Honeybadger

Thanks, that was a very kind compliment!

Wow...sorry, just a music lover, not an audiophile here.<br /> <br /> I just liked the music, silly me...<br /> <br /> <br />

I don't understand the question.<br /> <br /> What do you want to know about the peak?

I've known Winston Ma for better than a decade now.<br /> <br /> He's been a wonderful mentor and friend in all things audio.<br /> <br /> All his component designs are wonderful and his recordings, perfection.<br /> <br /> I too give thanks everytime he has a release because it makes all the time and money I put into my audio system an investment than just a hobby.<br /> <br /> All his recordings are an amazing way to show off your system.<br /> <br /> BTW, his new release of "We get requests" and "Get Gilberto" are amazing, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Chris's comments and listening is a personal thing is right on the money. I am on a pre-amp called a Kisto from a Scottish company called Line. In a pure analog setup using balanced the Dac1-pre is very natural and neutral. It could be that the dynamic range is larger than your speakers and what you are hearing as harshness or sharpness is really cutoff that hz ranges below or above your speakers are being cut off. When you say sharp do you mean like sybilance, Harsh "T"s and hissy "S"s? Could be also software, how did you get the source material, did you rip it yourself. What software have you tried for playback. Media Monkey has been excellent to me. Winamp and Foobar2k have also been excellent. post in here or email me if you like and I'll try to help you get good sound. You are starting with a very good DAC and it should perform very well for you!

Well Chris, I loaded up the latest MediaMonkey, installed the high-end WAV input plug-in and the bit perfect output plug-in and on my coax out to my DAC, you are right, it is the best sound I have gotten on 174k WAV files, I still prefer HDCDs on WMP at max volume. Also Winamp with the Wav and Kernel streaming output plug-in sound wonderful too (also it has a better skin for plasma screens from a HTPC) but for sonic quality for MP3s, Flacs and other lossless sound files, Your recommendation for MM is right on the money.

Wow Chris, I hope you are not really as defensive as I am reading your reply. Well, we weren't trying to do a psycho comparison as much as a few friends got together and compared one's Alphadac vs. a wonderful DAC I won at CES and were surprised how close they were. No, I don't think the HDCD indicator came on when playing the 192k WAV files and both DACs input was through coax out from C-media 8788 card I brought from the purpose. We did try Media Monkey, Winamp and 2k foo2k with KS plug-ins in the later two players. Since the Alpha did light up with HDCD it didn't seem like a fair comparison so I used the suggestion with the Benchmark FAQ and used WMP at full volume. Perhaps the clarity of either DAC and let's be honest, any dac beats pretty much any other source is going to impress as much as any filet mignon is going to impress someone who's been on Big Macs for their lives.. In the end, just as I said I am more and more impressed by my little DAC that could and am just having fun...

Actually we did a few different sources. I brought over my RR HRx disks, by friend had some iPOD files and I also brought a copy of the HDCD of Little Hatch's "Rock with me baby". Since the Pre doesn't do internal HDCD decoding and the Alpha did we used Media player with the pre and used WMP with the tickbox for 24bit checked. The HDCD was better on the alpha but not by much everything else was very much on par. Chris I would very much value your opinion on this subject, btw what do you mean "You don't consider them competing products"?

I have now had mine for about 2 weeks and it just keeps getting more and more impressive. The sound quality is amazing. I finally got to hear an Alphadac and I brought my pre with me (it's so small it wasn't hard to do!) and with not knowing which was which the people in the room couldn't really tell one from the other in a blind A-B-A test! The Alpha has a better display to be sure but sonically...well, WOW!

You are absolutely correct Bob, I didn't explain clearly. I use USB from PC to stream HDCDs, I use the Coax for high definition audio files. Since HDCDs are only 20bit (I know MS's checkbox says 24bit but I have no idea where they are getting that number from!)/44.1 the USB's 24/96 works just fine when streaming from media player. I usually only use the USB when in WMP. Thanks for the info though!

No need to apologize, I mean it is an interesting extention. Also for MS, according to them it does decode HDCD as full resolution and the HDCD indicator is just an alert that the disk could be decoded better (at least their explanation.). I have tried Media Monkey, Foobar2000 and Winamp in addition to WMP. I like Winamps sound and it and Media Monkey both play HRx disks and high-res files beautifully. WMP sounds actually pretty good at max volume decoding HDCDs compared to them being played in Media Monkey or Winamp, though I prefer standard CDs on Winamp and high res on Media Monkey. Both Winamp and Foobar2000 on my system have KS output plugins but Foobar2000 is a disaster because it just sits there for 10mins when loading a 176.4k wav file while the others play wonderfully. I haven't found a KS plugin for Media Monkey yet. Mind you that's my opinion on my system: P Duo Core 2 2.66 2g of ram XPpro SP3. HTOmega Claro+ card in a Shuttle SG33G5M I am playing through a USB and the Coax out to a Benchmark DAC1 Pre. You mileage might vary... Thanks!

Ok, not what I was asking but thanks. If you max volume the K-mixer does the least about of damage and sounds good if not terrific.

If it just recognizes HDCD then why is there a tickbox you have to check that specifically makes it decode at 24bit? Does this do nothing? Thanks!

Hello everyone, I would like to get full resolutions of my HDCDs to my external DAC, a DAC1 Pre. The DAC1 Pre doesn't decode HDCDs internally so I am trying to use Windows Media Player 11. I went into options, devices, speakers and enabled 24bit decoding which says it's to decode HDCDs to full resolution. But now the HDCD indicator doesn't light up when I put my HDCDs in the drive, the indicator does show if I have 24bit decoding turned off. Is this a known glitch or do I have something miss configured? Thanks!

I have an external DAC (DAC1 pre) and am trying to feed it a bit perfect stream using media monkey and foobar2000. When I use Foobar2000 with Reference Recordings 176.4k wav files, foobar just sits there and "processes" the files for 10 maybe 15 mins! Is this normal or do I have something mis-set? System: Duo-Core2 266ghz 4gig RAM XP SP3 500GB hard drive Sound Card: HTOmega Claro Plus (CMI8788) Video Card: ATI 4550 Can't think of any other facts I can give you all! Thanks!