DAC to the Future

[George Hincapie]

Amazon do 30-day returns .....

Ooh! Cheeky!

[CN211276]

Also the upsampling is halted to maintain audio and video sync.

Bloody spell check.

The upsampling is halfed.

Fixed in original post CN.

[George Hincapie]

Sod it - ordered the Carbon USB-C lead as well. Will compare it with the Cinnamon and whichever gives the better SQ I'll keep, the other goes back.

The Carbon was also 22% reduced from normal RRP on Amazon.

[George Hincapie]

Out of curiosity I went back to this 'USB Shoot-Out' that I did in the summer of 2020

viewtopic.php?p=210102#p210102

AQ Carbon comes out with flying colours (just behind DH Labs).

[George Hincapie]

It'll be interesting to see how you get on with the Carbon in your system.

I really need to decide what to do with my headphone system from a cable perspective. May try the DH Labs RCA again. I have to say though that the Blue Jeans cables really are very good indeed. Their RCA, XLR and SPDIF Digital Coax cables are low capacitance and really well made. Excellent cable and connectors.

I do find myself struggling with my attitude to cables generally; part of me feels that as long as they of sufficiently low capacitance and well made, then they will be perfectly fine. But part of me keeps falling for the slurp and wondering if more expensive ones will be better. Even though I know logically they shouldn't be. And then I buy them and they aren't. Argh!

[Fretless]

Chopping and changing like crazy at the moment.

So now I'm trying the ancient Windows Vista Acer desktop PC which runs Volumio 3 loaded onto a USB stick on the front. The PC is on top of the CD player and pushed back as far as it can go to minimize the noise it makes.

You can really notice the difference that a full-size device like this makes over the diminutive Asus Tinkerboard (which is no mean feat!). Sound quality is awesome with more grip on imaging and detail, also there is more authority in the bass.

For cable fans - I now have an AQ Carbon running from PC to the Schiit Wyrd and the AQ Cinnamon then into the DAC.

To be quite honest, I can hardly hear the PC whirring away when the music is playing, maybe now it won't bother me so much.

Tomorrow's swap will be the Oehlbach XXL Masterclock in place of the Wyrd. The Tinkerboard going back into the headphone setup in the sitting-room.

Pondering another option which is moving the PC quite far away from the whole installation as I do have a fairly long Supra USB cable that can be utilised.

[George Hincapie]

Have a look at this if you want a quiet solution:

https://up-shop.org/up-gateway-atom-x5- ... e-b10.html

Or this:

https://fit-iot.com/web/products/fitlet3/

[Firebug1]

Fretless, what happened to the fanless pc you had?

[Fretless]

Fretless, what happened to the fanless pc you had?

Hi Firebug, the fanless PC is in my Downstairs system running into the Denafrips Ares DAC. I have also installed Volumio 3 on that and it is resampling to 768 KHz and sounding incredible.

[Firebug1]

Fretless, what happened to the fanless pc you had?

Hi Firebug, the fanless PC is in my Downstairs system running into the Denafrips Ares DAC. I have also installed Volumio 3 on that and it is resampling to 768 KHz and sounding incredible.

So, you need another