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Starburst

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  1. Well, I've certainly made a few 'discoveries' by visiting blog sites containing such material. I also listen to a radio show which plays oddities. Quite often they'll have an interview where it's mentioned that an unknown artist from yesteryear got a re-release on the strength of just this sort of underground file sharing. Usually years after their record company had given up on them and the artist retired. I've got MP3's (not FLAC's unfortunately) of stuff that had a release of a few hundred copies. This sort of file sharing is definitely not killing music.
  2. I'm in the process of speccing up an HTPC with the emphasis on sound. my basic spec is near finalised and I've a post on Silent PC Review so their good folk can point out errors in my thinking. Those folk aren't too hot on the audio side though. This is where you guys come in. I currently use a Maplin USB to Optical adapter (£18) and Beresford TC7510 DAC (£110) to feed my pre amp. I figure I have £375 to £425 of my budget left to get sound from my new HTPC to Pre Amp. Unfortunately the UK £ doesn't buy very much what with poor exchange rates and high electronics prices here in rip off Britain. My proposed motherboard uses ALC889A HD audio chip with SPDIF out. How do I spent that cash? A USB or firewire interface to my Beresford? A secondhand SPDIF,USB or firewire DAC replacing the Beresford? But which? A secondhand AES16 with cable adapters to phono straight to pre amp? A secondhand AES16 with SPDIF adapter to Beresford? Save up and get a Benchmark? My current weakest link seems to be the Maplin adapter. An M Audio Audiophile could fix that and leave loads of change. I'm just entering that vast hinterland between budget value and uber exotica. I need help because I want to buy soon. Thaks in advance for any assistance offered. Lee Update/edit I think I've settled on using the SPDIF out from the motherboard and upgrading my Beresford DAC to a Cambridge DAC Magic, together with a new better 1.5m or so optical cable. It seems the simplest solution and would cost £200 + cable. Should I be able to use ASIO drivers in Foobar/MediaMonkey through onboard SPDIF in WIn XP? If so, I think Ive cracked it as best I can. Any opinions/ideas? 2nd Update/edit It's just been pointed out to me that the AES16 is a digital output device, and has no analogue outputs. So scratch my earlier idea of using it's analogue outs straight to my pre amp. I'm beginning to see the light.
  3. They're around 200 quid without tochscreen. They'll cope with 720p video playback too. If you use digi out or USB DAC, have external optical drive and an external hard drive they've a lot going for them. Factor in drive costs and you go a long way to getting a real PC. There's little scope for expansion either. On the other hand they're unobtrusive, near silent, and consume very little power. All HTPC plusses. Would they work well on a network as a controller where media is held on another PC and streams via EEE PC to hifi?
  4. A newbie here with a No1 post. I've been checking this site for a month or so now, quite handy, cheers Chris. I have a mid 90's Arcam Black Box 50 (first consumer DAC with sync lock?), a new Beresford TC7510 and a 5 year old Yamaha AV amp as DACs. The Beresford seems to have a rather sterile feel but eeks out more information than the Arcam. The Arcam seems to be much warmer but lacks the detail of the Beresford. I think that which sounds best depends on the sound signature of the source fed to these DACs. The Yamaha sounds worse than either, just rough round the edges. I attribute this difference to the newer Beresford doing a better job of conversion whilst the formerly expensive Arcam has a nice sounding analogue side. How off the ball am I on this idea? Is there much going on in the analogue side of a DAC? Feeding the Arcam a none 44.1/48 source results in a rapid clicking sound, like having 1000 crickets inside your ears. I'm currently speccing up a new HTPC since one of my old PC's has died. That's a story for another thread.
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