headmuzik

The Zalman case is a very effective, but quite expensive route to silencing. An alternative might be to use another Zalman product - the Reservator. This is a radiator/reservoir water cooler that passively cools the CPU and optionally the graphics card, removing the need for fans in either of these areas. You may still need case fans, and ideally these would be thermoregulated.I use this myself in my own system and the thing is completely silent unless you're putting heavy demand on the processor for 3d gaming etc. It's also suitable for retrofitting to (some!) existing PC's. Very much recommended. http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=183

In theory you shouldnt need a soundcard... if your motherboard has a firewire out, you can connect the WEISS unit and it would show up as a sound device to be routed to directly. I would check this out with WEISS though to make doubly sure.

Unfortunately I have to say that having tried the ASIO4ALL driver, I could not create glitch free playback. No matter what buffer or latency settings I tried, there would always be a glitch sooner or later. This was unacceptable so I switched to the waveout output plugin in mediamonkey. This seems to work fine. I also unmapped the soundcard from device manager as shown elsewhere on these forums. I should note that my soundcard is an el-crappo soundblaster live 5.1 - I have a lynx two on the way that will hopefully sort all this nonsense!

Another interesting high end amp is the Ray Samuels Emmeline II B52. http://www.raysamuelsaudio.com/products/b-52

You might be able to use ASIO drivers, depending on what soundcard you have. I'm using "ASIO4ALL", a free asio driver. http://www.asio4all.com/ There are options for latency, buffering, disabling resampling etc. I don't know if its bit-perfect but sound OK to me. To configure it(once installed), go into mediamonkey, Tools -> Options ->Player -> Output Plug-Ins -> select "ASIO Output". You dont' need to replace or modify your existing soundcard driver , it just runs on top of it as I understand it.

So can you get the high definition audio formats through that lynx two-b setup? (Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio) ? Not downsampled or nuffink? I'm guessing you can't play HRx recordings at 24/176.4 without resampling them down with the Lynx Two? That would be a reason to consider Aurora 8, but the cost jump is spectacular!

not cheap... http://www.ttvj.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1193&zenid=4d6bbc67e5477252f869d3bb8d79ca52

There's always the Lynx Aurora 8. I'm considering it for home theater functionality (especially given the cost of the DAD systems, but it seems like Lynx Studios are not that supportive of using their equipment purely for A/V playback rather than recording. Blu-Ray playback is a must otherwise the Lynx Aurora is just so much wasted cash for me. Here's a 2 channel DAD AX24: http://vintageking.com/Digital-Audio-Denmark-DAD-AX24-2-Channel-D-A-DSD

edit: AV already asked my question!

I think thats the US retail for the PCI express Mykerinos card only, as far as I can figure out. I got it from the price list at Independent Audio here: http://www.independentaudio.com/ It looks like the MADI daughter card would be extra but I'm not sure, maybe someone can clear that up. Edit: I see your point re the workstation, since the Pyramix Workstation is going for $3,999. I don't really get it! Maybe Bruce can explain why one would prefer the DAD over the Merging Tech's Sphynx2, I gather they're much the same unit, so is there any particular differences apart from front cover...

What kind of damage for one of those Mykerinos PCI cards with MADI....? I don't see a price for it anywhere, they don't seem to sell them in any online stores.. Edit: OK I saw the price (gulp) - $3,682!!

In thinking that will preclude playing DXD/DSD material?