When to buy a DAC?

This little beauty is getting my $$ http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB12/NFB12EN.htm Loong thread at head-fi, multiple inputs, built very well. It has usb, optical and coax. I will be using all 3. $237 is a very good price, imho. I did consider the Musiland monitor 02 us cause it's windows drivers are uniquely well done and update frequently. It handles 24/192 very well if you gotta have it but it doesn't have extra inputs. Another long thread at headfi. It was either the nfb12 or the GF tube dac, I needed the pre- options of either and settled for the newer design.
 
Interesting

This little beauty is getting my $$ http://www.audio-gd.com/Pro/Headphoneamp/NFB12/NFB12EN.htm Loong thread at head-fi, multiple inputs, built very well. It has usb, optical and coax. I will be using all 3. $237 is a very good price, imho. I did consider the Musiland monitor 02 us cause it's windows drivers are uniquely well done and update frequently. It handles 24/192 very well if you gotta have it but it doesn't have extra inputs. Another long thread at headfi. It was either the nfb12 or the GF tube dac, I needed the pre- options of either and settled for the newer design.

Thanks for suggesting that. Looks very interesting. Just had to replace a car, so all hifi projects are unfunded right now!
 
Thanks for suggesting that. Looks very interesting. Just had to replace a car, so all hifi projects are unfunded right now!

Sell some red blood cells! Ahaha...

Possibly a stupid question, but I'm still pretty newbish when it comes to tech specs beyond watts and frequency range.

The DAC I'm looking at (Music Streamer II, for those just tuning in) supports 24 bit/96 khz input. Now... how does this compare spec-wise to me using the 3.5mm out on my PC? I really have no idea how bits and such work. Could someone explain it in a relatively simple manner? Also, (pretty sure) hammie said earlier that his computer only supports 16 bit through USB. How can I tell what my computer supports? I'd like to make sure I'm taking full advantage of everything this DAC offers.

Thanks again for any help. :thmbsp:
 
If you are using windows, the musiland may be a better choice for you. It does not use the windows drivers and it uses bulk mode for the audio data. Basically, it controls the stream and tells your pc what to send and when, keeping everything running smmothly. It supports asio and wasapi (which means your sound doesn't egt converted by Windows to 48 khx, which is happening to you now. It will do 24 bit, to answer your question but you should have usb 2.0. If you don't know what you have google a program called speccy.It will analye your hardware. USB 2.0 is what you need. If you have that, you cand do 16 or 24 bit.The 24 bit will be decided by what device you buy. The 3.5 mm outta your pc is gonna sound like dog doo compared to the music streamer or musiland. Good luck
 
Something else must be limiting your sample rate. Even USB 1.1 (12 Mbits/s) is more than fast enough for 24/192. I have a years old non-name USB sound card that can do 24/96.

Maybe it may be the B&W speakers I have connected, but it is more likely the Mac OS X AudioCore software.

So, a DAC (providing it has optical inputs) could even improve the sound of my CDP? :O

Yes, I am looking at an external DAC with music streaming capabilities. I plan on hooking my Oppo BDP-83 to the DAC for CD and SA-CD listening. Blu-ray's will still go through the HDMI out to my AV processor.

However, my budget is slightly higher than what you are looking at spending.

[...]Now... how does this compare spec-wise to me using the 3.5mm out on my PC? I really have no idea how bits and such work. Could someone explain it in a relatively simple manner? Also, (pretty sure) hammie said earlier that his computer only supports 16 bit through USB. How can I tell what my computer supports? I'd like to make sure I'm taking full advantage of everything this DAC offers.

Thanks again for any help. :thmbsp:

If you are using the 3.5mm port on your computer, you are using the internal DAC on the computer. You will want to use the USB, optical, or digital coax ports to connect to an external DAC. I think it may be my OS that is limiting the through put on my USB. :( I have seen higher end DAC's support 24/192kHz through the USB interface.
 
New question: If CDs have a sample rate of 44.1khz, how will a DAC with 96khz make a difference? Even if I rip to loseless, won't the sample rate be stuck at 44.1khz? Or is 44.1khz the sample rate of MP3s? Likewise, if my loseless files say they are 16-bit, how would a 24 bit DAC work?
 
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I can tell ya about the musiland, depending on the software for music playback, you can instruct it to send the 44.1 khz out, bypassing the windows conversion to 48 khz. The dac will see the 44.1 and convert it to analog as is. The musiland does have an option to upconvert it but that will end up being your choice based on how it sounds. In theory, it should not sound different, you are just adding zeros. Some dacs are programmed to handle this differently though. The Audio-gd uses a different roll off of high frequencies based on 44.1,48,96 or 192 and other bitrates. This is apparently not that uncommon in the dac world with many high end and expensive dacs doing the same thing. I don't know what the musiland does with the high frequency rolloffs except that some folks love the higher bitrate option versus just 44.1 khz. This is the advantage of the musiland, so much is done in software,using the drivers, that these changes can be made by the mfr and the sq increase.In the Audio-gd it is all hardwired.Oh, to combine these two. At any rate, while an oscope may not like the frequency curve of th Audio-gd, your ears will.....DAC's, while capable of higher bitrates and frquencies, handle the lower bitrates, for the most part at their native freq/bitrate. There are odd bitrate, like 88.2, that can presnt problems, but you aren't gonna see those much.
 
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Night and Day...

From laptop line-out to HRT Music Streamer II (w/ griffin imic for a little while in between.) I have a very similar (yet different) system to yours, stirfrizzle. I have a 2004 ibook as a music server, and for a while I've been using a griffin imic as a dac ($30, what can I say?) Before that I used the headphone/line-out of the ibook. I have everything from 128 kbps songs (from circa 2000) that I only listen to to satisfy the nostalgia pangs or the party vibe up to very good flac tracks.
I just got my HRT Streamer II today, but have listened to flac, mp3 V0, and regular ol' crappy mp3 128kbps and up to compare the sound - and to my ears it is night and day. I read much about the HRT before I bought - also the Tube Dac-09, but I wanted something that would merely interpret the digital signal to analog effectively, since I've ordered (and am checking the delivery status of!) a grant tube processor for the sound (and the preamp/headphone amp stuff isn't important for me.)
I haven't heard any other DAC at all, but I am very happy with the HRT Streamer II. It is a huge jump from line-out or the griffin, and well well worth the cost.
Another great thing about the Streamer II - it uses asynchronous USB - basically, and please correct my basic knowledge relaying skills - basically, instead of the the cpu deciding when to send info to the DAC over usb, the DAC can and will ask for more info when it needs it, making for higher quality output to analog.
All of the stuff I've played has gone out at 16/44 from the ibook. I have some 24/96 files, but I'm sure it'll be pretty ok!
 
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