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QLS HiFi is releasing a new SD card player soon QA860: QA860 HiFi Digital Lossless Music Player| DSD Player | 24bit 192Khz Player| DAC Key features with QA860: - The Single Threaded Software Framework - 24bit/192KHz wav and DSD Support - Dual 0.5PPM TCXO for 22.5792Mhz and 24.576Mhz. - DAC: AD1955 I/V: OPA2134*2 LP and pre-amp: LME49720*3, Headphone: LME49720+OP2134+TPA6120

QLS-HiFi is launching a new module integrated with SD card player, AD1955 DAC and headphone amplifier: QA860 HiFi Digital Lossless Music Player| DSD Player | 24bit 192Khz Player| DAC. I have QA660 with a DIY 1794 DAC and quiet happy with it. Listed below is some key features for QA860: - The Single Threaded Software Framework - 24bit/192KHz wav and DSD Support - Dual 0.5PPM TCXO for 22.5792Mhz and 24.576Mhz. - High standard power supply design. - DAC: AD1955 I/V: OPA2134*2 LP and pre-amp: LME49720*3, Headphone: LME49720+OP2134+TPA6120.

The firmware Pure Wav V1.0 of QLS QA660 has been released long time ago, but I did not try since this weekend, because my collections are mixed wav, ape and flac files. I finally decided to have a try for this firmware last week, and have to say this firmware is the best in terms of sound quality. The firmware upgrade was very straight forward that can be done in a minute. The first impression of the playback after the upgrade was I was listening a true hi-end cd player. The sound was very nature and vivid in high, low and full range balance. The delivery beat all my USB converters included Amanero, wave IO and CM6631 easily.

The jitter of the optic output of Express is too high, the DAC is not able to lock the signal constantly, that should be the reason for the dropouts. You need some kind of DAC has the sampling clock reform circuits, like QLS QA100 has, or you can just mod the Express, take the I2S directly from the PCB, replace the original crystal with a better crystal, and use a better power supply.

I would suggest to try this: QA100--Full Digital Stereo Amplifier. This digital amp has a High quality sampling clock reform circuits, that is able to reform the digital signal from Airport Express, one of my friends got a QA100 for his Airport Express, and decided to buy another QA100 for the second room after listened the Airport Express+QA100. I think this would be a cheap and great solution.

Add one more: Soundaware D100 QA660 and Soundaware D100 are the top2 in Chinese market. QA350 can be used for car.

There is no point to argue the speed of the SD card if a CD file (ape,wav,flac) does not need very high reading speed. As per my experiences with QA660 and computer plus Stahl tek A.B.C, QA660 is able to deliver very good sound quality even in comparison with Stahl tek A.B.C, however the price paid for QA660 is $550, and $2000 for Stahl tek A.B.C.

QLS-HiFi: http://www.qlshifi.com/en/index.htm - QA860 with headphone amp, digital output and analog output (coming) - QA660 DSD/Wave/APE/Flac/ transport, digital output only - QA350 Wave 16/44.1 only, with headphone amp, digital output and analog output, and car accessories for using on cars - QA550 Wave 16/44.1 only, transport (digital output only)

I do not have any recommendation if you have Invicta already. However for those who are still looking for good stuff, QA660+QA100 is something worth a look, you can pay 800 some dollars for a whole system vs over $3000 for a digital source equipment, with the same function (SD card, DSD, APE, FLAC, Wave) people here use very often. On the other hand, QA660+QA100 is able to provide very high sound quality.

If you are looking for SD card HiFi solutions, QLS-HiFi QA660+QA100 should be something worth a look, QA660 just added DSD and ALAC support recently, with the original Wave, ape and flac support, you can play any music format with this cost effective, and Hi-End level system. New: DSD & ALAC support - QA660 Firmware 1.5 releasled QA660--SD Card WAV Hi-Fi Digital Audio Player QA100--Full Digital Stereo Amplifier

Check QA100 digital HiFi amplifier at QA100 Amplifier sounds great. This amplifier has digital interfaces including RCA Coaxial, BNC Coaxial, Optical, EBU/AES and I2S, and amplify the digital signal directly to drive the speakers.

I prefer WD better. My system: OpenMediaVault installed on a DIY AMD A6-3670 APU system (ASUS motherboard), 1G network with 6G SATA, 4 WD green hard drives and 1 Seagate hard drive installed and Spindown time set as 5 minutes. The Seagate hard drive temperature is always 3-4 °C higher than the WDs.

All the discussions here are pointing to jitter reducing, anybody compared the linux solution with cPlay and cMP? Just checked the download link for Audiophile linux, the iso is about 1.3G, that seems too fat for a single purpose system.

NuForce DDA-100 QLS QA100 If you use 2-way speakers for computer HiFi, those 2 digital amp should be something very interesting. Both guys support USB from computer, and no traditional DAC element inside. Feedback for QLS QA100 : QA100 Amplifier sounds great Feedback for DDA-100: NuForce DDA-100 impressions thread (computer, but not headphone, DAC/amp)

All those converters discussed here are very expensive. Take a look at this one QLS QA01, dirty cheap with good implementations on external power supply and ASIO support.