Using PC for High End audio source (1 Viewer)

[sam5001]

Is anyone else on the forum using their PC for a high end audio source?
I have a dedicated audio PC and play uncompressed WAVs through a 16-bit NOS USB DAC. Sound is incredible. Better than any CD source I've heard.

I have been experimenting with different software for playback. So far XXHighend has been the best, but the user interface is bad and its not very stable. Foobar2000 improves the interface but I have been unable to get great sound so far...maybe need to change settings?

Any thoughts or suggestions? Thought I'd start a thread...

 

[AUDIODIDAKT]

hello,

I'm Roy from Eindhoven Holland.

I'm USING a X-FI SOUNDCARD to my homemade 24/96khz dac (X-treme high-end)
and are going to use the clock of guido tent (from tentlabs) for de soundcard as wel for the dac.

I dont know if there is any good software.

I'm using winamp and foobar so far
checking out XXHighend.

grtz roy
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[AUDIODIDAKT]

I think the best cd drive is a hdd (later on solid state)
play wave thru soundcard then to a HQ dac
then you have better sound then what the sell in the store as (high-end)!!!!
it plays better then an the best accuphase.(and cheaper)

Happy tweak year everybody

grtz roy

 

[Scott Strang]

Well I use a Turtle Beach Audio Advantage USB device that creates an optical s/pdif out which also doubles as a line level out. I run the optical s/pdif out to a Sony DAT recorder running in "monitor" mode acting as a DAC. It works really well and is dead silent. The DAT's xvertors sound pretty good so it works pretty well. It sounds far better than any analog out on the cpu and has none of that digital distortion some complain about of with USB DAC's. Just leave your media player at 0db (or 100% level) and use your receiver or pre-amp for the level control. I also don't use any of the asinine "audio effects" that came with the device's drivers. They are useless IMHO.

If I could afford it (which I cannot) I would buy one of these
Cambridge - Dac Magic - Digital to Analog Converter-Audio Advisor

or one of these which could be directly connected to a power amp.
Benchmark - USB - DAC-1-Audio Advisor

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Nothing so esoteric yet, I am running the analog out of my SB Live to my TV which is doing the conversion to TosLink, into the Receiver.

But most of my "listening" is done on pandora or theradio, so I guess it can't be claimed to be Audiophile level (sure sounds good to me).

That's the setup for the moment. I plan on replacing the workstation with either a high end HP Multimedia workstation or a Blackbird 002 depending on how much I am willing to spend. I work for HP so I get a discount, that's why I am most likely going that route.

The new machine will have the highest up sound card I can get, and go straight to the receiver via toslink.

 

[AUDIODIDAKT]

is there a direct link to XXHighend download
can't find it.