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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: Hi from Melbourne AUS - Advice for a rookie
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on: June 15, 2010, 05:06:59 pm
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Here is a question then, I can buy the Musical Fidelity V-Dac for around EU$350, and the XFace for EU$138. Assuming I am happy to spend the EU$350, would that be your choice? Don't discard the upgrade of the amp, but it wont cost any less than 5-800 AU$. Also a pci soundcard as Peter said, can work good, the juli@ and the Cantatis Overture have high praise here in these forums. I have something similar to the Julia as temporary solution and it doesnt sound bad at all - it should be about on the same level than your current dac, but with the ability of playing highres material. The Cantatis i'm sure is a step above.
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214
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your questions about the PC -> DAC route / Re: Hi from Melbourne AUS - Advice for a rookie
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on: June 14, 2010, 12:33:13 pm
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Hi Telstar, I knew the moment I posted the message, that would be the response hehe I have recently embraced the "source first" motto, so I would say to improve the computer first. Win7 should sound better than XP, so I will switch to it and do any other hardware fixes needed (i dont know your pc) to ensure it works smoothly and it's not underpowered. Then the x-face seem a good option for the time being. But, a decent usb dac (such as musical fidelity v-dac) can outperform the xface+old BB dac (you dont tell me which one is, so i assume its the pcm58, which is very good), although probably modding your integrated dac/amp can also work. If you know somebody that can improve the dac part of your amp -psu, clock and output stage- (and knows what to do) , go for it.
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216
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: SQ of 0.9z-1
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on: June 13, 2010, 07:09:22 pm
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It may or may not be related to this, but when i switched on 9z with my *studio* PC i preferred the non upsampled version to the 4x AP I was using before (hence making also the computer more responsive since i WORK on it at the same time ). I didnt make precise AB testing, and I havent done any on the real system, just feelings. It could be very well that NOS playback improved a lot.
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221
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Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: 0,9z-1 clock/resolution operations in future version
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on: June 09, 2010, 08:56:40 pm
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So, I still think we should just denote the wanted output rate. That is *as* clear, and "obviously" will be set to the DAC max' rate. But hmm ... what about if you just don't want to upsample anything.
Yes, exactly, if we dont want or we CANT upsample. I like the output rate choice, but i do not find confusing the current system, as long as one know the resolution of the source (and i think that now is displayed in the left side).
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Phasure NOS1 DAC / Re: World's first NOS 24/192 filterless DAC ?
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on: June 09, 2010, 06:42:05 pm
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Btw, for clarification, I saw that I wrote this :
"1Vp-p output = 1/1.414 = 0.7V"
which should have been
"1Vp-p output = 1/1.414 = 0.7VRMS"
I think the misunderstanding lies in the difference between peak voltage and peak to peak voltage, which are not the same thing (although i still dont understand why). So I believe that you measured or calculated the peak voltage, in which case to use the squareroot of 2 divider is correct. What matters for me to match the sensitivity is the vRMS (taken with sinewaves)
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225
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Phasure NOS1 DAC / Re: World's first NOS 24/192 filterless DAC ? Status Update
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on: June 09, 2010, 04:35:47 pm
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The DAC now outputs 1.5VRMS (this is around 2V peak-peak, see later). The before best sounding version had an output of 324mVRMS. Notice that times 2 (6dB) this is 648 and again times 2 (another 6dB) this is 1300; With the before 324VRMS I played this Made in Japan album at -12dB(FS) or so. In fact the maximum level without expecting complaints from the family (and which level is already shouting in eachother's ear when something must be said). Yesterday I played the album at -10.5dB, which means some 14dB louder as usual. 14dB is a LOT ... (...) The only thing I can think of is the official math laying in squares versus sines. So, if I output, say, 1Vp-p in squares, this will be 1 VRMS as well. Notice that "VRMS" is the average output voltage, and p-p (peak-peak) is the output voltage you would measure with a multi meter. Now, a square will always be at the peaks (horizontal line), whereas the sine only reaches the peak for one moment in the wave cycle and then drops back. The relation between a sine and its average voltage output is 1.414. In other words, 1Vp-p output = 1/1.414 = 0.7V. So my gut feeling tells me that something like "before all was far too squary, and now it's nice sines" is going on. But it sure is audible, whatever it is. Ahem... my engineers made me notice that vRMS is half of the p-p value (but i dont exactly understand why). So my question is: did you measure the peak to peak tension or directly RMS (my multimeter can do that) and calculated the other?
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