Mr.C

They may have sent you a contact request and you may not have accepted it yet as one possibility. On that vein, I would remove them as a contact and re-add them and see if that helps.

I have experience with some other Apogee DAs (One, Duet and Mini) and I was impressed by their sound although I do not use them in my system. I am not surprised that you like the Rosetta, it was highly reviewed in the pro audio world.

This doesn't answer the question directly, but I personally hear more difference between playback programs than between Windows operating systems. Now experimenting with Linux might be entirely different, but I would spend my money in other parts of my system than upgrading from Windows 7-8.

I would take the $500 and spend it on some older Stax Lambdas and an energizer... but that's just my preference. I guess I'm seconding the headphones route for that type of money if you want the best sound for the budget. If you spend a lot of time working at the computer listening to music I would spend most of the money on headphones and maybe upgrade your current speakers or not with some pro audio powered monitors. If you spend more time listening to music with friends or in circumstances where headphones are not practical then I would just spend the budget on some powered monitors.

I sounds like you are on the right track. The 24/192 track will be downsampled although this may be done by the OS instead of the V-Link, but it will come through at whichever setting is set in audiomidi. If it was me, I would not worry so much about 24/192 at this stage, you will likely upgrade your entire system before the difference between 24/192 and 24/96 becomes glaring.

The main thing I see missing is acoustical room treatment, it looks like you've covered off the other bases.

Short answer: no. You may be able to physically desolder the old chip and add in the new one, but there are more complicated design specifications that designers take into account. If you look at different price ranges of dacs you will find that many use the same dac chips and that it is the other implementation that changes.

I'd like to emphasize something that Chris C. mentioned: that right now the limitation to your system is probably not the DAC portion but the amplifier or speakers. I've played around with some high end A/V receivers (ie. msrp $4000+) and stereo amplifiers can outclass them for stereo sound at a much lower price point. Of course this is only relevant if you want stereo sound, but if you are getting a stereo DAC then it does not make sense to reconvert it to surround through your receiver.

I think that the logical conclusion is more that a dedicated USB converter has more thought and money given to the USB conversion than the DACs that they are improving. Eg. these $1500 converters are improving $2000 DACs because they can afford to be a higher quality.

I think that the usb module is hardware limited to 24/48, but I could be wrong. I'd say go for the Ayre based on my experience with the Bryston. It was good and better than the $1300 DACs I had (Lavry, Benchmark, PS Audio, Apogee) but not an amazing upgrade.

"The Naim HDX is also using a CD-ROM and HDD." So the theoretical difference would be quality of hardware rather than category of hardware, or software. I know that Steve Nugent was talking about the differences that he was noticing with different software rippers, but not specifically the Naim system.

I've tried the PS Audio, Benchmark and some Simaudio cd players. Of the three, the Benchmark was my least favourite because it seemed to be too vague in its presentation. The PS Audio was good but definitely not excellent. The Simaudio players were nice and juicy, so I imagine that the 100D would share some of that sound signature.

Definitely run it on battery. When I was using my macbook there was a distinct noise when the power cable was plugged in.

An asynchronous interface uses the clock from the external device (dac or spdif converter) rather than relying on the computer clock. Even with these devices (ie. improved clock) there are still differences heard with better software. The PWT defeats the purpose of computer audio because you need to spin a disk. The same technology with more convenience can be achieved with a computer.

I for one would love to hear how Steve's products sound, much more so than discuss whether or not he should be banned or not. I've been on the fence on the off-ramp for a while wondering whether or not to just go straight to the overdrive dac. Although, I must say, this is one civilized internet argument