[anoobis]

I'm getting tempted by the ZeroDAC as a way to compare a PC source vs. fairly low-end standalone sources. I could just go for a USB DAC cable and I still might.

Has anyone had the ZeroDAC running off a PC with linux?

Ta.

 

[n4k33n]

If the dac has a usb port, theres a 90% chance it just uses the standard usb audio driver.

lsusb:
snd_usb_audio 88096 3

Thats the same driver that gets loaded for my ultra microdac, and my monica 2 usb. I've only heard of a couple dacs that dont use work like this, and even then you could still output optical to them.

I'm sure it will be fine.

good luck

 

[king756]

The ZeroDac only has digital input, no usb.

This means your operating system has nothing to do with the Zero, all you need is a digital output connector on your soundcard or motherboard. I have a Zero dac currently shipping, it will be used with my ununtu machine as with compiz enabled etc it is miles ahead of windows or osx

All you will need to do is configure your optical output as the default output in your ~/.asoundrc file.

Myne looks like
Code:

[left]pcm.!default { type hw card 0 device 1 }[/left]

You can get the card number and device number for the optical output by using
Code:

[left]aplay -l[/left]

 

[anoobis]

Thanks, both extremely useful posts.

So, the soundcard is still going to be the limiting factor. Is the SBLive! going to be any good? I'll have to check if it even has a suitable output. I don't think it does.

Also rules out the laptop which is what I really wanted it for.

Looks like I'll be searching for just a USB DAC then.

 

[king756]

I am not sure with the soundcard.

If you play audio cd's through your computer these are passed straight though the digital out into the dac, your computer does nothing to them. If you look at the alsa docs it has some links to some dts files to test pass through. I'm only using a logitech 5.1 set up but when i played back the dts file the logitech control pod changed to dts (shows pass through is working) but sound was fantastic.... not sure if the ZERO would handle dts??? Anyway for normal cd's you soundcard will be fine, it'll pass the digital data from the cd straight through to the zero without any processing.

Now most of my music collection is in mp3 128kb-320 and also a few flac files. As I understand it my computer first has to decode these files using software decoders then send the signal to the soundcard. I am not sure if the soundcard does anything else to the data given to it before it sends it out via the digital port???? This would be the question that needs answering before going for a usb dac.

I'm not a audiphile, just brought some livewires to use on my motorcycle, they turned out really good sound quality so use them on my computer. However I get noise and hiss from the computer so looked around and decided the Zero may be my best option for the price to give my livewires the quality they deserve.

Hopefully I should have my Zero next week, i'll give some feedback on how it works out for me.

 

[hayabusarider]

Zero Dac usb works on linux any problem