[Housteau]

I have an older PC (Windows 98) in my soundroom with a Creative Audigy Pro soundcard with a front mounted connection hub.  My intention was just to use this for recording of LPs, old open reel tapes, etc.  But, just recently I have been experimenting with using its SPDIF front output on RCA jacks into my Monarchy DIP Upsampler and NM24 DAC.  I am just using the latest version of Windows Media Player and the Audigy set to bit perfect for playback.  I am just experimenting, but so far all seems well.  The only problem is the fan noise which is quite loud.  I plan to build a sound absorbing enclosure for the PC which should take care of that issue, while still allowing for ventilation.

[satfrat]

Well I thought I'd revive this thread seeing how i just ordered a Trends UD 10.1 USB converter for my HTPC,,,just out of curiosity. I've presently got damn good audio using a M-Audio Rev 7 sound card but I do need a plug-in DFX Audio Enhancer to bring out the fidelity. I'm more than happy with what I have BUT I'm also curious as hell to see what can be had w/o any plug-in enhancers. To the present owners out there, is it just a matter of throwing this converter in and cranking up the tunes? My HTPC is a 2005 XP Media Ctr Edition and uses Windows Media Player 11 which I totally love because it catologs album covers by artist, album title, gendre, and year. All my downloads (3004albums) are WMA9 VBR Q90 and because I use M-Audio Rev 7 sound card, I  have a revoasio.dll in my system32, a M-Audio Revo ASIO support library it's described as? I don't know if that's a good thing or not? Will I need any downloads to use this converter or is this a trial n' error thing?

Any bits of advise would be appreciated by those who've already been there, done that with this USB converter. Thanks! 

Cheers,
Robin

[santacore]

Robin,

With my Macintosh iBook it was just that, plug it in, crank it up. I have no experience with PC use. I've been using this box to from my laptop to my DAC while my Olive music server is in the shop. Overall I find the sound very satisfying. In fact, I'm tempted to just keep this setup and sell off the Olive. One note-I preferred the unit with the external battery pack. To my ear it's smoother and more musical. The downside is the battery pack doesn't last long enough and I'm charging the thing every day. Really that is the only complaint with the box. Let us know what you think when you get it.