phoneman

Thanks Jim and Eloise for your reply's. ... "Hehe, may not get better after they graduate either." ... I'm afraid you may be right the way things are going these days! The Schiit Modi looks very interesting. I do wish it had it own power supply (none USB powered) but you sure can't beat the price. I think I'll give one a try. Thanks for the tip Elf. Ed

I use a Toslink cable from my ATI radeon hd 4600 sound card to feed my Marantz SR 8200 receiver which acts as my DAC. I use Foobar as my music player using WASAPI output. Do you think I would hear any improvement if I switched to a USB cable feeding a M2 HiFace 2 and then to my Marantz ? Over all I'm happy with the sound of my current setup but always looking improvements. I do have a limited budget (2 daughters in college!) other wise I would look to add a separate DAC ... hence the M2 HiFace 2 ! So do you think it would be a noticeable improvement to the sound? Thanks phoneman

sound very interesting Steve...now if I can only find a deal on one...will keep looking. I also like the idea of 1x rip speed mentioned somewhere in one of the above links...seems to make sense. Ok what the hell is the deal with "SARD" Super Audio Ram Drive? I foolishly though I had heard of every format/prosses etc. Can someone enlighten me on this...is it the real deal or "mumbo jumbo" I love this site...learning something all the time! Now if I could only win the lotto!!

There is so much made of stand alone players having superior transport's, optic's ...etc. Is there a comparable ROM drive. Most seem to be of quite cheap construction. I understand that computers have a advantage in error correction with buffering but it seems a higher quality transport would help with playback and ripping. Enlighten me please.

I'm still learning and your input is very helpful.

How would a toslink cable from my sound card to my Marantz SR7000 receiver compare to using the HRT to same receiver? Would using the D/A converter in the receiver compare to using the HRT.

I have been using MP for years and just downloaded Foobar after reading the last to posts. It is pretty bare bones, what have you added as plugins? I saw a non freeware DSP plugin, if you have used it do you think it's worth it? I use the SRS WOW in media player because of my odd speaker placement.

sound blaster x-fi xtreme sound card to a Marantz sr7000 (though I'm lusting for a Cambridge Audio 640r). I have not tried this yet as I will have to buy a 8' cable to make it work. I'm assuming the receivers D/A converter is more important than the sound card end of the setup. Is the sound card just passing along the digital signal with out really affecting it or am I looking at this wrong? As a side..any thoughts on a surround receiver that will be used mostly for music? I will use it for some tv and movies but mostly for music. So far the 640r is the top contender in my price range.

How would a toslink cable from my sound card to my Marantz receiver compare to using the HRT to same receiver?

Long time audiophile...new to computer DAC. The Streamer sounds great and just what I need. Now the crazy part...has anybody used it in reverse? As a input device? Be kind...it's just a thought.