Does anyone know of a manufacturer of a PCI sound card that has a DAC with an analog stereo output[RCA] that would sound better using just itunes and AIFF uncompressed format, then the on-board spdif digital coax that I have been using?

I play it thru a reasonably high end audio system made up of:

Theil speakers
Levenson/Proceed power amp
Lexicon MC8 balanced surround sound processor/preamp
main audio source is a new Dell coreII duo pc playing itunes off the hardrive
balanced XLR interconnects

I'm wondering if I can achieve better quality 2 channel sound by doing the D/A conversion on the soundcard and by-passing the processing of the lexicon. and just using the analog preamp in the lexicon??????

I am willing to spend up to $ 1,300.00 on the PCI soundcard. The cards that I have already seen with my google searches are geared for music creation and have A/D converters and microphone and midi inputs. I will not be doing any recording.

I'm open to any and all suggestions

thanks
john

On-board spdif digital coax is theoretically perfect already.

However, this sound card is exactly what you're asking for, and an absolutely excellent card.

http://www.lynxstudio.com/lynxl22.html

Not familar with that setup, but I would tend to favor digital output to a dedicated unit over analog.

I'm happy to be corrected here - but a major problem with any analog output on a PC/Mac is that the system bus inside the computer is inherently 'noisy'.

A good card will try to get around this problem with circuitry, sure, but it won't be able to alleviate it entirely. The hard-drives, fans and god-knows what else all draw off the same PSU and have a common-earth.

The best solution would be to use onboard spdif coax and feed it in to a quality, external, power-isolated stand-alone DAC.

A good DAC is a good DAC, whether it be a stand-alone box, in an amplifier or on a sound-card - but inside your PC is probably the last place you'd want it to be.

Designing a sound card to overcome the noisy environment inside a PC is certainly not trivial, but at his price range, it's not a problem. The 116dB of signal to noise ratio claimed in the LynxTWO specs is no exaggeration. Even the $250 M Audio Delta 1010LT (and that's $250 for 8 inputs, 8 outputs) has close to 96dB of SNR.

I highly doubt that there is a greater quality to be had than M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (or equivalent card from other vendors), others just seem to have more features (none of which are important for playback)

The EMU 1820m knocks my friends 2469 on it's ass (we had no problem blind testing, 1820m M-Audio Audiophile and 2469). Genuinely, I believe that a 1820m will provide you with the best possible output from a computer based system. It has individual crystals to sync the clock to 44.1, 48, 96 and 192. However it cannot resample audio at all, so if you need something other than these rates you will need to software resample. A nice bonus is that it contains the exact same DAC as the Pro Tools 192HD unit which still runs at around $12,000.

Just ignore the two mic pres and midi interface. It has 3 stereo ins and outs, including a phono stage

Over all I have been disappointed with the M-Audio line of equipment. They try to market themselves as a semi-pro manufacturer, sadly I've never found any of their gear to be of even reasonable quality (considering price of course).

Edit; since we were discussing SNR, the 1820m has SNR (A-weighted): 120dB. Now I am starting to sound a little too much like a sales rep so I'll stop now :-) Just let it be known that EMU has made me a very happy customer.

I think you mean power supply. Hopefully theres a couple gigaohms between the bus and output!



Its actually pretty easy. I've built filters for intruments running off PC supplies before. For signals stuff where you're not pulling any real current, you just need a cap or two. Since all those other noisy devices are generally in the ultrasonic frequency range (80-100KHz+), theres not all that much noise energy below 20kHz, and whats there can be filtered.

The 1212m has the same dacs and opamps as the 1820m so unless you need the extra inputs and outputs on the 1820m I would go with the 1212m. They are both very good.

Thanks for your advice. I researched the Lynx site and I think that you may be right. I am going to call Lynx tomorrow and ask them some tech questions. Although, after researching the advice that I have been given on this forum by you and others, I am begginning to believe that I will not have better quality sound by using the analog output of any sound card, then using the spdif out and letting my surround sound processor do the D to A conversion.

As I had feared, most of the audio cards that have been recommended, have a strong leaning toward sound creation. And attention to A to D conversion.

I was hoping for a pci card that simply had the best Dacs on it. And that it could potentially sound better than my external dac. It has proven difficult to find this answer.

John



I agree. the 1820m is over the top for just playback for itunes.

Pro soundcards have some extra stuff than external dacs but end up being much better value than consumer external dacs despite this.

You also tend to get balanced output which would suit your system.

I don't quite understand your setup. What does the processor do? Are you running a multichannel system?

Even if you end up using digital output you won't want to be using onboard sound. With a professional sound card you can set the clock rate and have a dedicated audio channel (which will be bit perfect).

Correct, assuming that the spdif out really is okay. It depends entirely on what your sound card (motherboard) does to the signal before it actually reaches the spdif out.

For example, it's entirely possible for a sound card to convert the 44100hz samples you're playing to 48000hz with an exceptionally lousy samplerate converter, and then output it through spdif at 48000hz. It would sound absolutely horrendous, even though it's a 100% digital path.

A pro sound card, more than anything, gives you control. Clock rates, sample rate conversion, clock sources, levels etc - the Lynx Mixer is a very powerful tool.





I would say the Lynx cards have paid equal attention to A/D and D/A. Both sections are excellent, and I don't believe there's any good reason to believe you would have better quality with $1000 D/A only, than you would with $1000 D/A and A/D. Both sections are good enough to be considered transparent, and I believe the rest of your system is as well. If you're still not happy with the sound, the next place I would look is source material.

