Audio notes venner
Vet ikke om det er slik ennå, men:
http://www.mostlyaudio.com/DAC21_BuildMain.html
Testing USB Operation
Now, I opted for the USB option simply because I was curious. Curious because I had been hearing highly conflicting reports about the quality that could be gained. Some people said it was useless; others said it was superb. So I had to find out for myself.
To switch between normal and USB input, you have to flip a switch that is located on the back edge of the digital board. In the DAC Kit 1.1, this switch extends through the chassis to enable switching between RCA and XLR inputs. However, in this kit it looks like the digital board had to be moved away from the back of the chassis to allow room for the USB board.
When you plug the USB cable into the DAC, the computer should automatically recognise it as a USB Audio DAC (or at least my Dell PC running XP does). The computer then defaults to outputting to it unless applications have other output devices configured specifically. This means that even normal computer sounds are directed to the DAC - I wasn't expecting that and see it as a bonus although I'm not exactly sure at this stage how it decides on how to convert things.
I already had a number of CD's copied to a few directories. I copied these using Exact Audio Copy which is a freeware program - creating bit image WAV files. I first played back by simply double-clicking on the files and letting Windows Media Player play them. Later, I began to use Foobar 2000 because that let me configure the method to use to output (DirectSound v2, Kernel Streaming, etc).
Unexpected Results
I was totally surprised at the quality of output that the USB interface allowed.
I didn't really think that I would want to use this option as a regular thing but I now knew that I had to experiment further. To enable me to do this, I decided that I would perform one last operation before securing the lid of the unit.
So, I went out and bought a small toggle switch that I could fit in the remaining RCA hole in the back panel. I then connected 3 wires to it, connected the other ends of the wires to the legs of the switch on the digital board, and finally snipped each leg in two places so there was now a gap - leaving the old switch now totally disconnected.
