Cant get weiss dac 2 to work with 96khz on optical input

[markr]

. I did find what you are taking about though. I'd looked for it earlier, but couldn't find it. This is it:

 

"The Minerva DAC comes with software and device drivers for Mac OS X and Windows based PCs. I conducted this full review using my MacBook Pro running OS X Leopard 10.5.3 connected via FireWire. The software installation is very simple. It is one of those next-next-finish installs that completes in under a minute. Once the installation is complete and the Minerva is connected, the Weiss FireWire IO app can be used to fine tune the performance of the DAC with the music server. This fine tuning is very simple because there is only a couple options to chose from. I'm pretty sure most Computer Audiophile readers can handle selecting the sampling rate at which their music will be played. In the case of the Reference Recordings HRx albums this is 176.4 kHz. The only other selection to make when connected via FireWire is the Isochronous Buffering machine type. The choices are Slow, Normal, and DAW for Digital Audio Workstation. According to Daniel Weiss, President & Founder of Weiss Engineering, these settings vary the kernel buffer size on a Mac. "On faster, more powerful machines, the user can choose a smaller kernel mode buffer size. "Slow" sets a larger buffer size, resulting in more stable streaming performance on slower machines. The larger the buffer, the higher the resulting latency." Said Weiss. Throughout my review I continually heard the best performance with the DAW setting. Since there are three choices it only takes one or two songs to decide which setting works best in a given system."

 

You probably don't have the software Chris is talking about here. This was a review for the Minerva DAC and I am guessing that that software is included with the Minerva only. The DAC 2 is different. ALTHOUGH, I suspect that the three settings that you were asking about, "normal and safe mode 1,2,3" are similar to the settings that Chris mentions in the review for the Minerva.

 

Those who record are concerned about latency, but for a different reason. In my experience (recording and playback) latency settings have almost no effect on the sound quality - unless you have a REALLY slow computer - , what they effect are how quickly to 'real-time' a monitor of a digital audio stream can be played back: High latency = an almost reverb effect between the real time live audio and the monitored audio (slight delay). Low latency = a monitor signal that is coming from the monitors at almost the same time as the actual sound is being played/recorded (almost no delay). The quality of the audio is not usually effected. You also wouldn't be able to hear what I was talking about without recording and monitoring a performance realtime.

 

Some have said that audio is better when it is coming from memory rather than the hard drive (High latency setting). I don't hear that . What Daniel is doing with these controls is a bit more complicated than that, but that is the 'jist' of it. Fiddle away with the settings. You won't hurt anything.

 

Here is a link I found to a Kent Poon blog on Minerva/DAC 2. Maybe it will help, but it pretty much echoes what Chris said the control looks like and not what your are describing. It has pretty pictures though... : http://ameblo.jp/mastering/entry-10153771891.html . There is a part of this web page that states that "There are 3 options here (1) Slow (2) Normal (3) DAW. This determines the latency/buffer in 3 separate settings." These might be the '1,2,3 you mention.

 

hope this helps

- markr

 

[thequietman]

I guess the minerva has different software than the dac 2.

 

Thanks for the research.

thequietman

 

[markr]

.. it was kind of fun .... You should now just settle down and LISTEN to the DAC2 for the time you have left with it.

 

By the way, here is a link to a whole lot of 24 bit material that is recorded live around the world by various folks. I have found some gems at this website You might find something that you like there as well.

 

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%28format%3A%2824Bit%20FLAC%29%20OR%20%28flac24%29%20OR%20%2824-bit%29%20OR%2024bit%29%20AND%20collection%3Aetree

 

Happy listening!

markr