Modern CD recording practices are absolutely atrocious, and nowhere near hifi. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war . If a certain album doesn't sound good, it probably isn't. In my humble opinion the 1970s and 80s were the hifi era, and it went downhill from there. (I was born in 1978 so it's not a matter of being conservative). What kind of music do you usually listen to?

Also, EQ is your friend. While it certainly makes sense to start with a system with flat frequency response, EQing for effect (sweetening the sound with bass boost / treble boost etc) is not a bad thing at all, and all about preference.

Another option is an outboard USB DAC. There are many high-end versions, but one moderate cost but well reviewed source is the Stereo-Link DAC. See info at
http://www.stereo-link.com

Depends on genre

What kind of audible differences did you find?

Edit: Also, did you perform a proper blind test? (you know, 0.1 dB level matching, time aligning, double-blind or at least reliable single-blind...)

Considering the frequency response and SNR of the 2496 I find this hard to beleive.

There are some files in this thread recorded via loopback with the 2496. Can you abx those against the original with your soundcard? As KikeG has stated, you should level match these, this can be done by enabling replaygain for your ABX test.

Well, when testing two different pieces of audio hardware, the level-matching must be performed by measurement of the actual output of the devices in operation, or at the output of the amp employed. The easiest and most realiable way of doing this is playing for a example a 1 KHz sinewave at -3 dB at the same level the listening is going to take place, and use a voltmeter to measure the actual voltage between signal and ground, on both channels. The measurement must be done in parallel with the setup, with the devices connected to the amp and playing. The level difference between both devices must not exceed 0.1 dB, or what is the same, 1.011579 times. (Edit: if the voltages are too high to obtain a reading with good precision, you can play a softer tone, say -30 dB)

V dif in dB = 20 * log10 (VA/VB)

Where VA and VB are the voltages measured of each device.

Since Funkstar De Luxe claims that EMU 1820m knocks the socks off the 2496 would it be valid for him to run the test using my samples on his EMU1820m? I've recorded them in loopback mode so any colouration the 2496 adds is already there.

Yes, but the original and loopbacked samples must be, again, properly level matched and time-aligned.(Edit: in this case replaygaining would probably work, for time aligning maybe you could use the java ABC/HR tool, also for level matching)

I have a unprocessed/loopbacked sample pair that fulfills these requirements, I mean, is already level matched and time aligned. The looped sample was played and recorded not one but 3 times through my Audiophile 2496. AFAIK nobody has been able to ABX them.

Original: http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/stest/wick_4.ape
loopbacked: http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/stest/wick_2.ape

Test setup at http://www.kikeg.arrakis.es/stest

[quote name='garym' post='434603' date='Sep 24 2006, 15:06']
[quote name='blinded_with_science' post='434582' date='Sep 24 2006, 13:58']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='434525' date='Sep 24 2006, 09:06']
Thanks for your advice. I researched the Lynx site and I think that you may be right. I am going to call Lynx tomorrow and ask them some tech questions. Although, after researching the advice that I have been given on this forum by you and others, I am begginning to believe that I will not have better quality sound by using the analog output of any sound card, then using the spdif out and letting my surround sound processor do the D to A conversion.
[/quote]

Correct, assuming that the spdif out really is okay. It depends entirely on what your sound card (motherboard) does to the signal before it actually reaches the spdif out.

For example, it's entirely possible for a sound card to convert the 44100hz samples you're playing to 48000hz with an exceptionally lousy samplerate converter, and then output it through spdif at 48000hz. It would sound absolutely horrendous, even though it's a 100% digital path.

A pro sound card, more than anything, gives you control. Clock rates, sample rate conversion, clock sources, levels etc - the Lynx Mixer is a very powerful tool.


I agree completely. In fact, that is exactly what is happenning in my current older pc. That is why I am buying this new dell and buying a seperate pci soundacrd.... I received in the mail today a Creative soundblaster X-Fi Platinum pci card. Although I don't think that I am going to open it. As it may make it easier to return it. I spoke with Lynx for awhile today and unfortunely the guy wasn't an engineer, but he bought up alot of the same issues the you aforementioned.
The X-Fi was $200. and the Lynx L22 is $750.00 They put me in contact with a local dealer in boulder and they are seeing if a demo pci card for me to listen to can be arranged.
I just want to make sure before I spend the money , that it will sound better than what I already have. Whether i chose to use the spdif digital out or the analog out of the card. I just have a feeling that I probably won't be utilizing most of the features of what the L22 is capable of.






[quote name='John Matusiak' post='434525' date='Sep 24 2006, 09:06']
As I had feared, most of the audio cards that have been recommended, have a strong leaning toward sound creation. And attention to A to D conversion.

I was hoping for a pci card that simply had the best Dacs on it. And that it could potentially sound better than my external dac. It has proven difficult to find this answer.

[/quote]

I would say the Lynx cards have paid equal attention to A/D and D/A. Both sections are excellent, and I don't believe there's any good reason to believe you would have better quality with $1000 D/A only, than you would with $1000 D/A and A/D. Both sections are good enough to be considered transparent, and I believe the rest of your system is as well. If you're still not happy with the sound, the next place I would look is source material.

Modern CD recording practices are absolutely atrocious, and nowhere near hifi. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war . If a certain album doesn't sound good, it probably isn't. In my humble opinion the 1970s and 80s were the hifi era, and it went downhill from there. (I was born in 1978 so it's not a matter of being conservative). What kind of music do you usually listen to?

