kurtmelancon

Yeah I figured it's totally personal preference. But it's still good to get a few opinions on it. I've heard a lot of good things about all of them.

I've tried J River and I like the iPhone app function to control it. The sound quality sounds pretty damn good too. I also just downloaded an Amarra Demo and I think that sounds just a speck better than J River but it's pretty close at first listen. I also just ordered a Mac Mini from Mojo Audio and they include Audirvana with it. Longtime audiophile, newer computer audiophile. Thanks Guys in advance for your advice. ~kurt

Just wondering who's getting better sound out of their computers and what cd players or dacs that we're beaten out. What you were using before you switched to computer audio and what equipment you've compared to your new computer and dac setup? Just wondering what level of cd players and dac's compare to computer audio.

Agentsmith, I'm a little bummed to hear you have been waiting 2 months to get one of these. I was planning on ordering a Weiss Dac2 this week. Any word on how soon your going to get it and just how far they're backed up with orders?

Has anyone noticed a difference in sound quality depending upon what your laptop/desktop is sitting on?

That's quite the article Chris! Nice work. I'm too tired to dig into it tonight it's huge. Thanks for putting it all in one place.

I tattoo during the day and paint in the evenings. It's amazing that I get paid to sit around and listen to music while drawing pictures on people! ; ) www.leviticus.com Kurt Melancon

Thanks David I'm glad to hear that you found my post useful. It's always nice to be able to give a little back to all of the helpful people on this forum. Yes the Bel Canto Cd2 does also benefit greatly from the VBS upgrade. If your using both it makes this upgrade a lot more useful than just for the dac3. The little cord that comes with the cd2 doesn't quite cut it. ~kurt

That's a nice pile of gear! Congrats. I'm just narrowing down what I'm going to start with. I usually end up buying a bunch of different stuff before I really find the exact piece that fits my system perfectly. What's the top contenders for your system?

I know our founder Chris and I are from the Minneapolis area. ~kurt

I just thought this may encourage people to get together if they're in the same neighborhood as one another. See where our pockets of computer audiophiles are.

I'm also interested in the wavelength dac. I would love to get some people to chime in on this. Maybe another post will bring this back up to peoples attention. I do know from my own listening to many other Ayre products they are not what I would think would pair well with your setup if it's warm and tubey. But who knows...? Have you looked into the weiss dac 2? That looks pretty interesting as well.

I was confused on the different types of USBs. I was not aware of the standard versus the asynchronous usb. That makes a lot more sense now. All I know is that I'm going to need more sound quality then I'm getting from the Dac 3. I'll have to see what I can come up with to try out and better it. I'm leaning towards the Weiss Dac 2 & I'm also getting interested in the Wavelength Cosecant. This is starting to get exciting. I love audio porn!

Firewire is most definitely on my short list. It's probably what I'll end up going to but I am just trying to figure out if Bel Canto is going to get their USB up to speed with some of the other asynchronous USBs out there.

Can anyone give me some honest reviews of the USB computer audio on the Bel Canto Dac 3? I do own one myself and I hooked it up for the first time today to my new laptop and thought it was good but wasn't overly impressed. Although I do still have a few variables that I can even out to level the playing field. 1. I need to pick up an aftermarket USB cord. I just grabbed an OEM one that I had laying around. 2. I also need to rip some AIFF files rather than apple lossless. Which is what I use for my Ipod. So with better quality sound files and a better USB cord does this unit have the potential to rival mid level cd players? $3000 to $5000 type range. Or are there some other things that I could tweak to get it's sound quality up a bit. I really do like how it sounds when I'm playing cd's and it would be cool to be able to get it up to par while playing computer audio files. I think it's got a lot of bang for the buck so far as dacs go. I'm also considering some of the new upgrades as they come along with the 3.5 update which hopefully has 24/192 USB hookup. I'm really interested in the Weiss Dac 2 as well but I was kind of hoping to just get my current stuff up to snuff. Thanks for the infos in advance.