Computer music server PC or Apple????

Thanks, Steve. I am moving very cautiously in these waters.

i just read the review in stereophile on the new benchmark dac with usb. the reviewer also used a mac mini as a transport and compared the newer dac to the older benchmark dac without usb (also to a bel canto). he stated that he liked the sound of the toslink hookup better than the usb hookup.

if i was looking to purchase a dac and it came with a usb port at no extra charge, why not go for it. if you have to pay extra for the usb port or they have to take away a toslink/rca/balanced port to put the usb in, i wouldn't do it, it might limit you in the future. I also would not make a statement that usb ports are better than toslink because of jitter issues. Simply not true in all cases. You need to listen for yourself to see if you can hear the difference.

Rbstehno - I am in communication with JA about this review. He did not know that with the Centrance firmware one needs to send either 24/44.1 or 24/96, but never 16/44.1 on the USB connection. I know this because I use similar firmware on my products. I believe with 24-bit data, the sound quality of the USB should be better than the Toslink or Coax input.

I'm sure there will be a follow with more listening tests. He alluded to this.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

hi steve, i wouldn't say that just because its 24 bit that it will be better than the 16 or 20 bit dacs. when i did evals of dacs around 2 years ago, i liked the 20 bit dacs more than the 24 bit ones. i evaluated a few 24bit and a few 20 bit and ended up with an audio research 20bit dac. i have seen other threads stating the same. Bottom line, an eval needs to take place using their own equipment and whatever sounds the best to them, they should pursue it.

Rbstehno - You dont understand. What I am saying is that the USB firmware that Empirical and Benchmark uses needs to have 24/44.1 streamed over the USB cable rather than 16/44.1. Has nothing to do with 24-bit DAC's. This has to do with how Windows and Vista handle the USB interface with audio streaming and getting bit-perfect playback.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio