Bottlehead Forum
Other Gear => Digital => Topic started by: Natural Sound on January 11, 2011, 04:52:47 PM
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Hi Guys, I'm looking for an inexpensive USB DAC to use with my laptop to feed my bottlehead gear. Basically I want something better than the sound chip thats on the motherboard. My budget for this item is $250 or less. A kit is fine or a pre-built pc board without a case is fine too. I see that there are a few from China on eBay but I doubt they are any good. All recommendations are appreciated.
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HRT Music Streamer fits your description. Check out the 6 Moons review:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/streamer/streamer+.html
HRT website: http://www.highresolutiontechnologies.com/
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I'm using an HLLY Matrix Mini. Can get them on ebay or from the manufacturer for about $3-350. Has a built in headphone amp (listenable but not great). The DAC itself sounds quite nice. I am happy with it, at least until the BH kit comes out.
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I use this little guy with a netbook.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F41gV8rSqcvL._AA300_.jpg&hash=dd466af64697b078fe14d6e976cd81d8ffc7f03c)
http://www.amazon.com/NuForce-Icon-uDAC-2-Black-Headphone/dp/B003Y5FRNS/ref=pd_sxp_grid_pt_0_1/175-4385613-5896821
It works well and is great on the go if you use headphones.
If you'd like to build something, check out the GrubDAC over at Beezar. The kit would only run you $50. There's a ton of good documentation on it from HeadFi user TomB.
(https://forum.bottlehead.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.diyforums.org%2FGrubDAC%2Foverview%2FGrubDAC3-800x600.jpg&hash=5125bf737f52f986a95d26f1c19a38c194b62928)
http://www.beezar.com/oscommerce2/catalog/index.php
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There are good quality USB DAC's on ebay, usually $125 or less.
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I'm using Foobar to send FLAC via the USB port to a Musical Fidelity V-DAC ($299) and it sounds great in my opinion. I have no doubt that the BH DAC will sound better, but the V-DAC keeps the music going while I'm patiently waiting.
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Hey Ken,
I "upgraded" to Foobar v1.1.2 Beta 3 last night, and installed the WASAPI output support v2.1 (running Win 7 Enterprise x64). The sound is noticeably better than my old config - the Foobar ASIO_out driver (with ASIO4ALL running on the OS side)...
Just an idea, not sure which OS you're using.
Cheers,
-don
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I "upgraded" to Foobar v1.1.2 Beta 3 last night, and installed the WASAPI output support v2.1 (running Win 7 Enterprise x64). The sound is noticeably better than my old config - the Foobar ASIO_out driver (with ASIO4ALL running on the OS side)...
That's good to hear. I was using Foobar 2000 with the Foobar ASIO driver and I found that Reaper with the ASIO driver, though too balky to be a useful server software, sounded a whole lot better. Sounds like Foobar has come up a notch.
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Yeah Doc, the UI looks an order of magnitude better, and the sound (with the WASAPI driver) is pretty amazing. Good stuff!
-don
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Hey Ken,
I "upgraded" to Foobar v1.1.2 Beta 3 last night, and installed the WASAPI output support v2.1 (running Win 7 Enterprise x64). The sound is noticeably better than my old config - the Foobar ASIO_out driver (with ASIO4ALL running on the OS side)...
Just an idea, not sure which OS you're using.
Cheers,
-don
Thanks so much for mentioning this. I just upgraded foobar, added the WASAPI module and am now digging the much improved sound. Honestly didn't expect to hear much (if any) difference, but this is a marked improvement.
Cheers,
S
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Naturalsound,
I second the HRT MusicStreamer II -- very good for $149. Also, if you prefer a NOS sound, the valab dac sold on ebay is a really great dac for the price.
Doc and Don, The asio4all driver is by far the worst sounding of the asio drivers out there. I've done extensive listening tests with it vs the usb-dacs asio driver, and the AQVox asio driver. Both of these cost money, but are priced in Euros so not sure what they currently are, but some prefer the usb-dacs and some the AQVox, which is the more expensive of the two. The AQVox is the only one that communiicates directly with the usb chip and will install in foobar with the kernel streaming plug-in. So you get kernel streaming talking directly to the usb chip. It's a rather ruthlessly revealing pairing and for some it's too much, but with good amps and dac, it can be about as good as windows based streaming gets. There is a demo of AQVox, which you should try first to make sure it supports your mobo and dac receiver chip.
