Originally, there were compelling reasons to go with MAC, but with Vista and the new music servers and USB converters with "driverless" firmware, there is no difference. In fact, there is an advantage to PC because of better upsamplers. If you use the Adobe upsampler, they are equal though.
STeve N.
Empirical Audio |
Jeffreybowman2k - this depends entirely on the USB interface. They are not all equal. Some require jumping through alot of hoops to stop pops and ticks and the ASIO plug-ins that bypass kmixer are not that good. Some dont support 24/96.
If you are stuck on iTunes, and want to do USB, then you must use a MAC. PC mucks up the sound with kmixer and iTunes.
Steve N. |
The oversampling thing is complicated for sure. There are good ones and bad ones. Generalizations cannot be made IMO.
However, there are a lot of NOS products out there that attack the harshness problem by rolling-off or compressing the highs in order to make CD's sound better. The result is improved imaging and smoothness at the expense of lost highs. This is not the optimum solution either IMO.
The optimum solution IMO, is to get to extremely low levels of jitter. I hear this everyday through a Squeezebox or Sonos driving a Pace-Car reclocker to a SS DAC-1. This is only 16/44.1, but there is no harshness, no hollowness and not analytical.
Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer |
Kana813 - Only very old D/A chips only support 16/44.1. Most everything sold in the last 10 years at least does 24/96.
Steve N. |
Jax2 - you pose an excellent example of design experience. Gordon, of Wavelength had a long career in big-company electronics before doing his own audio business, as I did. The Benchmark folks are from the pro-audio arena. This kind of experience does not happen in small companies unless you are lucky enough to have an experienced mentor willing to spend a lot of time with you.
They still have not figured out what sounds good in most studios IMO. Still using 20 cents per foot wiring and they believe that measurements are the end-all...
The DAC-1 basic schematic is solid. It's the implementation (PC-board layout) and parts choices that could be improved IMO. To manufacture this and sell it for less than $1K, some tradeoffs had to be made. BTW, the newer DAC-1 USB is much better.
Also, I have modded a few EMC-1's as well. It has a LOT of design problems. It also uses a very old D/A chip and upsampler. If you thing this sounds good, this speaks volumes. A really good DAC will bury the EMC-1 or the ECD-1.
Steve N. |
Jc51373 - Do you really believe that these so called "commercial" designs are perfect/flawless and contain no trade-offs? In other words, the designers are really good at doing design?
If the designers were that good, I think they would be making the megabux working for Microsoft, Intel or Apple etc.(That's what I did for 25 years), not working for small audio companies. If the devices had no trade-offs, they would be a LOT more expensive too.
Steve N. |
Kana813 - My DAC's and USB converters are also only rated for USB 1.1, but they support 24.96. They aren't supposed to, but they do. Some chips, like the TI PCM270X family do not do 24/96. The 1543 should do 24/96.
Steve N. |
Jc51373 - The Spoiler is actually not from the ground-up, its based on a Lite DAC-60 from China. The first one I modded was so great that I decided to do an all-out mod on it and change all of the hardware, including the front panel and I add a back panel etc. and make it my own product. The idea is that it cannot be improved with further mods. I believe I've thought of everything, except maybe cryo treatment....
Steve N. |
Kana813 - what DAC do you use? What is so special about it?
Steve N. |
Kana813 - heard the TACT gear at CES. Do you drive the 2150 with a computer or a transport?
Seems like it should have a clock output to drive a transport as a slave in order to reduce jitter.
Steve N. |
Jax2 - TACT 2150 is a "digital amp", which means it performs the functions of DAC, preamp and amplifier all in one, without ever changing the signal to analog. Some Panasonic receivers (SA-XR50, SA-XR70) do this too and they sound very good. If the jitter is addressed, these can sound very good indeed. They really need to have a word-clock output to drive the transport though.
Steve N. |
