Look forward to that Peter. I would still like to lower my latency figures without glitches, though I have been happily enjoying the system for some time now.

Hi Peter

Having read your installation instructions for 0.9u it seems a bit scary.

Have I missed something or is 0.9u adding gain in the PC?

Cheers Chris

If you mean it gets its power from the computer, mine doesn't. I use a Firewire connection and the FF400 plugs in the mains with its own transformer.

With USB connected DACs, yes.
I thought you just bought one ??

Nope the Shek D2 has switchable SPDiff and optical inputs.

Regarding the soundcard, I think the penny has just dropped for me. I had failed to appreciate that their main job (for sound out) was to serve as a DAC, and once you have a DAC elsewhere then it is not needed. .

The same applies to the fireface. I was confused because it is called a soundcard, but as you explain its best applied just to 'convert' firewire to SPDiff and not use the internal DAC (which is naff).   

OK that begs another two questions.

1. When a DAC is fed by USB is there some sort of internal conversion to SPDiff inside the machine.

2. Whatever is this 12S I keep stumbling across

I know a little bit about soundcards, mainly that soundcards in PCs are pretty cheap and poor sounding and that external soundcards like the Fireface are often quite expensive but good.

My question:

Are there circumstances where a sound card is avoided completely with certain types of DAC?

YES Just had an audible drop out that coincided exactly with a red bar of 3886us

Hi Peter

The measurements I gave earlier were with the laptop sitting idle and not even running music or on the Internet.

I now have XXHighend running. For 99.9% of the time all measurements are steady, just like yours, between 1000 and 1080us. About every 30 miniutes I get a single red bar at about 4000us - this is probably my drop outs.

FIO I did try the PCI latency program some time ago, but the software did not apply to vista

Have we just opened another can of worms??

Just out of interest:

Most small spikes of about 150us(green), many at about 1000us (yellow), and one or two beauties at about 50,000us (red).

OK Peter

One small problem, can you remind me (us) how to capture the image and post it

Cheers Chris

Those that followed my early tribulations will know that I had (and still occasionally have) drop-outs during music playback.

This is not an XXHighend issue, but is to do with how 'busy' the computer is internally, and how other tasks is has to do can cause music playback (which has relatively low priority) to stutter.

Here is a bit of software that tests you computer.
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Mine shows that "some device drivers on this machine behave bad and will probably cause drop outs". Nice to have it confirmed now i just need to identify what processes are causing it :wacko

OK Peter will have a critical listen ASAP  . Somewhere I have a CD of Eddie Calvert (Oh Mein Papa!) so should be perfect.

My system is all over the place at present as I assemble the duplicate system to experiment with layered sound (mentioned under Chatter). Have today received a Flying Mole CA-S3 amp, which needs to be burnt in as well - so much fun on a wet and windy January.  

This topic seems to have been side tracked somewhat with talk of quad cores so back to discussing DACs.

Despite using an oversampling DAC (as an integral part of my Tact 2.2x), and being very happy with it, I wanted to explore the nosdac concept without throwing out large sums of money. Secondhand is not a very good option because of the rarity of such beasts but also the fact that the small manufacturers seem to be regularly improving their products so obsolescence plays a part.

In the end I opted for a Shek D2 (1545 chipset) for about £180 inc P&P. I ordered on Ebay, having exchanged a couple of e mails with Derek Shek (he seems a good guy and I have recommended to him to the use of XXHighend).

Any fears of dealing with someone in Hong Kong disappeared when the kit arrived just 3 days after posting. .

Straight out the box it sounded good, and after 24 hours of burn-in it sounds just great, even fed from an old Marantz CD76 transport. On the end of my Fireface 400 and running with XXHighend it moves up yet another level. Digital 'annoyance' is gone completely and the DAC is just so smooth but with a real boogie factor.

Highly recommended.
 

About 30 years ago I bought a well used Wurlitzer Lyric jukebox, and put together a collection of 1200+ singles mainly of 60's and 70's pop.

With valve amplifier and mechanical works, I nursed that old jukebox up until recently when I sold it on e Bay for over ten times what I paid for it 

So I have moved on, with the purchase of a new CD jukebox (to play all those 'redundant' CDs that are now copied on to my hard drive)

Anyone else have a jukebox as their alternative system?

Thanks, the mist is beginning to clear.

Brilliant, thanks for taking the time to set that out

Couple of initial questions:

1. Also note the huge dilemma : already 24 bit nos-DACs (chip wise) do not exist (not to my own research). I think 23 bits nos chips exist and by combining two you you'll get a 24 bit functional DAC.
Is this the principal behind the TwinDac?

2. Now also note the reason why you'd want a 24 bit DAC.
Am I right in saying that for most of us we dont need the digital volume control so 24 bit is a luxury we can do without?