Windows 7 Music Server - The First 48 Hours

Good question... <br />

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In this particular situation, feeding this particular DAC directly with USB doesn't produce as good results as TOSLINK (with glass optical fiber, not plastic, from Wireworld). The best results are with 1394 converted to S/PDIF input to the DAC. However, at the moment at least, the 1394 source is plagued with occasional ticks or gaps or whatevers.<br />

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The soundstage of the USB is flattened, front to back, and the images are spread out a bit; there's a combination of muffling, and exaggerated transients, together with global grittiness, that shouldn't be there. Some commonly available USB products sound this way: They're producing a music-like sound product that really isn't very good at all, compared to the real thing or reference-level gear.<br />

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Some higher-quality USB and 1394 to S/PDIF converters are on the way in house, so it will be interesting to hear how they perform.<br />

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Some 1394-equipped devices do not work well, or at all, on many consumer laptops. Basically the manufacturers don't have the ability to handle the software issues, and think that because it works on one 1394 chipset, OS and driver, their work is done. <br />

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Same with USB. Some designers have it nailed, according to reviews, while others have not done as well. The connection of high-end DACs to noise-spewing computers is fraught with peril .

Hi Nicholas. I just browsed over the Lavry DAC but I haven't found any information what kind of USB implementation, so if you are not happy with the sound of that input, leave it.<br />

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I hope you will find the issue with your 1394 to SPDIF converter, because this can give you an even better sound, than with Toslink, even if you have a glass fibre cable, the Toslink receiver and transmitter introduce Jitter, but on the other hand, Lavry has a good jitter reduction unit.<br />

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Juergen<br />

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PS: Yes, it is a nice weather here in Thailand. We were sitting outside in an restaurant until after midnight, only with T-shirt, and it was very pleasant with the temperature.<br />

Hi again Nicholas,<br />

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Why do I have the feeling that you mix things which I wouldn't ? (yea, that can be me ! haha).<br />

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<cite>Seems like hardly anyone has software that will run on typical Windows (meaning HP, Acer, Asus, Dell) laptop 1394 chipsets.</cite><br />

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What software are you talking about ? I mean, the only software you *could* mean is driver software, but I have the hunch you refer to something else ...<br />

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For your Firewire clicks, you may go into the driver's control panel, and pump up the buffer size. Notice that anything under 128 (samples) is too low for general purpose "software" - and I mean player software here.<br />

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But your very best option would be to ditch the Dell (might that be the one creating Firewire problems).<br />

Just my experience.<br />

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Peter<br />

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PS: Don't forget to install the legacy Firewire driver over the one which comes with W7, no matter the manufacturer tells you he solved the problems with it (the driver which comes with W7).<br />

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PPS: If the Dell is not your problem, and if you have a BridgeCo based firewire device : ditch that. These have a control panel with 3 separate "buffer" sliders for isochronous, WDM and ASIO. Sorry if I offend someone with this, but it just is so. And *if* you indeed have such a device ... don't laugh ... this is where your dB differences very well may come from. But now I'm highly speculative ...<br />

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PPPS: Have a nice day anyway !

I had the same troubles with Windows 7, it was really frustrating at first since I was using a beta version and nobody could be of any help. I used <a rel="follow" href="http://www.paretologic.com/products/regcure/index.aspx">regcure</a> as a cleanup software eventually and things got better.<br />