Also, EQ is your friend. While it certainly makes sense to start with a system with flat frequency response, EQing for effect (sweetening the sound with bass boost / treble boost etc) is not a bad thing at all, and all about preference.
[/quote]

Another option is an outboard USB DAC. There are many high-end versions, but one moderate cost but well reviewed source is the Stereo-Link DAC. See info at
http://www.stereo-link.com
[/quote]


[quote name='John Matusiak' post='435036' date='Sep 25 2006, 18:11']
[quote name='garym' post='434603' date='Sep 24 2006, 15:06']
[quote name='blinded_with_science' post='434582' date='Sep 24 2006, 13:58']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='434525' date='Sep 24 2006, 09:06']
Thanks for your advice. I researched the Lynx site and I think that you may be right. I am going to call Lynx tomorrow and ask them some tech questions. Although, after researching the advice that I have been given on this forum by you and others, I am begginning to believe that I will not have better quality sound by using the analog output of any sound card, then using the spdif out and letting my surround sound processor do the D to A conversion.
[/quote]

Correct, assuming that the spdif out really is okay. It depends entirely on what your sound card (motherboard) does to the signal before it actually reaches the spdif out.

For example, it's entirely possible for a sound card to convert the 44100hz samples you're playing to 48000hz with an exceptionally lousy samplerate converter, and then output it through spdif at 48000hz. It would sound absolutely horrendous, even though it's a 100% digital path.

A pro sound card, more than anything, gives you control. Clock rates, sample rate conversion, clock sources, levels etc - the Lynx Mixer is a very powerful tool.


I agree completely. In fact, that is exactly what is happenning in my current older pc. That is why I am buying this new dell and buying a seperate pci soundacrd.... I received in the mail today a Creative soundblaster X-Fi Platinum pci card. Although I don't think that I am going to open it. As it may make it easier to return it. I spoke with Lynx for awhile today and unfortunely the guy wasn't an engineer, but he bought up alot of the same issues the you aforementioned.
The X-Fi was $200. and the Lynx L22 is $750.00 They put me in contact with a local dealer in boulder and they are seeing if a demo pci card for me to listen to can be arranged.
I just want to make sure before I spend the money , that it will sound better than what I already have. Whether i chose to use the spdif digital out or the analog out of the card. I just have a feeling that I probably won't be utilizing most of the features of what the L22 is capable of.






[quote name='John Matusiak' post='434525' date='Sep 24 2006, 09:06']
As I had feared, most of the audio cards that have been recommended, have a strong leaning toward sound creation. And attention to A to D conversion.

I was hoping for a pci card that simply had the best Dacs on it. And that it could potentially sound better than my external dac. It has proven difficult to find this answer.

[/quote]

I would say the Lynx cards have paid equal attention to A/D and D/A. Both sections are excellent, and I don't believe there's any good reason to believe you would have better quality with $1000 D/A only, than you would with $1000 D/A and A/D. Both sections are good enough to be considered transparent, and I believe the rest of your system is as well. If you're still not happy with the sound, the next place I would look is source material.

Modern CD recording practices are absolutely atrocious, and nowhere near hifi. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war . If a certain album doesn't sound good, it probably isn't. In my humble opinion the 1970s and 80s were the hifi era, and it went downhill from there. (I was born in 1978 so it's not a matter of being conservative). What kind of music do you usually listen to?

Also, EQ is your friend. While it certainly makes sense to start with a system with flat frequency response, EQing for effect (sweetening the sound with bass boost / treble boost etc) is not a bad thing at all, and all about preference.
[/quote]

Another option is an outboard USB DAC. There are many high-end versions, but one moderate cost but well reviewed source is the Stereo-Link DAC. See info at
http://www.stereo-link.com
[/quote]
[/quote]


[quote name='blinded_with_science' post='433957' date='Sep 22 2006, 21:30']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='433944' date='Sep 22 2006, 17:25']
Does anyone know of a manufacturer of a PCI sound card that has a DAC with an analog stereo output[RCA] that would sound better using just itunes and AIFF uncompressed format, then the on-board spdif digital coax that I have been using?
[/quote]

On-board spdif digital coax is theoretically perfect already.

However, this sound card is exactly what you're asking for, and an absolutely excellent card.

http://www.lynxstudio.com/lynxl22.html
[/quote]
I agree completely. In fact, that is exactly what is happenning in my current older pc. That is why I am buying this new dell and buying a seperate pci soundacrd.... I received in the mail today a Creative soundblaster X-Fi Platinum pci card. Although I don't think that I am going to open it. As it may make it easier to return it. I spoke with Lynx for awhile today and unfortunely the guy wasn't an engineer, but he bought up alot of the same issues the you aforementioned.
The X-Fi was $200. and the Lynx L22 is $750.00 They put me in contact with a local dealer in boulder and they are seeing if a demo pci card for me to listen to can be arranged.
I just want to make sure before I spend the money , that it will sound better than what I already have. Whether i chose to use the spdif digital out or the analog out of the card. I just have a feeling that I probably won't be utilizing most of the features of what the L22 is capable of.

I agree. I have little to no control over the sampling rates and so forth now. The whole point of this is to have more control over what is coming out of the pc and into the preamp. I am running a full high end home theatre with a surround sound processor but one of the dig spdif input is coming from my pc. I only listen to itunes thru that input. And I have onboard sound on the motherboard of the pc. It does convert the 44khz 16bit AIFF file or aac mp4 file to 48Khz . I am simply looking for the best sounding "way" to get itunes to play the file and get the signal out of the pc , whether it is digital or analog, into my preamp.......

