Yep extremely nice riaa phono preamp in the breakout box, though moving magnet only I believe. Very quiet and clean as is all of it. One of the best cards ever tested at Rightmark.
Remember we are dealing in reality here. Specs matter.
Your reaction is why this thread is here. We will have fun sorting out the Shinola from the BullShinola.
No...phono in means phono in, as in lp record player. It has plenty of digital and CLEAN CLEAN analog outs and ins as well. True audiophile gear as are it's sister cards the EMU 1616m and 1820m. You could pay thousands for this. But I won't let us. I am going to do here what I did for pro audio and kill the snakes and the snake handlers.
Actually this the future of all precision audio. In one way or another it boils down to those that are doing it and those that will be doing it this way. The vast majoriy of alll recording is already done this way. We are movng toward hi def audio, which is simply in the long run the only real choice. It is now all about dsp and dacs.
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with vinyl you will want some filtering best done in digital domain imo. But I digress we are all going to be using hi res files.
Of all the toys I've bought in the last few years the SMSL Q5 amplifier has been the best bang for the buck. USB, coax and digital inputs (also analog), digital signal processing and digital controlled class-d amplifier. Based on STA350 chipset. There were a few bugs with the first version (USB issues and irregular volume steps) but I believe these have been addressed in the new Q5 Pro.
There are other newer amplifiers based on the newer STA326, such as the FX Audio D802, that could well be even better.
IME comparable systems based on traditional building blocks (USB receiver, DAC, preamp, amp) of equal quality cost many times the price of these amps.
A problem is that these one-box digital domain devices don't leave as much room for tweaking, so don't tend to get the attention or respect they deserve on these forums.
There are other newer amplifiers based on the newer STA326, such as the FX Audio D802, that could well be even better.
IME comparable systems based on traditional building blocks (USB receiver, DAC, preamp, amp) of equal quality cost many times the price of these amps.
A problem is that these one-box digital domain devices don't leave as much room for tweaking, so don't tend to get the attention or respect they deserve on these forums.
If you haven't seen the latest Linear Audio, you should- there's a very comprehensive how-to for using sound cards for phono.
I would need to see full dac specs and amp specs ala Rightmark. We cant be subjective here at all.
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