audioengr
Responses from audioengr
| Benchmark to amp direct question? AudioengrHave you actually tried to listen to both outputs before concluding that they are the same?Of course. I mod a LOT of these, so I listen to them continually.The folks that are reporting better results probably have the older DAC-1 that has... | |
| "Mini" to Optical for Airport Express I recommend the turbomodded DAC-1 or the modded Northstar 192. Completely different animals with mods. Both are in the $2750-$3K range though.Steve N. | |
| "Mini" to Optical for Airport Express There are two ways to go:1) Off-Ramp Wi-Fi - modded AE - $1200 with Superclock4 and S/PDIF coax output2) Stock AE with Pace-Car reclocker - $1350 with both I2S and S/PDIF coax output#2 is better.Decent DAC's in the $1000 range - IMO, there arent a... | |
| "Mini" to Optical for Airport Express Streetdaddy - the AE with Toslink is not even close, sorry. The problem is high jitter. However, there are ways to make it even better than most USB solutions. For instance, if you put a Pace-Car reclocker between the AE and the DAC, the jitter is... | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Adasilva - on the recent DAC-1's, using the balanced outputs as single-ended is the same as using the RCA outs. | |
| Have You Heard the Northstar CD Combo? Clio09 wtre:Steve - are you still doing North Star mods, but just not on the Extremo DAC?Yes, I'm still modding the Northstar 192.steve N. | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Bob_reynolds - I dont believe that the impedance mismatch and the resulting reflections directly affects the audio band. This is a secondary or indirect effect of some sort. May not happen with tube outputs. | |
| Have You Heard the Northstar CD Combo? Anthony also has a $600 I2S cable that is really killer. I've tried the Northstar and the RA cables, which are both excellent. The filtered Northstar cable is probably best for really revealing or top-heavy systems. My favorite is the $600 one fro... | |
| PC-Based Set Up/Process - Comments? Dancetracks - you should try Foobar or Jriver and unmap the USB device. Then the computer does not even know it has an audio output device. Really clean and bit-perfect. Here are instructions:http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?topic=4006... | |
| Have You Heard the Northstar CD Combo? There are those that dont believe in I2S, but this is what makes this combo so good. Unfortunately, there is a lot of filtering on the I2S interface in order to get it to pass FCC/CISPR emissions testing, so this adds quit a bit of jitter. This is... | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Bob_reynolds - when I first started modding DAC's I put no additional resistance on the outputs. What I found was that with high-Q or low-loss cables connected, this evidently caused transmission-line type reflections on the cable which could take... | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Cmk - the DAC-1 converts single-ended to balanced at the output drivers. I would not call this a balanced DAC, but I suppose there are other interpretations.Steve N. | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Bob_reynolds - this high RCA output impedance is only in the older versions, more than three years old. The new cisrcuit board has new buffers and does the voltage divider between buffers rather than at the output pins. The new RCA output impedanc... | |
| Benchmark to amp direct question? Bob_reynolds - the output impedance of the balanced outs depends enitrely on the jumper settings. The place that I set them makes the impedance 30 ohms, just right.steve N.Empirical Audio | |
| "Mini" to Optical for Airport Express The analog outs on the AE are junk, trust me.Use the Toslink out with an adapter and a glass cable such as:http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/category.cgi?category=220&item=SP-TOC-99HQ&type=storeThe jitter from the AE is quite ... |