Halide Bridge vs hiFace Evo vs Sonicweld 192

Sakahara, any update on your progress ? I too have the same dac..not too happy with my experiments with Trends/Airport Exp/M-audio firewire...

I have been talking with Steve N. from Empirical Audio. He
is an experienced Audio Engineer with extensive knowledge
on PC Audio. Where I disagree with him, is his conclusions
of 30 years of Research, development and experience in designs of other Transports and DACs. I suppose that this is nothing new since every Audio Engineer has his own idea
of how to design equipment, usually dismissing lessons learned by others earlier. He appears to be successful at
what he is doing, and I wish him further success. I just have an honest disagreement about some of the conclusions
that he has drawn from the last thirty years of Digital
Audio Development. He does dismiss many Audiophile beliefs,
be they based on personnal experience or not. I get a little wary when someone tells me what I am supposed to be
hearing, when it conflicts with what I am actually hearing.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, based on their own
personal Audio preferences. The problem is when we dismiss
someone elses Audio preferences by calling them, "Total
nonsense", when after all, they are nothing more than
just a difference in preferences. I have a tendency to
over react when faced with intolerance, by some, in
PC Audio over different Audio preferences by many. Audio
will ALWAYS have room for different opinions, regardless
if it is PC or CD. When this stops, Audio will no longer be a Hobby worth pursuing. I would like to think that this can be avoided with PC Audio, but everyone (including myself) needs to just loosen up a little bit. Would really like to enjoy this Hobby once more.

I've had it. No more USB for me.

I tried the WaveLink HS. It sounded terrible, especially with the upper frequencies. It made me cringe when playing loud. Sometimes it would sound good at lower levels, or with higher quality recordings, but after more listening I could hear the inherent deficiencies. I couldn't live with it. Even Pure Music and Amarra Mini didn't help. Perhaps the dealer supplied WireWorld USB and digital BNC>BNC cables were partly to blame (I didn't have a BNC>RCA adapter for my D-60), but I have my doubts that better cables could make up for it enough. And imagine the total cost; USB converter, playback SW, high-end cables, and a dedicated iMac or Mac Mini since running 20+ feet of USB cable isn't recommended. You may as well go back to a high-end CDT. The WaveLink costs about twice as much as a new 171iTransport and iPod Classic and yet sounds half as good. So what is it? My systems too resolving? The cables? The connections used (BNC,..)? Or is it that USB just sounds bad - to me and my system? I tried, again (four years later).

I also tried the hiFace Evo. It wouldn't work. Set up is simple enough on OS X. It showed under Sound>Output once the driver was installed, but the sound only came out the built in speakers. And I'd swear OS X was glitchy after installing their driver. I want plug-n-play.

Arj: Try Squeezebox Touch or iTransport w/ COAX O/I. Any other type of ready-to-play music server with SPDIF out should suffice also. Stay clear of all USB converters and DAC's. Ic an't speak for FireWire (Weiss,..etc), but I have a feeling it's similar.

Unfortunately for both the manufacturers and the customers, Microsoft and Apple have put some software impediments in the way of making this easy. These impediments can prevent smooth installations and affect sound quality.

Both companies operating systems, in an effort to make things easy, force the sample-rate to a default setting and resample any files that are not this sample-rate. For those only familiar with CD's, all of these hi-res sample-rates are new, so it catches them by surprise and is a pitfall that they all fall into. How to access this info and change it or avoid it is not obvious.

Then there is the matter of sound quality. Microsoft audio stack is well-know for compromising this, and there are tools including Kernel Streaming, ASIO and WASAPI to overcome this. How to install these is not obvious. Likewise, iTunes sound quality leaves something to be desired, so there are third-party playback software packages like Amarra, Pure Music and AyreWave to address this shortcoming. At least these are easy to install and all have free audition versions.

Then there is the ripping software and drive. These also must be carefully selected and configured for good results, otherwise the customer may end-up re-ripping his whole collection.

Since the device manufacturers are aware of all of these things, it is up to them to provide concise instructions and guildelines so that customers have a good experience with computer audio and discover how great it is. Instructions like these are required:

http://www.empiricalaudio.com/computer-audio/

Once the Sample-Rate, Audio Stack and Ripping are learned by the customer, there is no reason why computer audio cannot exceed the quality and ease of use of a CD player.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio