Audiophile USB to PCM

Correct me if I'm wrong but are you guys doing all of this and still using Windows sound drivers? Hopefully you are utilizing the ASIO USB driver and selecting it in your Foobar output preferences. Just curious.

No, I use ASIO .dll with Foobar and the Transit drivers. I upsample to 24/96 using SRC. I've tried other sample rates, including 88.2. They just dont sound as good as SRC at 24/96, particularly piano, which sounds very live.

"At the moment, what you suggest seems like the way to go: PC card outputting upsampled digital via AES/EBU, with card driven by DAC wordclock."

The problem with PC add-in cards is the PC power supply and grounding. The external box will be quieter and have lower jitter. It can also be battery powered, which improves things considerably.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer/modder

Gonglee wrote:
"How is transit stock? Pretty good quality?"

Not really. Only has Toslink output.

Why is the mod necessary and how do we do it?

To eliminate the Toslink output and improve the power and clock. Really difficult mod unless you are a professional reworker.

Also, can you explain how to upsample in foobar or itune?

This is explained on my website on the "Computer Audio" webpage: http://www.empiricalaudio.com . All of the links are there. If you need ASIO for Foobar2000, just send me an email and I will send it to you.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer/modder

Kfreichen - the modded Transit is a product that I sell. It has a modified Superclock3, improved power, including Black Gates and the Toslink is replaced with coax output. I chose the Transit because it has some of the best drivers, does not require switching to do 24/96 and passes most all formats, including MP3 and AC3. more info is at:
http://www.empiricalaudio.com

I'm not the only modder using the Transit. My mods are the most technical though. Several manufacturers use this as their reference source.