Halide Bridge vs hiFace Evo vs Sonicweld 192

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

I agree with SAKAHARA, although I am still getting pretty
decent sound with EVO. I had to go thru 9 levels of
Technical Hell, being led by the Prince of Darkness himself
with the loure of so-called CONVENIENCE! You buy a High
End CDT, and you get a real paper Manual that treats the
Customer like an idiot (Thank God!). With PC Audio, everyone expects you to already be a Rocket Scientist, and then they won't even waste their time on you if your not!
The difference is Night and Day, CDT-loads of Customer
Support, PC Audio-vacuum of Customer Support. Contact
Manufacturer CDT, and get immediate response to resolve
problem. Contact PC Audio Manufacturer, and be deflected to Customer Forum to solve problem. What the hell does the
Customer know about the Product, he didn't Manufacture it!
Around and around you go getting mountains of misinformation, without any Quality Control. I would say that I am batting 50/50 with Forums, half the time its
accurate helpful information, the other half is nothing but
Gross Conceptual Error. Substituting Amature Customers for Trained Customer Support Staff will be PC Audio's Downfall.
It is just an attempt to save loads of money off of the
skin of the Customers. You may not agree, but certainly PC
Audio has a reputation of Customer Support that Sucks,
regardless if it is well earned or not! "If you don't like
it, don't buy it"! Well, if you want to replace all other forms of listening to Audio with PC Audio, its Customer
Support has to measure up! People are going to expect the same Customer Support that they are used to getting with
other competing Music Sources. They are not going to step
w-a-a-a-y-y-y down into the gutter of PC Audio Vacuum of Customer Support. There is nothing CONVENIENT about this!
It costs the Customer valuable Time, and Money, to do so!
The real threat to PC Audio, is more and more people
become painfully aware of this! SAKAHARA won't be the first, and he certainly won't be the last. Who exactly is
responsible for letting him down, who? Accountable Customer Support Agent, what Customer Support Agent? Is
PC Audio simply the lazy Manufacturers Music Source, to
replace all other accountable Music Sources? Gee, who can
turn down a deal like that! Be still my aching Heart! Really getting sick and tired of the excuses for PC Audio
Customer Service. Also getting sick and tired of the attitude that everyone just has to suck it up! No, we don't! We can, and should demand better Customer Support, regardless if you buy PC Audio or not! Otherwise, take half off the price if you want to take cost of Customer Support out of my wallet! That goes for any Product, PC Audio or any other competing Music Source! PC Audio WILL
serve me, because I sure as hell am not going to serve it!
Refer to your Emacipation Proclamation, if you can't figure it out! I am Human, and the Machine serves me, NOT
the other way around! The alternative isn't something that,
"don't buy it if you don't like it", are you kidding me? As
if Humans serving Machines is even a serious option!

sakahara, I'm not a MAC guy but I'd like to share my experience with you in building a PC music server. Over the last 4 months I've played around with multiple hardware configurations and a few basic rules have emerged

1) processing power is king
2) faster memory is a close second
3) SSD drive for your OS partition will make you smile
4) swap files, prefetch, indexing, all those cycle stealing background tasks are your enemy for musical transparency

How old is this iMac? Your initial comment makes me suspect many years old i.e. underpowered. I thought initially that I could use a 3 year old PC as my music server but when I compared the older, slower processor/memory machine to a newer faster machine it lacked the transparency of the faster machine with the same USB DAC. Are you able to try a faster MAC to see if that helps? Im pretty happy now with the proximity of my machine to CD, but like you I am looking for the right choice for USB digitalI/O since I distrust internal sound card digital output.