crass

Actually you might be able to approximate some kind of solution to use a duet in windows with cygwin (linux has coreaudio ports). If it were me though, I would just get a hacked version of osx.

I'm using the Ultra Microdac (I had it preodered a couple months before). Its an excellent unit and sounds incredible. A huge improvement over the microdac and other dacs I've heard (which isnt a huge list). I would give a buy recommendation to anyone who is thinking about it.

Heres a good video review of it;

Theres a 3rd option. Its a little more expensive than a squeezebox but it can do so much more. The Asus eee pc. Heres a pic I grabbed from google: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1338/1484629462_c49b385305.jpg Anyway, it runs a modified (and simplified) version of linux. Its made to be a very small laptop (it has a 7 inch screen and 8gb of flash, no hard drive). It includes the wonderful amarok music player, which is superior to itunes in every respect. Anyway, it doesn't have a digital out, but if your dac is USB it will be no problem. Or you can get something like the m-audio transit to feed your dac. Theres a thread on head-fi right now for using this thing as a transport. Anyway, I'll have one in a couple weeks. I'll be using it as my transport. I'll let you all know how it works out.

I live in san francisco!

This thread was highly entertaining, and enlightening. I'm glad I escaped head-fi. Kevin, much respect for your amp designs and ability to cut through bullshit. ^Wow, that wasn't censored! I can actually curse here! Shit!

Have you read head-fi's cables forum? Have you ever witnessed posts by patrick82? If so, you would consider HC rational too.

haha, are you guys making fun of my new ultra microdac? It really does sound pretty good... From the start I took hf with a grain of salt. I didn't trust much of what they gave for advice, thankfully. Otherwise I would have wasted a lot more money than I did. I'll admit I did make a couple stupid purchases from advice I got there - the monica 2 has been pretty hit or miss. It sounds good but I should have spent the money on something else. That and the alien dac. The Ultra microdac blows those away, and the home ac module for a headroom desktop amp my friend has. I am very happy with the PPAv2 w/ STEPS misterX built for me though. It has nice opa627's and good botique caps. My HD650 buy seems to be a good one too. Yeah, so overall I think I survived head-fi without doing something very stupid, like buying a $800 power cord or ics. This community looks a lot more, uh... rational? than head-fi. I'm glad I found it!

I just picked up the new Headroom Ultra Microdac on top of my PPAv2, which is the pretty much the same as the MAX that n_maher has, except its single ended. I will say it sounds fantastic. I'll get better pics up soon. BTW, this is my first post. I'm a head-fi refugee looking for a new home =D