Audiophile USB to PCM

How is transit stock? Pretty good quality?

It only has Toslink out - not so great.

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

The mod changes the Toslink to coax, improves the edge-rates, isolates with a pulse transformer and matches the impedance precisely. It also adds a modified Superclock3. Quite technical, this mod, and a LOT of surface-mount work.

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

This is explained on the computer audio page of my website:
http://www.empiricalaudio.com

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

You have to select resampling in Foobar preferences - see the website for instructions and screen-shots.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
Manufacturer/modder

Edsilva - I look at a PC as a general purpose tool, and a very flexible one. It is like having a set of adapters and sockets with a socket wrench rather than a set of open-end wrenches. The sockets can get into tighter spots and the sockets are interchangeable. You can change the way that the socket wrenches work and their configurations. The open-end wrenches are good, but have limitations. They only work one way with fixed sizes.

DSP processors have certain ways of doing data manipulation. They can be faster at doing some things than software. Software really has no functional limitations, just the size and latency/speed of the code. Hardware is the most limiting for implementing upsampling codes. This is why hardware implementations are usually outdated quickly and do not sound as good. Not that a good code could not be implemented in hardware.

Onhwy61 - I have used and modded the Big Ben. I found it to work exceptionally well for reducing jitter. The effect was immediately noticable. Deciding whether it is worth the price for what it does is up to each individual. It also has the benefit of displaying the input sample rate.

Edsilva - does your waveterminal have a driver that you load on the PC?

Audioengr-

The Waveterminal does have a driver, but after poking around, I think its limited to 24/96 output tops, and I believe the 96 may, in fact, be an internal upscaler. I think, if I read right, that its 44.1/48 only.

Oh well... It still sounds damn good run through the dCS Purcell and Delius.