Let us looking at audio chipsets issue with so many different kinds of audio DSP and DAC produce different level of quality and they aren't good at everything, Linux and Mac OS X audio seems weak or too loud for any music due to AC97. The integrated Realtek chipset in Windows don't sound great e.g. we can't feel the string vibrate.

Therefore, for us to share the excellence and accurate audio quality across any devices and no colouring in Pianoteq, we should really get this portable DAC in thumbdrive, ESS audio chipset is certainly interesting!

http://igg.me/at/zuperdac/x/8910602

 

There's so much wrong with this that I don't know where to begin, especially if we're talking professional usage. For amateurs... well they wouldn't notice the difference anyway. btw. I mostly use 48kHz to record and produce audio. 96kHz only rarely and mostly for mastering. Professionally. I've never used 192kHz for anything, nor I plan to.

This is the DAC I use: http://www.tcelectronic.com/bmc-2/ ~$400. Same custom TC Electronic AKM DACs as in my ~$1000 TC Konnekt 48 that I use for recording. If that's too much for a DAC, then you don't like audio as much as you claim you like. Having said that, any chip, be it Realtek or whatever, with an optical output should sound the same through a digital output, with a bit more digital jitter that hardly anyone notices. USB for audio is not as good, due to the higher level of jitter, as normal optical or especially coaxial digital out from your card or motherboard. However, if the DAC is good [like BMC-2] then there should also be no significant difference between USB digital out and normal digital out, or the one you get from HDMI or DisplayPort, for that matter. There are nice HDMI/DP to digital audio+video converters, if your motherboard doesn't have a digital audio out, but most of today's mobos do. Even those little cute Intel NUC mini computers have a digital audio optical out.

What I see this useful for is to have a better quality analogue output from a device that's got USB port, but no digital out or very bad analogue out, so you can connect it to some little speakers or headphones. In other words - purely amateur usage.

Cheers!

 

amazing it has a SNR equivalent to a sound blaster
and output power of 30mW but into what!!!

let just take the device out of the equation and have a collective conciousness so that everyone experiences the music the same as the original artist envisioned it.