[manchau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Comfy How about a Zhaolu DAC 2.0?

Anybody bought one ???

Or I'll be the first

 

[Chri5peed]

If you're bypassing your soundcard with a DAC and an amp, does that also mean you're virtually not using any computer resources, except for a media player?

I ask because, even with a quick computer(3.7Ghz & 2GB RAM), I ocassionally get little sound jumps when I'm doing something else.

 

[TheSloth]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed If you're bypassing your soundcard with a DAC and an amp, does that also mean you're virtually not using any computer resources, except for a media player? I ask because, even with a quick computer(3.7Ghz & 2GB RAM), I ocassionally get little sound jumps when I'm doing something else.

Quick answer - nope!

 

[labrat]

Deleted.

 

[Chri5peed]

I'm talking about jumps of about a millisecond and in 100 songs I could expect maybe 3 or 4?

So its not a problem in the slightest. Actually is there a program which detects system processes running, so you can turn off extraneous ones?

 

[labrat]

Deleted.

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed I'm talking about jumps of about a millisecond and in 100 songs I could expect maybe 3 or 4? So its not a problem in the slightest. Actually is there a program which detects system processes running, so you can turn off extraneous ones?

scrypt and TheSloth are on the money here and I wholehearly listen to their advice.

As for extraneous processes? What do you mean by that? Obviously on a MAC you could use "ps" and "kill" from a UNIX terminal to get rid of processes, but I'm not sure what you mean of extraneous (I doubt a normal user has a lot of child zombie processes laying around from using a media player).

I am a FIRM believer in the garbage-in-garbage-out principle. Other than your heapdhones, I personally believe a good quality DAC can have a bigger intial impact than an amp depending on one's configuration.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by labrat "Cntr + Alt + Del" Windows Task Manager

I ain't that stupid! Thing is the processes generally have weird names and I don't fancy googling them all to find out what they do.



Why is 'extraneous processes' meaningless; extraneous = Not constituting a vital element or part. So a process which is running and takling up resources when it needn't be.

 

[lcp12345]

I have this question as well. I am considering the Micro DAC. But, some Chinese made DAC such as Zhaolu DAC 2.0 and Diyeden Great March DAC had some good comment. Can anyone give advice to us?

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed I ain't that stupid! Thing is the processes generally have weird names and I don't fancy googling them all to find out what they do. Why is 'extraneous processes' meaningless; extraneous = Not constituting a vital element or part. So a process which is running and takling up resources when it needn't be.

Which means what? What does vital element mean?

I mean in general you should try to avoid stating a bunch of unccessary processes that appear in your system tray (I will assume we are on WindowS).

A good start is to do "Start->Run...->msconfig" and then go to the Startup tab and remove any entries that seem uneccessary, i.e be conscientous on Windows of what apps you install, what these apps register as services (Try going to Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services and see if you have a lot of unneccessary services started like IIS or Apache or anything else that may be on your system - my notebook is a development machine so I have all kinds of nutty crazy stuff (I had to upgarde it to 1.5GB just to run all of it reasonably).

Btw, I think on Windows there is a way to make your media player or any processes have a higher scheduling priority by going to the Application Task Mangeer, right clicking of the processes and setting the priority (be careful though, this can be very dangerous).

 

[Chri5peed]

Unnecessary stuff, like spyware might install. Thats an example I run spyware scans every Monday, lol it'll be Tuesday this week.

Some programs you might install and never use again might be taking up resources. Also unless you keep an eye on it, your PC is bound to build up a lot of rubbish.

 

[Trogdor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed Some programs you might install and never use again might be taking up resources. Also unless you keep an eye on it, your PC is bound to build up a lot of rubbish.

Other than disk space and its not being ran from a startup script and/or Windows service, I just don't see it!

The blips you are talking about can probably be better fixed either with more main memory and/or faster CPU (though anything recent is way overboard for simple media playing).

Just because a process is running too, doens't mean its taking a whole lot resources, i.e. it could be just sitting around in an idle state that would really have approaching zero effect on decoding media on your box.

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trogdor The blips you are talking about can probably be better fixed either with more main memory and/or faster CPU (though anything recent is way overboard for simple media playing).

Did you see my PC specs?

I have a AMD64 3700+ with 2GBs of RAM in dual-channel.

 

[hyamaiata]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik What kind of Mini do you have? The G4 models only have mediocre audio out. The Intel models, however, have an optical out which is quite good. If you have an Intel Mini, you might want to look for a DAC that supports TOSLINK.

I have a G4 Mini.

The consensus is pretty much that the DAC is worth the upgrade for the price. I think I'm doing good at choosing this DAC. For those of you who are recomending other DACs, could you specify prices, manufacturer website and where to buy?

Thanks.

 

[labrat]

Deleted.