to my Modi2Uber, and it is dead silent. The Xonar DX has built in tech to specifically push 24/192 over toslink without degradation, so thats one of the main reasons I bought it. I use the "hi-fi" setting which turns off all processing and just sends the pure signal straight through to the DAC.

Interesting, I imagine that the X-Fi Titanium does as well, I'll look into that -- in fact, I may leave the card in at first to test Toslink versus the Bifrosts USB connection and see if I can tell any difference in sound quality and noise.  Perhaps going over Toslink and bypassing the Soundblasters DAC would eliminate the noise, perhaps not.  It's worth trying just to see.  If it turns out to be a dud, the soundblaster will be put back in it's box and forever collect dust upon my shelf.

 

[landroni]

  I still think the terminology of calling a DAC a source is weird too, I always thought of the computer, media player, etc. as the source. But I guess ultimately it's where the sound comes from

A computer/media player/streamer will serve as a digital source to a DAC, because it transmits bits to the DAC. A DAC will be an analogue source to an amp (or to the transducers, where feasible), because it transmits voltages (not bits). The amp will be an analog source to the transducers. It's semantics, of course, but that's roughly how it goes. So if you're concerned with an amp, then yes, the upstream source you feed to the amp would be the DAC...

 

[Letmebefrank]

  Interesting, I imagine that the X-Fi Titanium does as well, I'll look into that -- in fact, I may leave the card in at first to test Toslink versus the Bifrosts USB connection and see if I can tell any difference in sound quality and noise.  Perhaps going over Toslink and bypassing the Soundblasters DAC would eliminate the noise, perhaps not.  It's worth trying just to see.  If it turns out to be a dud, the soundblaster will be put back in it's box and forever collect dust upon my shelf.

 
Toslink doesn't transmit noise as it doesnt have any electrical conductors, so you should be good in that way.
 
I've compared my toslink to the USB input of the Modi2Uber and I cant tell the difference, but that's one less USB cable I have to have connected to my PC. I have 4 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports on the back of my Z97 sabertooth MK1, and they are all taken except 1.

 

[ryry1]

   
Toslink doesn't transmit noise as it doesnt have any electrical conductors, so you should be good in that way.
 
I've compared my toslink to the USB input of the Modi2Uber and I cant tell the difference, but that's one less USB cable I have to have connected to my PC. I have 4 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports on the back of my Z97 sabertooth MK1, and they are all taken except 1.

Very cool, I'll give Toslink a shot.  Honestly it's funny because I have been out of the headphone game for a while, living at home and using my Adam A7X studio monitors for music 100% of the time, and I didn't really care about quality headphone components as much (as headphones were used specifically for "competitive" online gaming where I needed to hear), but I recently moved back into an apartment building where blasting my speakers is a big no-no so it's back to the headphone game full time for me, hence why I began this endeavor.

 

[madwolfa]

I have to use a long optical cable from my computer to the big stereo system to avoid the ground loop hum I have when using USB. At the same time I'm using the USB just fine with my desktop Schiit stack as it's plugged into the same power outlet with my PC.

 

[manpowre]

   
Toslink doesn't transmit noise as it doesnt have any electrical conductors, so you should be good in that way.
 
I've compared my toslink to the USB input of the Modi2Uber and I cant tell the difference, but that's one less USB cable I have to have connected to my PC. I have 4 USB 2.0 and 4 USB 3.0 ports on the back of my Z97 sabertooth MK1, and they are all taken except 1.

Toslink connection to DAC, the timing of the digital packets are created by the host not the DAC. So. a low en computer with a cheap motherboard dont have a great oscillator for timing of the packets. Eg. the Chromecast Audio has toslink, but it creates jitter since the timing isnt the best. This is why Berkeley usp to SPDIF is exceptional in the timing of the digital packets sent to the dac.
 
This is why I use the Intona USB isolator which galvanize the USB itself so no electrical circuit is transferred between host computer and the DAC. But it also has a really good Oscillator to help the DAC time the packets being sent!

 

[hodgjy]

  Toslink connection to DAC, the timing of the digital packets are created by the host not the DAC. So. a low en computer with a cheap motherboard dont have a great oscillator for timing of the packets. Eg. the Chromecast Audio has toslink, but it creates jitter since the timing isnt the best. This is why Berkeley usp to SPDIF is exceptional in the timing of the digital packets sent to the dac.
 
This is why I use the Intona USB isolator which galvanize the USB itself so no electrical circuit is transferred between host computer and the DAC. But it also has a really good Oscillator to help the DAC time the packets being sent!

The difference in jitter between optical vs. usb cannot be heard by human ears, and even if it could, it's a non-issue because DACs reclock the incoming data. It's not a problem.

 

[Paladin79]

  Toslink connection to DAC, the timing of the digital packets are created by the host not the DAC. So. a low en computer with a cheap motherboard dont have a great oscillator for timing of the packets. Eg. the Chromecast Audio has toslink, but it creates jitter since the timing isnt the best. This is why Berkeley usp to SPDIF is exceptional in the timing of the digital packets sent to the dac.
 
This is why I use the Intona USB isolator which galvanize the USB itself so no electrical circuit is transferred between host computer and the DAC. But it also has a really good Oscillator to help the DAC time the packets being sent!

Very interesting. I will have to check the specs on my Dell, it may be better than I realized lol. It has toslink out and they sell it as a decent AV machine. I have run the toslink straight to a Martin Logan sound bar with DAC and it works well. I also run a quality usb out to Teac and OPPO dacs with no issues. I nearly replaced it a month ago but I am glad I held onto it now.

 

[Letmebefrank]

  Toslink connection to DAC, the timing of the digital packets are created by the host not the DAC. So. a low en computer with a cheap motherboard dont have a great oscillator for timing of the packets. Eg. the Chromecast Audio has toslink, but it creates jitter since the timing isnt the best. This is why Berkeley usp to SPDIF is exceptional in the timing of the digital packets sent to the dac.
 
This is why I use the Intona USB isolator which galvanize the USB itself so no electrical circuit is transferred between host computer and the DAC. But it also has a really good Oscillator to help the DAC time the packets being sent!

 
From the Xonar DX spec sheet:
 
"High-bandwidth TOS-Link optical transmitter supports 192KHz/24bit"
 
Its probably better than the el-cheapo transmitter on low end motherboards. Either way it sounds great to my ears. I don't have any tight bends and I've never noticed any noise from bandwidth constraints. 

 

[manpowre]

  The difference in jitter between optical vs. usb cannot be heard by human ears, and even if it could, it's a non-issue because DACs reclock the incoming data. It's not a problem.

Theres a reason why Berkeley usb to spdif converter is in business.
 
Just wondering, what do you think of USB galvanized isolation, is it hearable by human ears with or without it ?

 

[madwolfa]

  Just wondering, what do you think of USB galvanized isolation, is it hearable by human ears with or without it ?

 
Only if you had a ground loop problem to begin with... then galvanic decoupling would make sense.