I'd love to see a comparison of some popular high-end computer audiophile equipment (e.g. E-Mu 1212M, M-Audio Transit, etc.), especially in comparison to non-computer digital transports (how about plugging some expensive transport into a computer and measuring whether or not it really is outputting "bit-perfect" data?).
As a computer-as-source audiophile, my main concern continues to be: is the data I'm getting out of my PC really perfect? By this I mean, is the E-Mu 1212M whose digital output I'm using (both toslink and coax into a Benchmark DAC1) somehow compromised by the 'dirty' nature of the electronics inside my PC? Or is that type of thing not really a valid concern (particularly with a supposedly jitter-immune DAC like the DAC1)? I see lots of claims by people that I might be better off with an external USB device (electrically isolated from the computer) for generating the digital output that I feed the DAC1, or perhaps a DAC with its own USB input...but is it really true that I can't even trust a computer to output a reasonably good digital signal, even from a high-end sound card like the E-Mu 1212M?
I'd love to see a comparison of some popular high-end computer audiophile equipment (e.g. E-Mu 1212M, M-Audio Transit, etc.), especially in comparison to non-computer digital transports (how about plugging some expensive transport into a computer and measuring whether or not it really is outputting "bit-perfect" data?).
As a computer-as-source audiophile, my main concern continues to be: is the data I'm getting out of my PC really perfect? By this I mean, is the E-Mu 1212M whose digital output I'm using (both toslink and coax into a Benchmark DAC1) somehow compromised by the 'dirty' nature of the electronics inside my PC? Or is that type of thing not really a valid concern (particularly with a supposedly jitter-immune DAC like the DAC1)? I see lots of claims by people that I might be better off with an external USB device (electrically isolated from the computer) for generating the digital output that I feed the DAC1, or perhaps a DAC with its own USB input...but is it really true that I can't even trust a computer to output a reasonably good digital signal, even from a high-end sound card like the E-Mu 1212M?