Which DAC or Sound Card

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Hi Kbamhi,

One place to begin your research for the perfect (perfect for you) USB DAC might be to talk to Larry Moore of Ultra Fi audio. I have one of his iRoc USB DACs hooked up to a MacMini and the rest of my gear and like it very much.

Happy listening,

Ed

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You may want to look into a firewire to spdif converter so that you aren't limited to dacs which only have usb input. I just picked up an M Audio Firewire Solo, which I have connected to a Musical Fidelity XDAC V3 and it sounds pretty sweet.

I have a Benchmark DAC hooked upto a squeezebox in my main rig and the Benchmark sounds pretty good also.

If you have USB 2.0, a USB DAC may be okay. If your PC has USB 1.1, I'd go with firewire (if your PC doesn't have firewire, you can get a PCI firewire card (go with the texas instrument chip). USB was never designed to transfer high multimedia loads-it was designed to replace parrallel and serial ports. Also, firewire (6 pin) uses PC power and no need for an outboard power source - and doesn't bottleneck like a USB port may.

The Audioengine A5's are arriving tomorrow. I also ordered a Fubar ll USB DAC but it is probably 2 weeks out. I have no idea if my computer is equipped with USB 1.1 or 2.0 but I can inquire with my local guru. If it is 1.1 can I install a 2.0 card or something similar prior to going the whole firewire route ?

Thanks for the response guys.

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Hi Kbamhi... if you're going USB, and your DACs need cabling,you might want to think about which USB cable... it makes a big difference! Plain old printer cable won't cut it and will nullify any hardware you're testing/acquiring. I recommend investigating Ridge Street Audio as well as Synergistic Research. By the way... a phone call to Larry Moore at Ultra Fi audio about the iRoc DAC might illuminate many variables for you... after all, this is about enjoying the music... right?

Happy listening,

Ed

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The throughput on USB 1.1 has a 12 Mbps pass through; 2.0 is 480 Mbps. BIG difference. I believe you can install a USB 2.0 card and get the higher throughout (limited by CPU).