Audiophile USB to PCM

If you are wanting to go USB to coax S/PDIF, why not just do only that? The M-Audio Transit or the Edirol boards can be modded to give you virtually jitter-free digital out. Either one can also be installed inside a DAC, eliminating the S/PDIF cable.

I use one of these modified converters with my laptop and Foobar for playback. Foobar and the driver work together to upsample to 24/96. If your DAC can handle this, it is significantly better than the best transport on the market, not "just as good". It is even better than using a DAC to do the upsampling. I have compared 16/44.1 .wav playback to iTunes playback (also can do this) and the 24/96 upsampled by the computer. iTunes is definitely better than 44.1 .wav, but the 24/96 is even better. Forget about "bit-perfect" 44.1. Go with the 24/96 or iTunes and make sure that the converter and DAC supports these.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer

Is there a way to bypass the waveterminal piece? Does the Edirol UA-1D work just as well as the waveterminal for digital to digital conversion?

How does the Apogee mini-dac differ from the waveterminal for the digital to digtal conversion (since the Apogee has a USB in)? Which is better: waveterminal to mini-dac or USB directly to mini-dac?

Audioengr,

How is transit stock? Pretty good quality?
Why is the mod necessary and how do we do it?

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

Do they do it automatically, or do we have to do something?

Thanks for the info

Steven N, (Audioengr) I am very interested in your modifications to the M-Audio board and the foobar solution. Please tell us more! :-)

I've used the M-Audio Sonica and switched to the Edirol b/c it sounded better to me... I've now switched to the Waveterminal U24 because it sounds better than the Edirol, and found out the reason may be b/c the Edirol outputs at 48 kHz, not native 44.1 kHz? Dunno if that is the reason or not. I have not compared the Waveterminal to Audioengr's modded Transits (the Sonica and Transit are pretty similar internally)--I gather the Transits do pass 44.1 kHz and respond well to mods. I and not really competent with a soldering iron, however, so I'll leave that to others...