I'm sure if you try either of these and then go back to asio4all, you'll see what I'm talking about. At least in my setup there was no contest and asio4all sounded very dull and muffled. My buddy tried the wasapi thing with foobar but said KS was better.
Just some other things to try...
-- Jim
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Hey Jim,
Hope you're feeling better. Agreed that ASIO4ALL is pretty bad... I tried the AQVox demo driver, but it was not happy in my HP Z400 (dual W3505 Xeons, 8Gb DDR3 RAM). The best fall-back position for me was to go to WASAPI with Foobar 1.1.2 b3, since I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise x64. With WASAPI, there is no intermediate (OS level) driver, it's just Foobar plus the WASAPI output support dll installed in Foobar's component screen. Not sure if WASAPI allows hardware-level access to the USB transceiver - probably not, as there's an API in the way. But it sounds markedly better than Foobar thru ASIO4ALL!
By the way, I know that there is a lot of concern regarding Windows threading and streaming audio continuity/quality; I've recently rebuilt the HP under the guidance of a friend with MCSE credentials, and it's logging less than 130 microsecond DPC latency, with an absolute maximum of 162 microseconds. Sounds pretty good, but still not as good as the Musical Fidelity A308CD... but then, I have a USB-powered DAC from Pro-ject, and I know that the internal DAC in the A308 is better than that... I need to investigate a Valab NOS DAC from eBay to tide me over for a while... <g>
Jim, I haven't done a lot of reading on the Windows Audio Session API, but I'll do some checking and let you know more about how it works. Right now, I'm listening to the Crack on my HD-600s, fed directly from the A308CD. I'm actually pretty impressed, the more I listen. I've installed a NOS Sylvania 6AS7G, which I got for a song on eBay. Now, I realize how low the noise floor of the Crack can be - my stock 6080 had a very low level hum in the right channel.
Probably more importantly, I replaced the ElectroHarmonix 12AU7 with a Amperex Holland Bugle Boy, also NOS. That guy cost a bit more, but he's definitely more "elegant" than the EH, which had nearly 100 hours on it when replaced. On the recommendation of Mr. Lee Hankins, I bought a couple of 12BH7s on eBay for less than $15; they are in transit. I will advise when I get them swapped in and get a couple of hours on them...
This is so much fun, Jim. I'm thinking I need to build another Crack, with a Speedball, just to open up my tube rolling options. :-)
More to come on WASAPI when I clear this week's logjam at the work house.
Cheers,
Don
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Hi Guys, I'm looking for an inexpensive USB DAC to use with my laptop to feed my bottlehead gear. Basically I want something better than the sound chip thats on the motherboard. My budget for this item is $250 or less. A kit is fine or a pre-built pc board without a case is fine too. I see that there are a few from China on eBay but I doubt they are any good. All recommendations are appreciated.
For the money I think that E-Mu makes some decent DAC's. I was using an 1820M for years and then abandoned the Window scene for the Mac OS, and sold it. I do use a 0404 USB that is pretty decent, but how do you connect it to your Bottlehead gear? You can use a Cardas adapter and come out of the monitor jacks in the back http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=oem&pagestring2=Adapters&pagestring=Adapters+%28closeup%29&content_id=8&part_id=187 (http://www.cardas.com/content.php?area=oem&pagestring2=Adapters&pagestring=Adapters+%28closeup%29&content_id=8&part_id=187). Total cost should be right around $250.
One note about the 0404, it will not run on Mac OS X running in 64-bit mode. I contacted Creative about this and they said that it was because the audio driver is developed out of house--guess you can't make requests to your vendors, but got to take what they give you.
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Yoder,
For your budget and for the simplest, most direct setup I'd recommend either the HRT MusicStreamer II (for a high-res dac) or the Valab dac from China (for a NOS dac). Both are excellent and perform well above their price points and the valab can also use toslink and spdif. The HRT is very small and compact, requires no external power supply -- just plug the usb into one end and your RCAs into the other, and you're done. Give it a couple hundred hours (for either dac) and they will settle down and sound excellent. Of course to get the most out of each of them your playback software should be carefully configured, and they both benefit from a better usb cable -- the Wireworld UltraViolet is a very nice cable at a good price, and the StarLight is slightly more expensive, but also noticably better especially in the bass and top end.