Name an unaffected genre

Not a big fan of eqs. I will drive my self crazy with it .... I have 10K songs in my itunes. Most of what I listen is well recorded IE: Tracy Chapman, Keb Mo' , Matt Pond PA, mostly acoustic.




I agree...

Just about everything under the umbrella of "classical" music: chamber, orchestral, choral music. Modern recordings here are generally very good. They don't have the loveliness of analog recordings, but in terms of objective fidelity they are excellent.

The point of consumer side EQ isn't to make up for deficiencies in the recording, but to fix response problems introduced by the listening environment. No matter how well the music is recorded, if you don't have a very good listening room then an EQ might increase your enjoyment of the music.

I agree. my listening room is not perfect, but I have been a serious audiophile for 18 yrs. and when I play my SACD s , it sounds great without any equalization.
john

That's because you are used to the room response After spending a lot of time in your listening room, you are used to and have grown to like the way it sounds. That's not a bad thing - it increases your enjoyment of the music, makes you enjoy your time in your listening room (I know I enjoy the time I spend listening to my less-than-perfect system) and improves your quality of life. On the other hand, if you want a flat response, then EQ is the way to go.

Try this experiment, maybe while reading a book, or doing some work. Play your favourite album with the equaliser (play it in Foobar and use the equalizer plugin, for example) set to cut everything over 8kHz by 10dB or so. It'll sound very flat at first, but listen through the whole thing one or two times. Then disable the equalizer and be amazed by how the album sounds unnaturally bright - much brighter than you remembered it.

I've had that happen with headphones. Going from a AU$15 pair of TDK headphones to better Sennheiser PX 100s was odd because at first it sounded as though there was way too much bass and treble, and I was not accustomed to the sound of open headphones.

I have a similar question about which sound pci card, (but I have some variations in sound demands).
I'm searching for a PCI sound card, in a price range of 80-150$, which has great internal dac, for listening sound directly from that sound card without any external dac trough the phones- Sennhiser hd650 and akg K-601, which I plan to connect directly to the line-out or phono output directly on that sound card (if it had phono output) without any external phono amp.
I would like that, this sound card has optimized output for the high ohmage phones (64-320Ω), and that has a power to boost sound volume in a phones to the very high levels, but in a AA class quality (0.5-1W with thd max 0.05),
I would like to skip building the portable AA class phono amplifier.
Its important that this card is bug free with the drivers (also that this card will be supported in the Vista) and that this card could easily do a perfect job with any type of audio stream, mp3, ac3, flac, uncompressed,..., without crackling or any sound glitches.
That this sound card is good with latencies and that is compatible with PCI latencies (32 and 64 clocks), that doesn't had any problems with any sound stream. And its important that this sound card support equalizer manipulation min 8 band.
Is there any sound card which could do the job, if you think that some are close with specifications, please tell me what's your options.

You mean headphone output?
I don't think any PCI card will fit your requirements.
There are USB cards. There are USB cards from ESI, M-Audio, E-MU (forthcoming) that may be better. Around the $150 mark I think.

This is something nice, I have it and it works great. I pair it up with my laptop instead of buying an ipod. Makes for strange looks when I strap it on my back to go jogging though.

Headroom Bithead

Yes headphone-phones (short).


I clearly remeber a 4 PCI sound cards with a headphones output (with integrated phones amp output), and a few more cards that I remember which are equipped with combined output, depending on which device you connect in a case of a speakers connected, phones amp is puffed out, and in a case of phones connected, amped out is again activated. And on some cards you have switching buffer for low-impedance (16-32 ohm).
http://www.m-audio.com/layout/imgview.php?...volution_51.jpg
http://www.m-audio.com/layout/imgview.php?...evo71_cc779.jpg

But in a case of the high ohmage phones (100-300) you are doomed in a PC audio world.
I thought about m-audio revolution 7.1 a lot, but as I heard headphones/line out is only capable for 0.25-0.33w with a 0.009%thd (but cut of one zero) on a max boost, or a 0.003% on a moderate sound output.
I heard that they are superior for that amount of money, and that their drivers are really good. I dont know what to think.
If I could plug in each audio card my phones, I could tell in a second, but there is no audio show room which has sound cards on a test in my country.

I cannot remeber, but I know that there are a few semi-pro cards in a price range of 150-250$ which are equipped with things That I need.
And I have some offers for used emu cards 1616(145$) and 1820M (220$), with external bays which are equipped with the phones output.
But I would like new unused cards, with fresh capacitators, and I'm not so sure about phones output quality and boosting power..

And as I found there are 67 PCI cards with external bays which are equipped with phones out.

I'm sick of USB audio cards, I have two now, one is Audigy 2NX which has small preamped phones output, but its really very low amplification with a lot of distortions on high boost power, which is not enough even for 32ohms headphones. And there is a list of bad things that I cant deal with USB sound cards. Second I even tried M-Audio Sonica Theater but I'm not satisfied with phones output quality, and I'm in general not satisfied with the sound quality on this card.
As I said I would like to skip building or buying external phones amps, because of few things, one is money and second is noise and pretty big distortion.

Of course they may have headphone outputs but that doesn't mean they are any good. I can vouch for the quality of the headphone output on the 1820m; more than your budget but that is an excellent price for it.

High ohmage phones shouldn't be anything to worry about.

Nothing wrong with usb cards either. USB is just how the data gets to the card. It's the dacs and amplification that are the main thing.

