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PC audio with USB DAC

Hello all:

With my digital library of music expanding to almost 10,000 songs now and the fact that I work at home much of the time, I have the desire to improve my computer audio system.

I tend to use 320Kbps AAC files or mp3 files with a few FLAC files for auditioning.

I have a laptop, so starting from nil. I am a neophyte to computer audio and as such have been reading about USB DACs.

I am ready to upgrade the speakers to a set of decent powered desktop units (Audioengine 5+)and a subwoofer (Audioengine S8)and wanted to start with a USB DAC. I have a small Classe preamp and amp, but don't want to have too many things to turn on at the computer to get good music sound. Please don't consider this slumming, it's a brave new audio world :-)

I decided to acquire the Nuforce Udac2 SE.

The sound is definitely more dynamic. The lows are stronger, the mid range is clearer and the highs are higher to my untrained ears. My problem is around the convenience factor.

A USB DAC doesn't become active until the USB port and the DAC driver are initialized. This simply means that you can't hear boot alerts and such. Not that big a deal I guess for premium sound, but I wondered if anyone had any comments about that.

Also the need for drivers which in my short experience appear to have problems. While I had the Udac2 SE in my system, I found that in the middle of a song, the music would stop and I would get a loud white-noise hiss or popping sound or staticky sound...all disconcerting.

After a couple of days of screwing around and getting aberrant behavior, I returned the Udac2 SE.

I'm sorry this was a long message, but I am very interested in other's experiences and any hints.

Thanks,

BannonB
bannonb

Showing 1 response by bannonb

bannonb OP
1 posts
 
Thanks for the input everyone. I love to see a vibrant community with passion for music and practical experience on how to get there.

I should have mentioned my system type
Thinkpad W520 (Quad Core CPU), 8GB RAM, Win 7 SP1.
This is a traveling laptop, so not dedicated to any one thing.

I am currently using iTunes but am evaluating Jriver Media Center 17 (and am pissed that it is screwing with my library--and placing a hundred songs into "unassigned" artist. I just got to where I understand how itunes does it, but I digress...

Using internal 500GB hard drive for golden master of library. Have a NAS with a mirror image for streaming to the rest of the house. I may allow that NAS copy to be my golden master, but this is a laptop and I travel with it. I can use the iPhone for music on the road though.

Davide mentioned evaluating the Sonos system. I looked at it but not seriously. The prices for multiroom music made me look elsewhere. I may very well come back to it as time goes by.

I am interested in best value for the buck in both equipment and filesizes. I just want to make my traveling laptop sound great while I'm docked at home. I just bought the AudioEngine 5+ which is shielded so should work as a pc desktop speaker. I also bought their D1 DAC with volume control for the desktop. I will evaluate them in that configuration then probably buy their S8 Subwoofer after the bills clear :-)

I have ripped some lossless, but it is so reliant on the recording that I need to rip some high quality recorded CDs to make that serious evaluation. In the meantime I have experimented with mp3 320K and AAC fixed 256 and fixed 320 and VBR 256. I have no confidence that I can discern a listenable difference. I expect to get more serious after the upgrade mentioned above.

I am open to your experiences and a good happy medium to use beyond the obvious (lossless rips).

I am especially interested in replacing itunes. I really like the flexibility of Jriver MC 17 so far, but am prepared to eval more. I need iphone and ipod support and a good usable UI.

I am also happy to share my experiences with Jriver for those that are interested although this may fit better in a different forum section.

BannonB
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