Any opinions on the AMR Digital Processor 777 Dac?

Audiofun: thank you for your encouragement!

Other than burn-in, I notice the USB input sounds much worse than SPDIF. Before I bought the AMR, I was using Off-ramp 4 + Dodson 218, the PC/USB sounded extremely close to CD transport/SPDIF. But then the AMR arrived, transport/SPDIF sounds better now, CAS/USB sounds TERRIBLE! I break-in the USB input for a while already, and even tried the PC >> USB >> Off-ramp 4 >> SPDIF >> AMR, no matter what I do, if a PC is involved, the sound deteriorate significantly. AMR seems to hate my PC while my previous Dodson loved it, even a Benchmark DAC-1 USB sounds better directly from my PC.

Yeah, I am gonna buy a Mac mini sooner or later, but why is there such a big discrepancy between a PC and a transport? Does anybody experience this? Does USB input takes longer to burn-in? Can you eventually get USB to sound as good as SPDIF inputs?

Yingtonggao, try J River Media Center. It costs $50 but is well worth it. The other thing you want to do is disable kmixer in XP or upgrade to Windows 7 if possible.

Running JRMC on Win 7 here, optimized, into the DP-777, with superb results.

Essentialaudio: Good to know "JRMC + Win 7" sounds good. I am not sure if I want to go with "JRMC + Win 7" or "Amarra + Mac mini". I am a PC person and not a Mac fan, but I like the convenience of iTunes too, does JRMC piggy back onto iTunes' interface? Does it support apple lossless format? My problem is I've copied all my CD into apple lossless.

Yinngtonggao: You seem to be having a lot of issues with your AMR/PC combination. I have not experienced any of the issues you have mentioned sans break-in issues. Perhaps you should try a Mac Mini with Pure Music. The USB sounded good right off the bat in the AMR. My Mac Mini going into the AMR was better than my Mac and Diverter HR with the HR feeding the VDi-HD spdif input. I noted that the USB was about burned in at about 72 hour mark. It is possible I guess that your PC has a lot of power supply noise on the USB output. I honestly did not expect the USB input to be as good as the HR.

On another note, I just purchased 2 Accurian (Halcyonics) Silencers (not delivered yet). I will post my impressions using it with the AMR :) Very excited!!!

Current status:
Transport --> AMR's BNC input = 9/10
Transport --> Dodson's BNC input = 8/10
PC --> Off-ramp 4 --> Dodson's BNC input = 8/10
PC --> Off-ramp 4 --> Benchmark DAC1's BNC input = 8/10
PC --> Benchmark DAC1's USB input = 7/10
PC --> AMR's USB input = 4/10
PC --> Off-ramp 4 --> AMR's BNC input = 5/10

I am not convinced it's the PC, and my PC sounds the same as my transport when Dodson DAC is used. My PC has been optimized over the years and I know the common tricks. Believe me, I've hear beautiful music from my previous PC-based setup and can still go back to it -- but then what's the point of buying AMR?

Maybe I should shut up for now until AMR's full break-in + Mac mini.