Help! Digital Numpty

[Fretless]

Point taken, Doc. Excuses for being a bit pushy.

Hope you do find a good solution to your problem here.

[Lazmo]

Doc i have one of these doing nothing at the moment your very welcome to borrow it to see if it suits your needs

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-TeraLink- ... 23507fb321

I used it to convert laptop usb into a dac.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Thanks a lot for the offer but I am going to wait for a HiFace. It is not urgent, just a future project.

[brit-pop]

You can take a horse to water but you can't climb a ladder with a beer in both hands.

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I had the answer before I started this thread I had just forgotten about it. Thanks everyone.

[terrybooth]

I've heard a few DACs and I've messed with a few with the Pi. I've heard the Doc's CD and DAC combination and I understand why he's got the DAC he wants - just needs to 'feed' it differently. I'd dearly like to come up with a solution to that.

[Yomanze]

I seriously recommend you get down hear and listen to the Sony before you waste your time. I had heard so many DACs they come out of my ears, I have tried many different circuits when I was building them in the early 90's and ended up modifying QED Digits which even today with a couple of simple mods are better than the cheap chips we have now. No one today would be able to build that Sony, it was done as a statement, discreet is *always* better than encapsulation when done properly. They must have sold these at a loss even at the price they were. Have you seen the pic of the inside. I linked to a page earlier. http://www.thevintageknob.org/sony-DAS-R1.html they weigh over 20 kg.

Todays DACs are encapsulated crap as far as I am concerned, they work, they are quiet, they are clean and they are sterile. The Sony is liquid, it is analogue if you prefer, it plays music beyond the level of any dac anyone is capable of building today.

The DAC is the reason my present CD system pisses on my old TFS which was better than any of the current server solutions, not the transport. The transport with its excellent internal DAC is very good, with the DAS R1 it become astonishing in its ability to portray music at a level of reality only achieved by the best analogue systems.

For once and hopefully the only time, as it is embarrassing, Marco and I are in complete agreement.

Not entirely true Doc, whilst I've no doubt the Sony will make pretty much everything around today sound sterile & flat, I would still love to listen to it alongside my current production TDA1541A DAC (Audial Model S), which has some modern thinking not contained in vintage TDA1541A DACs. As you point out though the sound is very 'liquid', 'analogue' and doesn't sound like 'digital', so maybe the similarities of these DACs will be more than the differences...

Back on topic though, I've used V-Links, HagUSB, HiFace etc., but when I started using the Halide Bridge, it was that good, that I stopped using CD transports entirely & now use a media server.

You could get a deal: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Halide-Bridge ... 1694080792

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Bought this on ebay in the end, its cheap and for the job I want it to do which is listen to youtube through my system I hope it will be adequate.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321765106803? ... EBIDX%3AIT

[brit-pop]

Yes it will, but don't underestimate the improvement that a good USB cable can make.

Supra do a reasonably priced one and I found it an improvement over standard issue stuff and even preferred it to a furutech one I tried which I gave to a pal in the end.

I was as shocked as anybody to actually hear differences in USB cables and to confirm this I invited a mate round to double check my expectation bias wasn't at play.

[Fretless]

+1 for the Supra USB cable. I had a more expensive Audioquest Cinnamon and replaced it with the Supra. Yes, you do hear a difference, it is probably something to do with cable-induced jitter that affects the synchronicity of the USB audio signal and that is audible as a slight veiling & loss of sharp focus of the detail in the resulting audio.