LAMF

I'm drowned in sound from the chaotic harmony of The Mars Volta - the Bedlam In Goliath. The real progressive band of our time?! Omar Rodriguez Lopez is for sure one of the best guitarists around.

It's not hard to believe that you have a very good and controled low freqs with that set of Paradigms. They are indeed very good speakers. I have a Nad like yours in my comp system and like you i'm very content with it. I also try avoiding Nad's preamp but i ended up using it because i like to use some eq. in some music and also because of the headphones output. For software, actually i'm using JRiver with asio driver which is similar to Foobar but with a nicer layout and as i like to say it's kinda like Foobar on steroids... IMHO, you should try it.

Many tanx for the input Daniel.

Well, maybe because the M-Audio is a better unit than the Pro-Ject USB Box.... ?! or maybe because you have a better synergy between all the other audio setput than with the USB Box...?! I'd made good vinyl recordings using my Pro-Ject Debut 3 Turntable with an Ortofon MC15, a Musical Fidelity 3AX preamp, the Soundblaster X-fi and using Plextools as recording software.

IMHO, Paradigm Atom Monitors are a good suggestion. Here's an interesting review on Stereophile: http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/907para/

Just install the Asio driver that comes with the setup disk and enjoy. The simple/minimalist design of the Pro-Ject USB Box is what gives it its performance. It is more transparent and more natural sounding. With a pair of great speakers the improvement over the SoundBlaster X-Fi ( which i have for months ) were immediately noticeable. The sheer pace, attack, accuracy, detail and depth. and energy of the music are much more noticeable than before. The combination with the heavily modded Musical Fidelity X-10D buffer - Epcos and Panasonic caps, Vishay resistors, Shotky diods and Siemens ECC85 NOS valves - gained a little extra weight and definition in the lower registers which improves sound warmth being replaced by a noticeably punchier and dynamic sound. Not only because of the valve “magic effect” but also because its load matching ability. The Burr-Brown PCM2702 USB chip DAC is also used by: FubarII/III, GoVibe Petite USB, Ti Kan's Alien DAC, Hotaudio40 HotUSB1,Keces USB DAC, TooleAudio BantamDAC, Silverstone Ensemble EB01 USB Dac, KingRex T20USB and even the $1600 Sutherland Engineering 12dAX7 USB DAC/preamp. This just show how good and versatile it is.

Another interesting suggesting might come from the guys at Abrahamsen a company raised from the ashes of the well known ElectroCompaniet. http://www.abrahamsenaudio.com/

Thank you guys for the input. I’d have a few DAC’s since the early 90’s – i still have my (heavily modded) Audio Alchemy V1.1 – and a few months ago I bought the Pro-Ject USB Box because I listen to a lot of music in my comp. I have compared it with a friend of mine’s DacMagic and to be honest I can’t tell any sonic differences, but i'm not one that believes in significant differences between competently-designed DACs, even though i expected a little more magic from that unit.

Since almost every cd is recording according to the standard Red Book, can you guys please explain to me which are the sonic gains using an oversampling DAC?

Just a couple suggestions about speakers: - Usher _ http://www.usheraudiousa.com/# - Epcos _ http://www.epos-acoustics.com/ - Zu _ http://www.zumoto.com/loudspeakers.html

I'm no Mac user but i came across this link and i thought it'll be useful for Mac fans. http://www.vonwentzel.net/ABS/index.html

"Cambridge Audio stuff is superb..." I concur with you and i have a question. Do you know by any chance if the engineers behind Cambridge Audio are the same guys that were in Audiolab?

I concur with you Tim. There is much more to discuss here. Let's move on.

Quote, "I’m afraid RedGTiVR6 is not a good source." Of course you can take one or two phrases out of the contest and disagree on that, but there's not only a lot of good info in that site but also very good links to others interesting sites, like this one: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=713073&page=1&pp=30