HTH,
Jim
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Hey Jim, actually I am bitting at the bit (no pun intended) for the Bottlehead DAC to arrive. Currently I have a couple of computer "DAC's" that double as recording interfaces. The 0404 is doing time at a Mac Mini I just got a couple of months ago, and I pipe everything from my iMac through an Apogee Duet. The later uses firewire, which is nice since I can daisy-chain it with my FW800 Glyph hard drives.
I tell you though, this waiting is painful. I may go ahead and build another Crack for my daughter, and maybe a third for my wife. I am providing each with their own little sound station. My college attending daughter has a simple MacBook Pro set-up, and the wife has the Mac Mini with the 0404 right now. As an aside, anyone in the house has access to an Airport Extreme that is playing the role of music server and dishing out 325 Gb of AIFF files throughout the house. I am impressed with the AE, since I have had 4 users stream from the AE simultaneously throughout our 3400 sq ft house without any hiccups or bottlenecks.
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I have recently been in the process of acquiring a couple of older Minis. I just received a very early PowerPC 1.25GHz Mini which I plan to use with an 0404USB. Also I have the next generation Mini with an Intel Solo chip coming as well. The Apple site specs it as having an optical digital in and out, and that should allow me to connect directly to the current iteration of the DAC, which has TOSLINK in/out. Hopefully I will be able to develop a database of info about how all this Mac stuff will hook up as we continue to develop the DAC project.
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Yoder,
For your budget and for the simplest, most direct setup I'd recommend either the HRT MusicStreamer II (for a high-res dac) or the Valab dac from China (for a NOS dac). Both are excellent and perform well above their price points and the valab can also use toslink and spdif. The HRT is very small and compact, requires no external power supply -- just plug the usb into one end and your RCAs into the other, and you're done. Give it a couple hundred hours (for either dac) and they will settle down and sound excellent. Of course to get the most out of each of them your playback software should be carefully configured, and they both benefit from a better usb cable -- the Wireworld UltraViolet is a very nice cable at a good price, and the StarLight is slightly more expensive, but also noticably better especially in the bass and top end.
HTH,
Jim
Last month I picked up a VA lab DAC and a pure silver USB cable from an eBayer in Taiwan. I've got about 100 hours on the setup now and I must say it sounds much better than a $200 DAC should sound. I'm very happy with it so far.
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After reading these posts, I read the 6moons review on the VA Lab DAC and saw a FPIII in the reviewers system. Seems like everyone's got a little Bottlehead in them.
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/teradak/chameleon_3.html
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I too used the airport extreme, although mine is used mostly to stream netflix programs to the apple tv in the living room. Works pretty good.
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Macs have a combination headphone jack/mini toslink connector. At least all the Macs I have (don't have a mini....yet). Currently using a mini toslink to full toslink adapter out from my MacBook Pro to a Hlly Matrix Mini DAC for my digital setup. Am very pleased with the sound I get out of it.
Been looking into getting a MacMini for a dedicated music server so I can stop schlepping my MacBook to my listening room. Be interested to see the Docs impression of the Mini.
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Re the Mini, it is apparently only the earliest PPC model that is lacking the TOSLINK ins and outs. That is what I have right now, and thus why I plan to use it with an EMU 0404 USB. This Mini has OS X 10.3.9. The crazy thing I have run into is that OS X 10.5 (necessary for the later Itunes versions) seems to be a collectable - it costs about as much as an old Mini! Once it is all set up I hope to have a nice little server for home, that I can control with my iPhone.
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Myself along with many others on this forum are anxiously awaiting the new Bottlehead DAC. As always, when a new Bottlehead product is in the making I start doing research and find out that I am very illiterate about audio. Sorry in advance for this basic question but first, what is the advantage of a USB DAC, and secondly, if you connect a USB DAC to your PC do you even need a sound card? I am originally from Nebraska and as you can tell I am cornfused.