There is huge problem with a high ohmage phones, because I have it and I tried it, if you connect h.o.phones to the lets say Audygu2NX, they will sound worst than a small ear phones, because you cant pump the volume to the even moderate volume level, and for the moderate quality, you need at least 40% of power level that is specified for that phones.

Regarding the USB sound cards, you have problems with the high latencies, you have problems that external adapters are not the decent quality (I have galvanized 2,2KW transformer with a 2,2KW capacitator for removing all AC noises from the power line, and I'm not susceptive on that matter but its present) but, if you use USB bus constantly for external hard drives 3x300gb in a external USB bay, and if you use it on max rate 24/7), you will have situations that you can loose sometime sync when you stream up, sound card with the 96khz/24bit sound streams.
In the case of the Creative drivers they are total shit.
I had two times break down of the adapter because of the 24/7 usage.
Most of the USB cards are not so compatible with the open source driver projects.

My second USB card is Turtlebeach Audio Advantage Roadie its the sound card with the lower quality than Audigy 2NX, they have better drivers...and lots of a story for not so worth card, I will skip it.

I did not say that your particular usb sound cards were ok, only that the interface in general is ok. And it is not ok to connect headphones to anything, only to a decent amp, which could be inside a sound card. Volume issues are related to sensitivity and you won't get problems with any headphones with usb cards from the companies I mentioned or the 1820m. Your problems are related to buying bad sound cards.

Wait, my headphones Sennheiser HD 650 are the best overal in a mid-high class for the open type phones ,
Sound pressure level at 1 kHz 105dB (1 v rms)
Long term max. input 600 mW max input 1000mw
Headphone caplier pressure approx. 3.6 ± 0.3 N

I have in my possesion very big number of my previous s.cards, terratec ISA EWS 64 L/XL/XXL and terratec PCI DMX XFire 1024 (this is the only product that I bought that has specified headphones amp output 2x60mw, and its sound preaty good on the phones output, I have some compatibility issues, with this card and my motherboard and because of that I dont use it, but I would like s.card with even better phones amp.)

I had whole seriese of the Creative cards:
Creative sb16scci, Creative 128, Creative 512, Creative Live Value 4.1, Creative Live Gamer 5.1, Creative Audigy 1, Creative Audigy 2ZS, and Creative Audigy 2NX.
I have Turtlebeach Santa cruz, Turtlebeach Audio Advantage Roadie, I have whole bunch of hercules s.cards, and who know what else I forgot.


I remeberd two more PCI cards with the integrated headphones amp:
Audiotrak Prodigy 192 and ESI Waveterminal 192L.
But please I need more infos from someone who heard some of those 4 mentioned cards with the integrated phones amp, or if there is some others of course, please tell us the info, how good is it.


edited text below
----------------------
Maybe I jumped to fast as I read again, you said sensitivity problems with a sound cards and not with the headphones.
Ok, my mistake.

The 1820m will work very well as I said - it is overkill of course. It can go very loud indeed though I don't recommend listening too loudly: there is no need. There is some hardware support for DSP with this soundcard.
I have also seen the ESI waveterminal U24 recommended for it's headphone out.

Surely using a better audio player like foobar would be preferable to iTunes, last time I used iTunes the quality (decoder, presumably) was horrible. Bass didn't sound bassy, the entire thing sounded really cold and hard.

I currently have the Lynx 2b which I am running balanced into my Pass Labs amp into my Maggies, and I love this combo. I currently am using the 2b's 3 pairs of outputs in a tri-amped config. I was looking at some CDPs from Wadia, Cary, etc. and I am truly glad I went with the computer/ Lynx combo.

A couple things to watch out for if you are looking for Hi-end sound from a computer:

1. Make sure you are using lossless files (not lossy files like mp3s unless you are using 320kbs- maybe)
2. Use a player that allows you to upsample to 24/96 or higher if your computer can handle it
3. Make sure you are using a player that allows you to bypass the Kmixer in windows (asio which the lynx supports does this)

iTunes really only lets you do one of the 3...but not to worry, Foobar will allow all of this, and if you are married to itunes, there is a plugin that will allow you to manage things in iTunes but play everything through Foobar.

I would put the Lynx stuff up against onboard spdif and the Lexicon anyday!

Thanks Dawn
I have ordered the Lynx L22 pci card. the new dell is taking 1 month to ship to me.... I have decided to take the Lexicon unit out of the setup altogether and the 5 channel proceed amp. I am going to purchase a new 2 channel amp / preamp combo and use the L22 analog output balanced into the preamp.
I have Thiel spks , what do you reccomend for the analog amp and pre?????
john

Hi John,

I think you will be happy with your purchase of the Lynx.

I musn't have read clearly that you were getting a Dell. I have heard that there stuff is either as loud as a jet plane, or fairly quite. Hopefully, what you ordered is on the quiet side? Especially if you plan to put it in the same room as your Hifi, which you undoubtedly do. THere are ways to dramatically silence a PC if you need to, so this is not a big concern.

I am afraid that being a planar guy I find it hard to make any recommendations for your Theils. THe ones I have heard, were very very revealing and clean, and IMO need some good equipment behind them.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Pass gear to anyone. But there may be better amps for your listening biases. I just don't know what those biases are.

YOu may want to rethink the pre amp. What I am recommending, is that you find a good amp and at least try the Lynx directly in to the amp if all you are listening to is the computer.

I haven't had a pre amp in years, and my hunch is that taking the money for a Pre-amp and putting it toward a better amp will sound better...ie. the Lynx/better amp combo will sound better than the Lynx/ preamp/ amp combo.

