Can you use FireWire instead of USB? The Focusrite Saffire has AD/DA, mixing, and a lot of different format conversions (e.g., SP/DIF I/O) for a street price of $349. As for audiophile quality, Alan Taffel, who did the series on USB digital audio in the Aug. issue of TAS, much preferred the results of the Focusrite Saffire's format conversion of FireWire-to-SP/DIF over what the Bel Canto was able to do with USB-to-SP/DIF. And he wasn't blaming the Bel Canto; he just feels that FireWire's additional bandwidth creates a better digital stream. That may also explain why this fairly inexpensive and easily accessible gizmo does 24/192 while you strain to find a 24/192 USB DAC. |
This is a transition period for hiresolution audio and highend. You can use any dac you like in the market and connecti it to dCS Uclock, with its asychronous usb you can have full bandwidth and native 24/96. For the moment if we had all of our digital library in 24/96 native!!! it would be marvellous. Of course if money is not the object, you can go with dCS Paganini and Scarlatti systems for 24/192 or use Alpha dac with Lynx & RME sound cards also for true 24/192 but no usb. Ayre also has a usb adapter for 24/96. I guess in the next years all new DACS from respected digital companies will have built-in usb asychronous 24/96 and if new usb3.0 allows it even 24/192. And the new platoforms media players from microsoft and apple will make the simple 44.1/16 history. [of course the music companies should let their native material of 24/96 to access] |
"I think differences between 24/96 & 192 would have to be very slight..." I believe that sometimes 96 kHz can be better. Still, we all "feel" that difference should not be great. Yet, Reference Recording charge for their 24/192 WAV files (HRz) - $45 and 24/96 FLAC files (via HDTrack.com) for $12 or $15 i.e. three times difference. I do not believe that RR take entire audiophile community as idiots so there is something there which I do not understand. If I buy new DAC and I do - I will take one with 192 capabilities even if I have to pay a bit extra |
To the posters early in this thread that criticized the TAS article on USB for not including any Wavelength product, Wavelength may not have been included but it was not overlooked. This is what the writer had to say about Wavelength: "When it came to selecting USB DACs for these sessions, my biggest challenge was narrowing the burgeoning field of candidates. In the end, I chose the Benchmark DAC1 Pre, Bryston's brand new BDA-1, the equally fresh Audio Research DAC7, and my trusty, Golden Ear Award-winning Resolution Audio Opus 21 stack. (Wavelength Audio, which builds intriguingly innovative USB DADs, unfortunately declined to particpate in these tests.)" The conclusions of the survey may have been flawed by the absence of Wavelength but, at least in this case, TAS did not drop the ball. |