Thanks
Dave
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When you use a USB sound device you don't need an internal sound card (or if you already have one, it will bypass it), it's handled by software within your computer and external interfacing, at least if I understand it correctly ;)
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When you use a USB sound device you don't need an internal sound card (or if you already have one, it will bypass it), it's handled by software within your computer and external interfacing, at least if I understand it correctly ;)
Actually, if you have both a sound card and a USB sound device connected simultaneously, then you can select which of the two you want to use simply by going to your Preferences (Mac OS.) On my Macmini, I can choose from the Panasonic HDMI, E-MU 0404 (USB), default output, or TOSLINK. On my iMac I jump between the Duet (Firewire) and TOSLINK.
With USB or FW you can adjust the volume from the Preferences or Audio MIDI Setup. I recently hooked-up a TOSLINK adapter to my iMac and ran it into a DAC. I was initially surprised that from within the AMS I could only specify the bit depth/rate, but could not do a thing with the audio level. Then it made sense, since TOSLINK is a true digital source then only 1's and 0' are being sent and there is no way to adjust the source volume.
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The other thing that has become the "in word" is asynchronous. Also how high will it allow sampling? 24/96 or 26/192 including up-sampling or not.
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Yoder,
If your playback software supports dithered volume control, there's no reason why that shouldn't work with TOSlink. The dithered volume control in iTunes is terrible, but in PureMusic it is quite good, even with a 16/44 dac (but works even nicer with 24/96 and higher.) I know there are folks who use the PM dithered volume control with toslink on their minis.
-- Jim
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Yoder,
I know there are folks who use the PM dithered volume control with toslink on their minis.
-- Jim
Yes, in fact I control the volume on my Mini with my iphone and the remote app. The server will be playing upstairs, filling up the whole place with music, and I can control the level from my desk or the lab or wherever with the iPhone when I get a call on the office line.
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@Jim, I may not have been too clear in what I was saying. Basically, the more I dive into the OS X the more impressed I am. It has just been in the last couple of months that I have played with the TOSLINK adapter. The fact that you get true digital data, if desired, impresses me. This is something that does not come easily with Win boxes, and to say Windows is a nightmare to work with anymore is a gross understatement for me. I jumped into OS X in 1998, but only in the last 2 years have I really been pushed into the audio side of OS X and I am impressed.
There are a ton of audio apps here, some free, some demos, etc. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/index_abc1.html (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/audio/index_abc1.html) I think I saw the app Doc mentions on one of these pages earlier, but can't locate it now.
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Yoder,
Sorry, now I see what you're saying and that's why I don't use the dithered volume control in PureMusic either. As good as it is, it still has some audible artifacts and things just sound cleaner without it.
And I completely agree on the OSX vs windows in audio. I worked for a long time trying to get a stripped down windows machine optimized for audio playback, and when I got my mid 2010 mini and connected it bone stock and with nothing but iTunes, it instantly surpassed all the work I did on the windows platform. Then when I got Pure Music installed, the SSD, 8 gb memory, external firewire storage and the Mach2 tweaks to the OS, well, it left the windows stuff light years behind.
Even my MBP, setup as an office machine and with no special tweaks for audio, stomps all over the fully-tweaked windows boxes. I honestly don't even use windows for audio anymore.
-- Jim
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Today I spent a lot of time on the Web comparing Pure Music to Amarra. I will make the dive one of these days, but am not sure what pool I will go into. The downside to Amarra is money. Damn, you have to drop some serious cash to get the full unit. One frustration today was the lack of specs for Pure Music. They had the specs for Pure Vinyl listed on the site, but I could not find any for PM. I visited numerous sites/forums and I think that as far as quality goes, the nod went to the mini version of Amarra...but everyone backed down when the price was introduced. Have you had the opportunity to compare PM to Amarra side-by-side? I could not find any reviews comparing PM to the full version of Amarra.
Based on the various readings, Amarra grabbed me for several reasons. The fact that they have been doing this since the days of floppy discs tells me that they have a lot of R&D invested into their audio engine and are continually improving upon the old. I also was impressed with the various tools that you could buy, and they were definitely more affordable. The parametric equalizer is highly desirable, but the thing that really sent me over the top was how they emphasized their use of "mathematics" to differentiate their product from others on the market. Granted, anything dealing with digital is going to involve math but the fact that they emphasized it's refined use in their algorithms had me drooling. Much of my reasoning here is more of a matter of personal preferences and "candy toys" of sorts. When I add my take on the subjective consensus I read about...that being that Amarra just had a better sound to it. Some said PM had an overly bright sound, others said the bass just was not there, and a lot of small things like that. Granted there were some who preferred PM. Add everything up, and I am heading towards Amarra. BUT, $695 for a piece of software! Ouch, I have never paid that kind of cash for software. I will definitely try the demo of each once I get my system set-up. There is one big plus for PM and that is it's affordability and the fact that market forces will most like help bring down the price of Amarra a bit more.
