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HagUSB vs Other USB Interfaces/Devices

Hi all. I have three quick questions regarding the HagUSB:
1. how does it compare to other USB interfaces, in particular those with true ASIO support (Edirol, M-Audio etc.)
2. does it provide bit perfect output (i.e. does ASIO4ALL provide bit-perfect output even though it still uses the OS)?
3. I currently have an Edirol UA-1EX which I used as both an interface and DAC (used it analog outs). I now got myself a DAC which has both optical and coax input. The Edirol is going to another PC so I want to get either one of those interfaces like the M-Audio Audiophile USB, but have read that the HagUSB is superior (even though it does not use true ASIO and only supports 16-bit). Is it a good "upgrade" to the UA-1EX?

Cheers,
X
xenithon
herman
2,215 posts
 
What DAC did you get?
xenithon OP
130 posts
 
Musiland MD10
socrates
247 posts
 
Doesn't the musicland have a USB input?

How does it sound? via the USB? I'd really appreciate a review and comparison to other dacs if you could.

Quite curious to compare it against the nixon usb tube dac and my Quad 99CDP, as I really like the top end crystal dacs, which is used in this dac, with a bit-perfect volume control, it seems, utilized on the 4398 chip. Wonder if the usb input is i2s or converts to SPIF?
xenithon OP
130 posts
 
Hi there,

I will be testing it this week (only got it a few days ago from overseas). I am not sure how USB will be, as it does not supoprt true ASIO. I am not sure how much difference it will make using ASIO4ALL; as opposed to running a direct digital signal to it.

X
herman
2,215 posts
 
There is no such thing as a DAC that "supports" ASIO. The DAC simply takes the digital stream that it is fed and converts it to analog. It is the player software that either does or does not support ASIO. Apple iTunes does not, foobar has plugins that do, Windows media player does not, etc. As long as the data comes at a standard rate like 44.1 and in a form it can decode the DAC doesn't care whether it gets adulaterated digital from a player that passes its data through kmixer, or unprocessed data like you would get from a mac or a player that bypasses kmixer.
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