Dreadhead

Congrats looks like fun!

Well I've confirmed this with the article over at Computer Audiophile. I was excited for this product but it now looks like it's a lot of money to not include the capability to use it without a computer in the loop. Oh well maybe they'll make a version with digital inputs but maybe they did not want to compete with their disc players.

Well screw that then.... Still interested to hear reviews

I don't know enough what all the chips offer but it could just support each of the sample rates and work as a NOS system. I'm assuming that it has optical inputs too which is what I'll be using since I need to pass the data through my DEQ anyway. We shall see what comes out the other end soon enough. I'm hoping Stereophile does a review and measurement session soon.

Agreed. I'm looking forward to the reviews.

Yup No contest there. As long as the USB is entirely isolated.

Do you have a budget in mind? I can recommend the Bel Canto DAC3 (around $1500 used) though the Pico DAC looks good too though I haven't heard the Pico or the Pico DAC as yet. Another to think about is the Bryston DAC which looks really nice and you can't beat the warranty. There are Benchnmark DAC1s that go cheap every once and a while too. I would recommend instead of getting a USB DAC you go to a USB DD converter that outputs SPDIF to the DAC to separate the ground from the DAC. I have had ground hum issues with every DAC that I've tried to hook up using a straight USB hookup. Good luck!

wow

Happy birthday Dom! I'll try and remember to bring a walker for you at the next meet.

sell it and buy a black one?

Nice Thanks

Really? You understood? I wonder why you responded as you did then. etc. You're hilarious dude.

YAY And I would like to make clear again that this is a HUGE guess.

Anyone think any of those units can work like this: Transport portion -> external DSP -> DAC portion I doubt it but I am hopeful.

Agreed.

Yup. Just ask my wife the intellectual property ligation lawyer.

Henry.... Harold? It's essentially an ingrained loophole turn of phrase so you don't use the lord's name in vain as the commandment says.

x2, I'm in DC so there was no traffic and our damn building is 3/4 empty. Bloody CSC.

I've got my fingers crossed for your Dan

The guy from wavelength appears to be really helpful to all (not that I will buy his stuff). He seems to be honestly interested in helping anyone get the best out of their computer audio. Also it's possible that he has a patent on the tech and it was cheaper for him to let Ayre license vs going into patent litigation. Just a guess at best.

Elevate by Fiona Mackenzie Awesome recording and a wonderful voice

I knew something was different... not in the major details but in the micro-details and the timing of the page-loads

Hydrogenaudio already has some (not too complimentary) threads

Well at I own 3 usb hard drives I did not say error free I said error tolerant. USB does have some issues since it's asynchronous and this can certainly cause problems in that the music drops out. That said if they digital signal gets through the only thing I can see being an issue is the jitter in the digital signal. Jitter could be the cause but I'm not so convinced because some "amazing" transports have jitter problems and other so so transports have great jitter. Also tests on the audibility of jitter are very suspect. Another possible source is some kind of DSP going on in the transport which of course can make a difference. I'm not saying that they don't sound different but that I don't see why they should sound different. They are taking digital data and delivering it, there are lots of devices that do this very well ranging from digital cable to cell phones and I don't see why it will take 2 grand to do this with CDs.

One thing to remember is that if you paint the walls of a room a different color people will be in a different mood in it and this will effect what they hear. I'm tempted to think that much like hard disks digital audio is fairly error tolerant (could you imagine if the data came off the hard disk differently depending on what disk it was on).