Jake

2009 was a brilliant year for music. A lot of great stuff out there. These were my highlights. Fever Ray - Fever Ray Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications Depeche Mode - Sounds Of The Universe Pet Shop Boys - Yes Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle A Mountain Of One - Institute Of Joy Wild Beasts - Two Dancers Bob Evans - Goodnight, Bull Creek Dark Was The Night - Compilation album Yo La Tengo - Popular songs Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago Leonard Cohen - Live In London And my pick for album of the year: Rowland S. Howard - Pop Crimes (Aussie guitarist probably overlooked by the rest of the world - now deceased unfortunately) Cheers, Jake

Thanks for the help guys. I've ditched the USB and using a digital coax now, and sounding much better. (I have an M-Audio PC card with SPDIF so no need for any other gadgets) Cheers, Jake

So the Stello can only do red book over USB? Far out, that's a bit of a handicap. My comments regarding the sound are actually based on using the Sonos as a source anyway (which is red book too of course). Im using Win XP SP3. Foobar at 24bit Not sure about WASAPI? And have to go to work, will look in tomorrow, thanks for replies so far. Cheers, Jake

Gday Oystein, Unfortunately I have very little to compare it with, as before I obtained the Stello I was using a Denon universal player for all digital duties, and I have a high focus on vinyl as well these days. But I can tell you that the sound compared to the Denon is remarkable. The soundstage is much larger and seems to be almost 3 dimensional, with great clarity. A good live recording such as a Chesky seems very real. Anyway, I'm not so good with the jargon Of course the Denon was never really high end, but it is nowhere near the Stello. As a source for the DAC now I use either the PC or Sonos and the Denon just sits there. I bought the DAC in 2008 based on probably the one review of which you speak, and the only reason I would possibly consider upgrading would be to obtain 24/192 ability. Cheers, Jake

This isn't the post you may think it is As we speak I am playing 24/192 WAV files, via USB to my Stello DA220 MkII, but I thought this wasn't supposed to work? Err...what am I doing RIGHT? Is Foobar converting it to 24/96 on the way? Or does the Stello DAC actually accept 24/192? I'm pretty sure it doesn't) Cheers, Jake