[audioengr]

Steve you sound like a kid in a candy store!  

I haven't been able to get the 24/96 output to work with the monarchy.  Where have you been enabling those settings?

I just set the 2-in2-out and 96000 in the Transport panel and then set 24 bit in the Foobar main output menu.

[audioengr]

Quite new to the PC-as-audio crowd, I haven't used my laptop for anything but (generally poor) headphone listening on the road.

But, I just bought a little gizmo from Turtle Creek (Audio Advantage Micro) for $26-odd that plugs into the USB and terminates into a 1/8" headphone jack, or with an adaptor, a toslink output.

As a headphone out, it improves the nasty performance of stock headhone out of the laptop (emachines M5310).

As an optical output, using a glass toslink, either thru my Empirical Au ...

I think the problem is the Turtle creek hardware.  The USB/CODEC hardware that I use is really superb. Very quiet and in 24-bit mode it will smoke the Sony 7700 easily.

[TheChairGuy]

I think the problem is the Turtle creek hardware. The USB/CODEC hardware that I use is really superb. Very quiet and in 24-bit mode it will smoke the Sony 7700 easily.

Smoke it, EASILY? - as in beat the heck out of it, soundwise?  Turbomodded or not. Really? Wow- that is amazing.

The little Turtle Creek ain't bad, considering what it is and does for so little, but it improved quite a bit with Foobar over Winamp and Windows Media.

[sunshinedawg]

I was wondering why when you output 24/96 from the PC it sounds so good.  What happens when this already upsampled signal reaches the upsampling chip in the dac or Monarchy?

I have been looking around for a Monarchy upsampler.  Is the best one to get the newest model upsampler?

I have really been enjoying these usb transport threads.  Thanks to everyone for all the great info!  

[dave_c]

I was wondering why when you output 24/96 from the PC it sounds so good.  What happens when this already upsampled signal reaches the upsampling chip in the dac or Monarchy?

I have been looking around for a Monarchy upsampler.  Is the best one to get the newest model upsampler?

I have really been enjoying these usb transport threads.  Thanks to everyone for all the great info!  

Foobar2000 (24bit / 96khz via SSRC Resampler) to Transit 0in / 2out 96khz max to Monarchy DIP Upsampler:  Doesn’t work at all.  The sound skips as if it was repeating the same 1 sec clip over and over.

Foobar2000 (16bit / 44.1khz no DSP) to Transit 2in / 2out 48khz max to Monarchy DIP Upsampler:  Works perfectly.  Sound has great detail and dynamics.  PRAT is on point too.

I think its important to understand that the M-Audio Transit itself doesn’t upsample.  It is capable of passing a 24/96 signal, but it will not upsample a 16/44.1 to 24/96.  Foobar can upsample, but I just couldn’t get it to work with the Monarchy.  I’m still going to experiment a little more with the built in SSRC resampler in Foobar.  If anything, just to find out which is the better implementation of upsampling.  Another Upsampler which would be interesting to implement with USB is the STARS upsampler from Anagram technologies.  I believe that it’s the one used in the Electrocompaniet upsampling DAC and CDP.

Also, if you’re going to use the Monarchy with the Panny, just keep in mind that the Panny doesn’t really upsample.  There is a “resampler” option, but it didn’t have nearly the positive effect that the Monarchy upsampler did even when everything was stock.  I’m not aware what the differences are in the current and previous DIP Upsampler versions.  Here’s what I might suggest if you want to have 16/44.1 and 24/96 capability:

Monarchy DIP 24/96:  This is a non upsampling DIP that will pass a 24/96 signal.  That way you can use the Foobar to upsample to 24/96 and have the Monarchy perform jitter reduction duties only.  I know it uses a different chip which may or may not be as good as the DIP upsampler.  I honestly don’t know.  However, it does offer you different options going forward.  With the DIP upsampler you are stuck with using a DAC that can decode either 24/96 or 24/48.