Hopstretch

So the bottleneck in most USB DACs would be the receiver chip rather than the protocol? Speeding off topic, is it silly for me to make a fetish of USB or FireWire connectivity anyway when I could just run optical from my iMac and enjoy both hi-rez capability and a far larger choice of DACs, vintage and modern? I guess I just have it in my head -- for no substantive reason -- that toslink sucks and should be avoided where possible. Is there anything to that?

OK, the thing is that unless he's using material actually encoded for surround (movies, SACD etc.) there's not much point in going that way and paying for the three extra speakers. If he's using the usual office flat-panel monitor as a display you could either get a couple of decent, unobtrusive speakers to mount on either side of it or one of those sound bars that throws the illusion of surround sound. I can dig a couple of decent examples of both up for you if you like.

It's not clear to me what he's after. Can you elaborate a bit?

Sigur Ros -- Takk

Heh.

I guess we'll see. Someone on Head-Fi apparently has his hands on one already, but is currently preoccupied with trying to pick out just the right interconnects.

Pretty sure that's from the writer. Ayre have not made much of the 24/96 angle as Charles Hansen seems much more interested in handling jitter better through the use of asynchronous mode. The rationale behind the QB-9 is laid out here: http://www.ayre.com/pdf/Ayre_USB_DAC_White_Paper.pdf Regarding USB limitations, I see that the paper says: It appears to suggest that parallel use of the TAS1020B with custom drivers is required to get around that limitation, though I have no idea if this is the only way or indeed even if the limitation extends to other common USB chips.

I thought 16/44.1 was a limitation of the USB 1.1 spec, which most USB DAC chips still seem to be based around?

OK.

Ween -- White Pepper Stuck in my cabana/Living on bananas and blow.

+1. Give us data or die.

Denon DA-500. Finally going to make the AirTunes thing happen.

Waiting with bated breath for your impressions of the DAC2 Chris! Of course, I've heard nothing back from the dealer about the Ayre DAC. "Matter of days" my ays.

Doves -- Kingdom Of Rust Another good album but TOO DAMN LOUD.

Nice writeup of the single-ended Ultra Desktop at Secrets this week (whatever you think about the choice of headphones). With the Max DAC and the pre-amp functionality, that looks like a pretty darn good deal for a desktop system.

Gomez -- A New Tide Just starting into this. If it's half as good as How We Operate I'll be chuffed, as that was one of my favorite albums of the last few years.

Egg, ricotta and spinach panini with an arugula and pickled onion salad. Om nom nom.

Depeche Mode -- Sounds Of The Universe

I bought a six pack of Palo Santo Marron from the local beer barn this afternoon. Will see if it makes me go woop woop this evening. They had several cases in the back.

Bistromathics is tastier and cryomathics sounds better. Duh.

This one's about played out.

Happy Mothday!