I know, I know, digital volume control and lost bits!! It is heresy. BUT, Wadia does it and with Foobar set up to 32 bits, I can't hear anything that kills resolution other than the sound turning down.

SO I am saying that perhaps you should give it a try before buying a pre-amp.

THe Lynx analog sound is very very clean...not analytical clean, but musical clean.

Finally, if you are using AAC files, you really should think of going to lossless files like flac, or ALAC if you are using iTunes. Foobar handles all these files too.

I downloaded foobar and then imported the itunes library into it. I could not get foobar to pull into it's library the AIFF files. Although it did find 9000 AAC and mp3 files.
I went into preferences , Output .and set it to primary Audio driver. but I didn't hear a sonic difference because I think that the pc is still using the old kmixer and the nvidia nforce audio drivers/codecs.
I am suposed to receive the L22 in the mail tomorrow and the new dell on the 16th. I have already been waiting 3 weeks for the pc..... I am married to itunes but I don't have a problem using foobar for playback when I am doing some critical listening... I just have to fully understand the asio and it's implementation . I probably have to wait until I have the pc and the soundcard installed.

HI John,

Yes, you are right, the Kmixer is still in play. Only Asio and an asio capable card can bypass it.

Foobar supports AAIF so it is just a matter of getting it to find it in the directory. Unfortuantely, I have only used apples lossless, so I can't really help you here. THat, and I am not using the default interface, but have added a different look, and navigation structure to Foobar. However, if you search on the hydrogen audio Foobar site, or post a question, I am sure someone can advize you on where to get the pass thorough, or how to get Foobar to find the files you need.

One of the major strengths of Foobar is that if you are willing, you can get it to do and look like anything.

Here is an example of the looks many people have come up with:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=43077

BUT, Asio is worth getting used to a new player IMO.

Pass kit is very nice sounding. Nelson Pass's commitment to single ended MOSFET designs is strange, but his amps end up sounding very good - not necessarily transparent, but nice.

Ok, please read the Terms of Service (especially TOS #8). If you are going to make claims about the audibility of compressed sound on your system, you must back this up with double blind test results. Fortunately foobar makes this very easy to do. Please try a variety of samples from your favourite music and not just "problem samples".

Upsampling to 24/96 will, if anything, decrease quality on most playback devices. You don't get any more bandwidth or change the noise floor, all you do is add possible distortion from another layer of computation. If you have a decent DAC, it's best to pass the data to it unconverted.

Using streaming or ASIO might be a good idea, but if your system is set up well your concerns about digital volume control are entirely unfounded.

cabbagerat: presumably sound cards will upsample to the native frequency of their internal DACs; is that not so? Apparantly also there is no "official" way to do this and some of the better ways take processing power that the sound card is unlikely to be capable of. Please correct if this is wrong. If it is so then a good software resampler should be better and distortion can't be a possible issue - all that has changed is when the reasmpling is done.

[quote name='Dawnrazor-age' date='Oct 9 2006, 22:59' post='439557']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='439522' date='Oct 9 2006, 21:56']
[quote name='Dawnrazor-age' post='439504' date='Oct 9 2006, 18:44']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='439455' date='Oct 9 2006, 16:01']
[quote name='Dawnrazor-age' post='439253' date='Oct 9 2006, 01:07']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='433944' date='Sep 22 2006, 20:25']
Does anyone know of a manufacturer of a PCI sound card that has a DAC with an analog stereo output[RCA] that would sound better using just itunes and AIFF uncompressed format, then the on-board spdif digital coax that I have been using?

I play it thru a reasonably high end audio system made up of:

Theil speakers
Levenson/Proceed power amp
Lexicon MC8 balanced surround sound processor/preamp
main audio source is a new Dell coreII duo pc playing itunes off the hardrive
balanced XLR interconnects

I'm wondering if I can achieve better quality 2 channel sound by doing the D/A conversion on the soundcard and by-passing the processing of the lexicon. and just using the analog preamp in the lexicon??????

I am willing to spend up to $ 1,300.00 on the PCI soundcard. The cards that I have already seen with my google searches are geared for music creation and have A/D converters and microphone and midi inputs. I will not be doing any recording.

I'm open to any and all suggestions

thanks
john
[/quote]

I currently have the Lynx 2b which I am running balanced into my Pass Labs amp into my Maggies, and I love this combo. I currently am using the 2b's 3 pairs of outputs in a tri-amped config. I was looking at some CDPs from Wadia, Cary, etc. and I am truly glad I went with the computer/ Lynx combo.

A couple things to watch out for if you are looking for Hi-end sound from a computer:

1. Make sure you are using lossless files (not lossy files like mp3s unless you are using 320kbs- maybe)
2. Use a player that allows you to upsample to 24/96 or higher if your computer can handle it
3. Make sure you are using a player that allows you to bypass the Kmixer in windows (asio which the lynx supports does this)

iTunes really only lets you do one of the 3...but not to worry, Foobar will allow all of this, and if you are married to itunes, there is a plugin that will allow you to manage things in iTunes but play everything through Foobar.

I would put the Lynx stuff up against onboard spdif and the Lexicon anyday!
[/quote]

Thanks Dawn
I have ordered the Lynx L22 pci card. the new dell is taking 1 month to ship to me.... I have decided to take the Lexicon unit out of the setup altogether and the 5 channel proceed amp. I am going to purchase a new 2 channel amp / preamp combo and use the L22 analog output balanced into the preamp.
I have Thiel spks , what do you reccomend for the analog amp and pre?????
john
[/quote]

Hi John,

I think you will be happy with your purchase of the Lynx.

