you should try to pick-up an Edirol UA-5 used. This has external power, coax out, a driver that supports 24/96 and avoids Kmixer. I recently modded the UA-25 (which is similar) to add coax out, external power and Superclock and it performs superbly.
Foobar Convolver Plugin
Been checking out a friends Windows Media Center for a while now. Decided to start my venture into the PC audio arena by resurrecting an old desktop system as a music server for my garage/shop office.
A little about the equipment - I totally believe in isolation from desktop internals for my gear so with that, for ripping audio I have an external Plextor Premium-U (USB 2) CD writer and use Plextools Professional (error logging) for the DAE process to PCM format. The sound card is integral to the motherboard - NFG. My Media Center buddy went on vacation this week so he was nice enough to loan me his Waveterminal U24 USB sound card and a DIY TDA1543 non-oversampling DAC for me to play with (sounds great by the way in his system). So here's the rig:
PCM files > WMP9 > Waveterminal > SPDIF > DAC > Hafler SE120/100 amp/pre > Ohm H speakers
Sound is very good, but at times a little bright. I tried fiddling with the U24 control panel but any changes I made left me with either polluted or no sound at all. Decided to try a different player. I kept reading about Foobar and it's exceptional playback qualities and decided to give it a try. Big mistake - I like to tweak. Anyhow, I didn't realize any difference whatsoever between WMP9 and Foobar to my ears. Tried Foobar in waveout, kernel streaming and direct sound modes ( I did find an ASIO plugin that I haven't tried yet). I do like the open source and clean/low overhead aspects of Foobar though. Got to poking around and noticed the DSP manager and started looking into that when I came across the "convolver" plugin. Apparently with this plugin you can use "impulse" samples (waveform signatures?) to model other waveforms to it. Poking around some more I found impulses which model rooms, halls, cathedrals, auditoriums, guitar amps, microphones, etc. Found a great number of them here . More searching led me to a download of analogue_impulses.zip which contains a number of "tube-like" impulses. This one caught my attention. I installed the convolver plugin and started playing with the samples. Interesting effects on the sound to say the least! Of all the ones I have tried the "SPL GoldMike Impulse" has had the most pleasing effect on the sound - with no apparant degredation. I may be on to something.
Interesting little find (for me anyway). Considering the concept, one would believe that perhaps impulses of extremely high-end reference equipment could be created and applied in this manner. I'm sure you could never replicate the purity of good gear but by utilizing this method one could almost stumble upon an excellent sounding setup. Not quite sure that I have done things completely right in my testing. Seems to me that in order to do PC Audio right, there is initially some considerable investment in an external sound card and DAC. Seems absurd that I would have to ultimately "fix" the sound with software.
Of course, I am very new to the PC Audio concept. Would appreciate input from some of the veterans to critique my setup. Also some thoughts and opinions if any of you have spent any time with the convolver plugin, which in my opinion is the most intriguing element of my experimenting so far.
A little about the equipment - I totally believe in isolation from desktop internals for my gear so with that, for ripping audio I have an external Plextor Premium-U (USB 2) CD writer and use Plextools Professional (error logging) for the DAE process to PCM format. The sound card is integral to the motherboard - NFG. My Media Center buddy went on vacation this week so he was nice enough to loan me his Waveterminal U24 USB sound card and a DIY TDA1543 non-oversampling DAC for me to play with (sounds great by the way in his system). So here's the rig:
PCM files > WMP9 > Waveterminal > SPDIF > DAC > Hafler SE120/100 amp/pre > Ohm H speakers
Sound is very good, but at times a little bright. I tried fiddling with the U24 control panel but any changes I made left me with either polluted or no sound at all. Decided to try a different player. I kept reading about Foobar and it's exceptional playback qualities and decided to give it a try. Big mistake - I like to tweak. Anyhow, I didn't realize any difference whatsoever between WMP9 and Foobar to my ears. Tried Foobar in waveout, kernel streaming and direct sound modes ( I did find an ASIO plugin that I haven't tried yet). I do like the open source and clean/low overhead aspects of Foobar though. Got to poking around and noticed the DSP manager and started looking into that when I came across the "convolver" plugin. Apparently with this plugin you can use "impulse" samples (waveform signatures?) to model other waveforms to it. Poking around some more I found impulses which model rooms, halls, cathedrals, auditoriums, guitar amps, microphones, etc. Found a great number of them here . More searching led me to a download of analogue_impulses.zip which contains a number of "tube-like" impulses. This one caught my attention. I installed the convolver plugin and started playing with the samples. Interesting effects on the sound to say the least! Of all the ones I have tried the "SPL GoldMike Impulse" has had the most pleasing effect on the sound - with no apparant degredation. I may be on to something.
Interesting little find (for me anyway). Considering the concept, one would believe that perhaps impulses of extremely high-end reference equipment could be created and applied in this manner. I'm sure you could never replicate the purity of good gear but by utilizing this method one could almost stumble upon an excellent sounding setup. Not quite sure that I have done things completely right in my testing. Seems to me that in order to do PC Audio right, there is initially some considerable investment in an external sound card and DAC. Seems absurd that I would have to ultimately "fix" the sound with software.
Of course, I am very new to the PC Audio concept. Would appreciate input from some of the veterans to critique my setup. Also some thoughts and opinions if any of you have spent any time with the convolver plugin, which in my opinion is the most intriguing element of my experimenting so far.