Musical Fidelity V-DAC

[leonsound]

Hello,

I read the article in the October issue with great interest.

What I'd like to know is what do you need on the PC to make it work through the USB port. Does the PC's OS recognize the DAC for what it is, or do you load a driver onto the PC that can stream the sound of whatever you're playing to the DAC?  Do you need special software on the PC beyond a driver?  WIll the PC's other sounds (like "you have mail" also be sent to the V-DAC?

Then, I presume if you play a CD a 44.1kHz 16bit signal will be sent to the V-DAC.  And I assume if you have some higher resolution files, up to 192kHz 24bit,  the V-DAC will know what it's getting and adjust accordingly.

What happens when you play mp3's? Does your PC "unpack" it to 44.1 / 16bit and then stream it to the V-DAC?

Regards
Leon

[WaterDog]

Yes.... correct on all counts. It is recommended though that you use a freely available free Asio driver and disable system sounds if you want high quality sound.
The Asio driver works with Foobar and some other highly regarded software audio and media players.

Your normal media player software will all play through the v-dac without any problems or any extra drivers required, i.e. Windows Media player, I-tunes, etc.

The v-dac is essentially a "play only" external sound card for your pc and can do the same things.

[GradoMan]

Does the PC's OS recognize the DAC for what it is

Depending on what OS you using, it will recognize it as "USB Audio DAC" yes.

WIll the PC's other sounds (like "you have mail" also be sent to the V-DAC?

Not if you're using the ASIO or WASAPI plug-in for your player of choice (Foobar?).

And I assume if you have some higher resolution files, up to 192kHz 24bit,  the V-DAC will know what it's getting and adjust accordingly.

Correct, but your question should really be how well does it do it in comparison to other high end DACs.  

Edit:- Darn connection timed out, "waterhond" beat me to it.

[WaterDog]

Correct, but your question should really be how well does it do it in comparison to other high end DACs. 
Edit:- Darn connection timed out, "waterhond" beat me to it.

What is wrong with the "interwebs"? 

Usb dacs have been getting much better lately - look at the asynchronous ones for great sound - you can get them in the range of $149 to more than $6000 and even more... much more!
This one is popular: http://www.amazon.com/HRT-Music-Streamer-II-Resolution/dp/B0038O4UFQ  though good luck with getting it at that price locally!

[alternativeroute]

What is wrong with the "interwebs"?  Huh

Loads of time-outs this morning on international sites...

look at the asynchronous ones for great sound

Is asynchronous used the same way here as it is meant for DSL... slower one way than the other.

Can anyone send me to an article that explains asynchronous in the audio context (sorry would do myself but cannot get to Google this morning)

[leonsound]

Thanks!

r.e. the term asynchronous - I don't know exactly what it means for USB, but it doesn't mean one side is slower. It means the two directions in which data travel are not time locked to each other.

As a simple analogy - to phone someone is synchronous because you'll know immediately if she's there or not, and have a direct conversation where at the end both now exactly what was said (ok maybe if you phone a male friend).

Async would like sending an email - you don't know when/if the recipient will read it and the replay could come at any time. In the meantime you could send more emails about different things to the same recipient.

I can only guess that in USB context the async must be well buffered while for sync the timing between the 2 machines are more critical - but i could be way off.

Regards
Leon

[milesgopal]

i use a dacmagic with my macbook
doesnt need an drivers.....its just plug and play....