I musn't have read clearly that you were getting a Dell. I have heard that there stuff is either as loud as a jet plane, or fairly quite. Hopefully, what you ordered is on the quiet side? Especially if you plan to put it in the same room as your Hifi, which you undoubtedly do. THere are ways to dramatically silence a PC if you need to, so this is not a big concern.

I am afraid that being a planar guy I find it hard to make any recommendations for your Theils. THe ones I have heard, were very very revealing and clean, and IMO need some good equipment behind them.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Pass gear to anyone. But there may be better amps for your listening biases. I just don't know what those biases are.

YOu may want to rethink the pre amp. What I am recommending, is that you find a good amp and at least try the Lynx directly in to the amp if all you are listening to is the computer.

I haven't had a pre amp in years, and my hunch is that taking the money for a Pre-amp and putting it toward a better amp will sound better...ie. the Lynx/better amp combo will sound better than the Lynx/ preamp/ amp combo.

I know, I know, digital volume control and lost bits!! It is heresy. BUT, Wadia does it and with Foobar set up to 32 bits, I can't hear anything that kills resolution other than the sound turning down.

SO I am saying that perhaps you should give it a try before buying a pre-amp.

THe Lynx analog sound is very very clean...not analytical clean, but musical clean.

Finally, if you are using AAC files, you really should think of going to lossless files like flac, or ALAC if you are using iTunes. Foobar handles all these files too.
[/quote]
I downloaded foobar and then imported the itunes library into it. I could not get foobar to pull into it's library the AIFF files. Although it did find 9000 AAC and mp3 files.
I went into preferences , Output .and set it to primary Audio driver. but I didn't hear a sonic difference because I think that the pc is still using the old kmixer and the nvidia nforce audio drivers/codecs.
I am suposed to receive the L22 in the mail tomorrow and the new dell on the 16th. I have already been waiting 3 weeks for the pc..... I am married to itunes but I don't have a problem using foobar for playback when I am doing some critical listening... I just have to fully understand the asio and it's implementation . I probably have to wait until I have the pc and the soundcard installed.

[quote name='John Matusiak' post='439522' date='Oct 9 2006, 20:55']
[quote name='Dawnrazor-age' post='439504' date='Oct 9 2006, 18:44']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='439455' date='Oct 9 2006, 16:01']
[quote name='Dawnrazor-age' post='439253' date='Oct 9 2006, 01:07']
[quote name='John Matusiak' post='433944' date='Sep 22 2006, 20:25']
Does anyone know of a manufacturer of a PCI sound card that has a DAC with an analog stereo output[RCA] that would sound better using just itunes and AIFF uncompressed format, then the on-board spdif digital coax that I have been using?

I play it thru a reasonably high end audio system made up of:

Theil speakers
Levenson/Proceed power amp
Lexicon MC8 balanced surround sound processor/preamp
main audio source is a new Dell coreII duo pc playing itunes off the hardrive
balanced XLR interconnects

I'm wondering if I can achieve better quality 2 channel sound by doing the D/A conversion on the soundcard and by-passing the processing of the lexicon. and just using the analog preamp in the lexicon??????
All of my new music is AIFF uncompressed
I am willing to spend up to $ 1,300.00 on the PCI soundcard. The cards that I have already seen with my google searches are geared for music creation and have A/D converters and microphone and midi inputs. I will not be doing any recording.

I'm open to any and all suggestions

thanks
john
[/quote]

I currently have the Lynx 2b which I am running balanced into my Pass Labs amp into my Maggies, and I love this combo. I currently am using the 2b's 3 pairs of outputs in a tri-amped config. I was looking at some CDPs from Wadia, Cary, etc. and I am truly glad I went with the computer/ Lynx combo.

A couple things to watch out for if you are looking for Hi-end sound from a computer:

1. Make sure you are using lossless files (not lossy files like mp3s unless you are using 320kbs- maybe)
2. Use a player that allows you to upsample to 24/96 or higher if your computer can handle it
3. Make sure you are using a player that allows you to bypass the Kmixer in windows (asio which the lynx supports does this)

iTunes really only lets you do one of the 3...but not to worry, Foobar will allow all of this, and if you are married to itunes, there is a plugin that will allow you to manage things in iTunes but play everything through Foobar.

I would put the Lynx stuff up against onboard spdif and the Lexicon anyday!
[/quote]

Thanks Dawn
I have ordered the Lynx L22 pci card. the new dell is taking 1 month to ship to me.... I have decided to take the Lexicon unit out of the setup altogether and the 5 channel proceed amp. I am going to purchase a new 2 channel amp / preamp combo and use the L22 analog output balanced into the preamp.
I have Thiel spks , what do you reccomend for the analog amp and pre?????
john
[/quote]

Hi John,

I think you will be happy with your purchase of the Lynx.

I musn't have read clearly that you were getting a Dell. I have heard that there stuff is either as loud as a jet plane, or fairly quite. Hopefully, what you ordered is on the quiet side? Especially if you plan to put it in the same room as your Hifi, which you undoubtedly do. THere are ways to dramatically silence a PC if you need to, so this is not a big concern.

I am afraid that being a planar guy I find it hard to make any recommendations for your Theils. THe ones I have heard, were very very revealing and clean, and IMO need some good equipment behind them.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Pass gear to anyone. But there may be better amps for your listening biases. I just don't know what those biases are.

