currently im feeding all my music through an envy 24 (diamond 7.1?) sound card to my Lite Dac 60 via toslink. i'm wondering where at the transport's end i can spend my money on next to hear the biggest improvement. a usb soundcard with an outboard converter for the dac since Lite Dac 60 doesn't have an usb input? or.. actually the previous was the only idea i have at the moment. i appreciate your inputs.
Either your card is Envy24-based, or it is Diamond 7.1 (Diamond XtremeSound 7.1 DDL review @ TechSpot based on CMI8768). The difference is Envy24 uses separate crystals for 44.1kHz and 48kHz fs families, whereas CMI8768 generates the required clocks from a single crystal via PLL. IMO the two crystals solution is superior.
haha my bad. the soundcard i have now is an envy 24 based. the card i owned before that was diamond 7.1... dont know the model of my current card though xP
Dear PreSapian
I doubt changing the sound card will make any difference/ After all the data sent to the DAC should be identical irrespective of sound card.
I would spend the money on music, or some other part of your Hifi.
Regards
Owen
I doubt changing the sound card will make any difference/ After all the data sent to the DAC should be identical irrespective of sound card.
I would spend the money on music, or some other part of your Hifi.
Regards
Owen
thanks owen, for the concern, but i think the part of the reason why people invest heavily in quality transports also could apply to sound cards because essentially, a pc is just that when it comes to feeding the signal to the dac- a transport. so shouldn't replacing an output board of a transport not make a difference to the sound quality? i think it should.
I agree. Though it is more complicated. The computer needs to be optimized and so does the sound card.
here is a site that explains alot of it and has a great recipe for improving the transport aspect of using a computer. While specific os and hardware is recommended for best results, the principles are applicable to most systems. Simple things like minimizing the os footprint by turning off unneeded services, dedicating the transport to music only, and optimizing the soundcard, can make a big difference. Its memory player portion goes into things like fanless operation, separate psus for drives and usb, memory settings, etc.
cMP² | Main / HomePage
- Status
- Not open for further replies.