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I have not compared the two, but Amarra really improves the upper and midbass compared to iTunes in my system, and that's where I find a lot of shortcomings with digital. I get the impression that some feel that Pure Music is, I think the words used were "very clear". Possibly this boils down to the old tonal balance thing where a touch of bass emphasis has the plus of giving the music some more foundation, and something with a hint of high emphasis gives the music a sense of more air and detail.
Guys whose ears I respect greatly are in both camps, some liking Amarra better some liking PM better. Probably best to download demos and compare yourself.
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Yoder,
I had just written a reply when Dan did, and had another message sent off to the big bit bucket in the sky. Anyway, I said basically the same thing -- you really need to hear both on your system to see which one works best with it.
Truth is that I think they swap the "lead" with each new release, and of course some systems respond better to certain areas being emphasized/de-emphasized, which is really why you should check out both demos. I will say that every new release of PM has been an upgrade in terms of sonics (and function).
I also think if you look more in depth at the Channel D site, especially at the other products and the various papers you'll see lots of references to various mathematical algorithms/precision/accuracy isues. Also, calling Rob Robinson directly may be a good idea. He's a really nice and super smart guy (inventor of the tunneling electron microscope at Bell Labs), and I'm sure more than capable of talking math and such.
Obviously they are both excellent programs, though the price and copy protection of Amarra, plus the fact that you have a fixed term for updates, beyond which you have to purchase upgrades, is what initially led me to PM, and it seems to be a very nice fit with my system.
HTH,
Jim
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Got my HRT II + yesterday and now have it hooked up to the Crack driving my HD600. I must say I am quite impressed thus far with its performance. Very clear and neutral which is what I was looking for with a DAC. This comb should keep me happy until DOC can come out with something better!
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I have a HRT MusicStreamer II+ and I'm extremely impressed by it. If that's within your budget, I'd recommend it strongly as nothing else I tried that was anything less than twice the price sounded nearly as good.
Since the topic of using Macs was brought up several times in this thread, check out the review of BitPerfect.app I just posted here. It's a hell of a great thing for us Mac users!
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Hey Ty,
If you're feeling aventurous, check out this little goodie:
http://www.aqvox.de/usb-power_en.html
Lots of folks have reported excellent results and improvements to their HRT dacs, as well as many others usin this clean, linear supply to power the dac receiver chip.
I don't have one yet -- partially because I'm afraid that if I get one, I'll need another for my Tranquility and another for my audiophilleo AP2.
-- Jim
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Given that the engineer at HRT has repeatedly gone on record saying that the MS line doesn't benefit from audiophile USB cords or power supplies, I'll be going with his thoughts. :lol: Seriously, though, I'm a pretty significant empiricist. I don't trust sighted listening tests at all. Until someone publishes data showing better measurements from an HRT product using an external power supply, I'll be going with the design engineer's assertion that they have the power supply thing under control.
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Well, they all say that, and I have yet to find a usb dac tat doesn't improve, sometimes very significantly, with a better usb cabl.
I also cryoed my MS II+ and that too was a nice improvement.
Hey, the cable company will lend you various usb cables to try for yourself.
BTW, for years Gordon Rankin said that a belken gold usb cable was all you needed for best performance from his dcs, now he's recommending the wireworld sar light -- significantly more expensive than the $6 belken, but not outrageous as some usb cables. Won't really cost you much of anything to try for yourself.
-- Jim
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I don't trust sighted listening tests at all.
Then you should trust Jim's opinion.
(Sorry Jim, I couldn't resist. I hope you aren't offended)
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David,
No problem, and I was about to make the same remark myself :-).
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I got a demo of both Amarra and Pure Music. Once I started playing with the parametric equalizers on the Amarra, then that is when I jumped on the Amarra bandwagon. I am currently using FW with my Duet, but once I get the system completed then I will have it on two different comuters. Having purchased Amarra for $350 or less at RMAF, and knowing that I can run it on two computers made it a killer deal in my book.