hey rsbeck, i was thinking if i used a hard drive with only firewire then i'd need a dac with firewire. Did i miss a step? Does the dac have to go back into the computer processor first?
I checked your computer audio system. Nice job. I was thinking of the apogee for the xlr and headphone out. my place is so small i can't really get hifi here unless using headphones. i have a pair of powered tannoy reveals i use for mixing so i would run the xlr outs to those and have a headphone amp in the apogee as well.
I was also looking at the Benchmark dac. similar to the apogee: xlr jacks, headphone, price.
Then i started looking at the tubed wavelength USB dac without any filters. no xlr so i'd have to figure out how to run that system...would cost a lot more because i'd need a preamp, amp setup and then perhaps another headphone amp. yikes.