YOu may want to rethink the pre amp. What I am recommending, is that you find a good amp and at least try the Lynx directly in to the amp if all you are listening to is the computer.

I haven't had a pre amp in years, and my hunch is that taking the money for a Pre-amp and putting it toward a better amp will sound better...ie. the Lynx/better amp combo will sound better than the Lynx/ preamp/ amp combo.

I know, I know, digital volume control and lost bits!! It is heresy. BUT, Wadia does it and with Foobar set up to 32 bits, I can't hear anything that kills resolution other than the sound turning down.

SO I am saying that perhaps you should give it a try before buying a pre-amp.

THe Lynx analog sound is very very clean...not analytical clean, but musical clean.

Finally, if you are using AAC files, you really should think of going to lossless files like flac, or ALAC if you are using iTunes. Foobar handles all these files too.
[/quote]
I downloaded foobar and then imported the itunes library into it. I could not get foobar to pull into it's library the AIFF files. Although it did find 9000 AAC and mp3 files.
I went into preferences , Output .and set it to primary Audio driver. but I didn't hear a sonic difference because I think that the pc is still using the old kmixer and the nvidia nforce audio drivers/codecs.
I am suposed to receive the L22 in the mail tomorrow and the new dell on the 16th. I have already been waiting 3 weeks for the pc..... I am married to itunes but I don't have a problem using foobar for playback when I am doing some critical listening... I just have to fully understand the asio and it's implementation . I probably have to wait until I have the pc and the soundcard installed.
[/quote]
[/quote]

HI John,

Yes, you are right, the Kmixer is still in play. Only Asio and an asio capable card can bypass it.

Foobar supports AAIF so it is just a matter of getting it to find it in the directory. Unfortuantely, I have only used apples lossless, so I can't really help you here. THat, and I am not using the default interface, but have added a different look, and navigation structure to Foobar. However, if you search on the hydrogen audio Foobar site, or post a question, I am sure someone can advize you on where to get the pass thorough, or how to get Foobar to find the files you need.

One of the major strengths of Foobar is that if you are willing, you can get it to do and look like anything.

Here is an example of the looks many people have come up with:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=43077

BUT, Asio is worth getting used to a new player IMO.
[/quote]
I received the Lynx L22 today. I am really tempted to install it in my older pc running XP. I'm very curious to see if there are discernable differences between the windows/itunes/kmixer configuration and the foobar player /asio and the dac of the lynx soundcard. I hope that it will be a big difference...

I'm afraid that I will have a difficult time trying to understand the right way to decide which drivers and plugins to download and install. I'm going to use Foobar, but I'm not really sure about kernal streaming and asio ?
I simply just want these aiff files to be the least processed and achieve the "path of least resistence".
I will experiment with the L22 analog balanced output directly to a high qulity amp, but for just a little more $ I can buy an integrated amp. They are much better than they used to be....
John

Not really, no. Most oversampling DACs don't have a "native frequency" but can sync to multiple frequencies, albeit with different amounts of oversampling. The performance of a DAC might change with sample rate but in most cases I have seen performance is better (within band) for 48kHz than 96kHz anyways.

Please do ABX tests on your sound equipment at different rates if you are going to make audibility claims.

I find this thread informative, but could we limit the quoting to just the relevant parts? At the moment it's a bit out of hand I think.

C,

< Nelson Pass's commitment to single ended MOSFET designs is strange, but his amps end up sounding very good - not necessarily transparent, but nice.>
Pass doesn't only make SE designs, the one I have is the X series. What Double blind test are you refering to that concludes his amps are audibly not transparent?


<Ok, please read the Terms of Service (especially TOS #8). If you are going to make claims about the audibility of compressed sound on your system, you must back this up with double blind test results. Fortunately foobar makes this very easy to do. Please try a variety of samples from your favourite music and not just "problem samples".>

Sorry for getting the rules wrong, and thanks for hipping me to them.

I made some 192 vbr mp3s using lame and have done a comparison with the original .wavs. I scored 14/15 in the Foobar ABX test you recommended. That is with crappy onboard sound into some decent head phones. It was fairly close, but once you hear the differences, it is easy to figure it out with consistency. The bass was not as full and rich on the MP3s, and there was a bit more slam on the original.

I am assuming you want me to post the results and the files. Where should I do that, in the file upload section?

<Upsampling to 24/96 will, if anything, decrease quality on most playback devices. You don't get any more bandwidth or change the noise floor, all you do is add possible distortion from another layer of computation. If you have a decent DAC, it's best to pass the data to it unconverted.>

I was able to easily ABX files at different rates 44.1 vs. 96khz. maybe it was the distortion you are talking about, but they did sound different.

Anyhow, here is a link that say quite clearly that upsampling can make a big diference in the sound quality:

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue22/nugent.htm


<Using streaming or ASIO might be a good idea, but if your system is set up well your concerns about digital volume control are entirely unfounded.>

Perhaps you are right here, but I am willing to test. Can you give me an idea on how to do that?

Also, I remember a gentleman who had a dac that lit up when HDCD files were played, and when the Kmixer was involved, the dac would not light up, but when using ASIO, it lit up. HIs conclusion was that the bits were not identical through the kmixer.


I don't have such a dac, but am willing to test if you have any good ways to do so.

Thanks again for getting me to do the ABX test. It really solidified what I thought I knew...and that was on just average equipment! I can only image how much easier it would have been on my main rig where imaging could be part of the test.