Peter,
What kind/type of PC-card may that be?

Hi Roy,

I checked the juliet and it seems to have the same Envy24HT that my Terratec Phase 24FW has.
The onboard SPDIF sounds definitly better then the Terratec's.
One way it also depends on what it is that makes the SPDIF sound better/worse.
I hoped to find a more technical answer to this because just buying something to find out myself is not the way I work...
And of course what is the DAC doing to get the SPDIF-signal tick?
BTW, can you describe the improvement you heard?

Thanks for repeating Roy!
Then there is still room for improvement. Juli@ is the best for SPDIF?
BTW. What codecs did your Gigabyte have? Azalia HD or the old AC97?
I saw the Juliet is PCI and thus goes through north and southbridge.
I would prefer therefor a PCI-e solution. Especially because that's the only slot left available in my HTPC!
Maybe Asus or Maya?

Very interesting topic!
Now I wonder if a spdif/connection from a soundcard to an external DAC would be better sounding then using the SPDIF-connector on the motherboard. The latter goes through the northbridge, southbridge and a Realtek-codec (ALC889A),
while the former goes through northbridge pci-expres and soundcard.
Any idea's/experiences?

I agree with audiodidact on the Gigabyteboards. My ma78gpm-ds2h has:
- lower RDS mosfet, ferrite core chokes and lower ESR Solid Capacitors! Sounds like good marketing talk but also sounded better then the regular version. (And what about Intel vs AMD?)

And for the battery, I once used a pc-powersupply to feed my preamp because the battery broke down. Never heard such an awfull sound. Back to battery and overnight charging!

Hi Leo,

I use SPDIF from a motherboard connector (Gigabyte). Before I used the SPDIF-output from my Terratec FW 24, but this sounded less good, rough and to forward. I just finished a 2m RG59 cable for SPDIF since I moved the DAC the 1m cable was to short and I had to use a 6 meter cable which sounded less convincing. Now with 2 meters it's sounding good again.

My experience says not to use an extra soundcard, but I guess depends on hardware (PC/DAC) and cable.

Optical output I tried and sounded almost as good as coax. (A little softer/watery/less good timing/punch...)

Since Gerard is using this DAC too it would be interesting to know his experiences too!

I thought I was using quad with Arc but it seems it's Double now. Maybe 176 is not supported by Windows or XXHE, have to check this sometime, but it sounds so good I did not feel the need to do that yet.

The modifications can be found at DIYaudio.com. :
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/137976-experience-diy-dac.html

Even there you can find new modifications I did not try yet.

Gerard.

Hi Beto,

Of course you should buy Peter's DAC!
But while waiting the Hong Kong DAC is very good value for money.
You can find it here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Gigawork-24%2F192-Up-sampling-DAC-DA-CONVERTER-w%2F-USB-kit_W0QQitemZ120474001273QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090927?IMSfp=TL090927141006r431

In the diyaudio link there are options for improvement. I put outputtransformers in stead of the opamps and
this really makes it a HighEnd DAC.  Everytime Digital(XXHE) gets better I try to improve my Vinyl but I'm afraid
digital has won now..

Just for the record since Roy meantioned me:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/digital-line-level/137976-experience-diy-dac.html

This DAC costs 100 euro's on e-bay and sounds more then 10 times the money..
But you have to put it in a box yourself and it realy starts to sing when you use outputtransformers (20 euro extra).
And for that you need to know what a soldering iron is.

I think it can only really be beaten by Peter's DAC! 

Fidelio,

I tried your experiment and also hear more livelyness without oversampling/Arc, BUT I don't like it!
To me it sounds like digital the way it has been for always, while OS/Arc gives a more relaxed/natural sound the
way good vinyl can sound. Maybe it's just a wrong taste but this way I enjoy listening for longer periods (with higher volumes).
But I'm sure it depends on the system and a lot of people will have to reconcider their systems (not their taste) because the new XX sounds really different!

It is a little clearer now, I think.
So in theory it would also be possible without upsampling, just recalculating the extra bits so the shape of the wave gets more 'natural'? (leaving out the peaks between two samples of course).
Makes me think of making a picture by connecting the dots on the paper. 4 dots can become a rectangle, but if you get more dots it appears it is supposed to be a circle. You are then calculating the perfect circle.
No idea what sinx will do with that!

Just curious: Bitperfect, first 16 bits?

Does Arc calculate the extra bits from 16 to 24/32 or are they padded with zeroes.
Because only then it makes sense that double can do so much...

Si Si señor!!

The CS8420 can do upsampling to 176/192 or just pass through. I can remove the little board and then there is no upsampling, but in the CS4398 there is the regular Sigma/Delta oversampling.
Luckily I don't use the terratec anymore, I think this was changing the output of it's SPDIF to much.
Now I use an extra outputplate with a connector to the motherboard. (Coaxial sounds good now).

I just found out 192 is working too thanks to another thread here!
Don't hear much difference/improvement between double and quad yet...

Well Peter,
I'm sorry but my oversampling DAC sounds definitively miraculous with Arc.

First I tried double without Arc, like before, and this sounded better, more defined, but voices had an electronic hardness.
So then I checked if Arc was on (no) and after I switched it on the sound is almost frighteningly good.
Bass is very strong, deep and rithmic. A lot of new details in the background, so yes where did this come from?
My dac uses a CS4398 with 120 times oversampling and in between is a CS8416 upsampler (88 to 176) but this ARC sounds
completely different from what the DAC can do in upsampling mode.

And the wife is very happy with the loud music, even singing and dancing!!

OK, then it must be either the interface ( FW to Terratech and coax to DAC) or the input of the DAC.
The coaxinput has no transformer which according to some can give a more rough sound.
But still the coax does not allow for higher sampling/bitrates so I'll use the optical which is directly sourced from the motherboard.
( I guess USB will not improve on this but I'll try that too)

Hi Peter,

I noticed something strange today.
I bought me a new DAC from Hong Kong with CS4398 which has an optical and coax input (and USB).
Since the coax only connects with 16/44 I tried the optical which connects with 32/96.
What I did not expect is a big change in sound quality. Coax being forward and bright, optical more warm and pleasant.
The difference is so big that I was thinking you do some of your magic treatment on 32(24)/96 which is not possible at 16/44?
I thought both have to be bitperfect than only you can do something with the timing, like making bits shorter in time when the angle of the sinus is steep and making the bits take more time on top of the sinus....

This is a bit over the top maybe and it's just my dac having different sounding inputs?
But anyway it's an important way to tweak my sound now.