An introduction and questions.

[twystd]

 Hi Peter

Not sure this is the best place to post this on this forum, my apologies if it is inappropriate. I have a few questions, but first a little background. Been an audiophool for about 8 years now, and am a hard core DIYer. I've built several tube amps, and am designing my own currently, as well as having many preamps, cables, and speaker projects, under my belt. I am currently working on a DDAC 1543 kit as supplied by Doede Duma. I have been monitoring the computer audio forum on the audio asylum, and saw the post there, that seemed to cause so much paranoia!;-)

Can't believe the folks there are so paranoid about anybody associated with the "infamous" Bert Doppenberg gang.   If you are not familiar with the DDAC1543 it is a USB DAC which uses an I2S bus and re-clocks with a 11.8mhz (I think), Tent Labs clock to parallel stacked 1543s, in my case two towers of 12 for a total of 24 1543 chips. It uses no op-amp, just a load resistor and capacitor for output after the chips.

Seem as as if this DAC would be a good candidate for your players minimalist philosophy (which I've always gravitated to in audio). Do you agree?

Now for the questions. Does your player bypass the computer sound card? I hope so, because I have a very lousy one in my music server computer (since I was going to bypass it anyway). It's a very small PC commonly called "Pandoras Box", the computer, the 8" LCD touch screen, and external music storage hard drives, are designed to fit on the coffee table in front of my listening position.

I have Windows XP operating system, can I get the best performance with your player with XP, or would I have to upgrade to Vista, or is some other OS optimal? I want pretty much of a no compromise system, so if an upgrade is necessary, so be it.

I am confused about the different versions of XXHighEnd, can you advise as to which would be the most appropriate. I am not a techie by any means, and was really NOT looking forward to the completely bewildering proposal of getting Foobar to work.
 Looks like you just may have the solution I was looking for, that is a player that sounds great, stays out of the way of the music, and that you don't have to be a software engineer to implement.


twystd   

       

[PeterSt]

Hi you audiophool ! 

Let me try to give some you some answers ...

Most important I think :

Does your player bypass the computer sound card?

Yes, since any USB DAC would.
For XP you'd have to use Engine #2 (not Doubled because the DDDac supports up to 48K sampling rate only).
For Vista you can use any engine, but only #3 would be bit perfect.
Note : For XP I really can't tell whether it would be bit perfect because you'd need a digital output on the DAC to measure it. Some say it is ... (from theories only).

Your nos-DAC would be allright from the nos-principle, although it always will be you judging that. The fact that you chose it, says enough I think.
I do not know by heart how many bits your 24 chip DAC supports, but IIRC any (dual) tower below 1 m may stop at 14 ...
But maybe you can tell ?

For your 8" screen I'd have to change something with the width of the shown titles (vs the shown album picture), but if you can wait a bit, that will be there.

Best would be to have a dual boot system. Why ? because to me it is not 100% clear which of XP/Vista produces the best sound. They are very different anyway, and although Vista is more accurate, XP tends to be more natural (what to do with that ?). Do note, however, that Vista's Engine#3 has to be exploited yet. So best would really be to be able to choose.

and that you don't have to be a software engineer to implement.

For a few that still happens though, but I'll help till I drop.
When all is settled a bit, everyone should be okay.

If you've more questions ... I hope I can answer them.
Peter

[twystd]

Hi Peter

No problem with a wait, I'm in the process of way too many projects, including my USB DAC, so it will be awhile before I order.

Perhaps you'd like to read a couple of posts I made on the Audio Asylum PC audio forum: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/2/21445.html and: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/2/21465.html

[SeVeReD]

Hi twystd
Just started browsing this part of the forum and saw your post.  I just recently set up XXHighEnd version d on a new install of Vista premium 32 bit.  I learned about XXHE from Audio Asylum also; I can't believe how some of those guys got their panties in a bunch.  I've enthused about XXHE in several other places on this forum; give a search.  All I can say is this is the best player sound quality wise I've come across by a large margin; so much so it's hard for me to believe.  I'm going to bring this back sometime to AA, but I'm giving myself more listening time with it so that I can approach AA in a good way.  I thought I was the only one who called himself an audiophool, hehe.