dacmagic upgrade to stagedac?

[BusinessEvolution]

ok so USB or coax lol

edit. This is going to seem very head-fi-ish.

problem fixed, the dacmagic has never sounded this good, on my system atleast, The STX coax out has some kind of vile to that degraded the audio quality of the dacmagic.

Defiantly not a placebo, because this has been present ever since I used this set up and now its gone.

so make sure you test all digital outputs from your computer to see which is the best for your setup.

Did you also try the optical out from the STX using the toslink adapter, it could have been an electrical issue if it was or bit-perfect was too sharp.

The easiest comparisons, with your setup, would be USB vs STX coaxial vs STX toslink vs Mobo toslink. Its also possible that the STX to Dacmagic is too detailed for your liking, possibly too analytical. I think you were using the Unified drivers, were you outputting PCM or Dolby? Also passing through at different rates eg 48mhz vs 96mhz vs 192mhz could make a difference, I don't like the sound of the 192mhz output option for the STX. Different sound doesn't always mean an increase in quality, and superior quality doesn't always mean you will like it. One of the primary issues with head-fi, and myself when I am looking at AMP/DAC designs and maths.

With the STX + A900s I found that there were about 30% of my collection that I didn't like anymore because it was too analytical, but I like 95% of it with the MS-PROs, theres about 5 songs I prefer with the A900s. I was questioning some of my own tastes for a while, like "wtf why did I think this album was good", didn't think it was a consequence of my setup before I got the MS-pros.

[flognuts]

Did you also try the optical out from the STX using the toslink adapter, it could have been an electrical issue if it was or bit-perfect was too sharp.

The easiest comparisons, with your setup, would be USB vs STX coaxial vs STX toslink vs Mobo toslink. Its also possible that the STX to Dacmagic is too detailed for your liking, possibly too analytical. I think you were using the Unified drivers, were you outputting PCM or Dolby? Also passing through at different rates eg 48mhz vs 96mhz vs 192mhz could make a difference, I don't like the sound of the 192mhz output option for the STX. Different sound doesn't always mean an increase in quality, and superior quality doesn't always mean you will like it. One of the primary issues with head-fi, and myself when I am looking at AMP/DAC designs and maths.

With the STX + A900s I found that there were about 30% of my collection that I didn't like anymore because it was too analytical, but I like 95% of it with the MS-PROs, theres about 5 songs I prefer with the A900s. I was questioning some of my own tastes for a while, like "wtf why did I think this album was good", didn't think it was a consequence of my setup before I got the MS-pros.

Tried optical using the toslink and adapter from the STX this afternoon and settled on that. You seem to have worded it exactly what I was experiencing, with the coax cable been to sharp and analytical, in the vocals and highs. The toslink optical cable keeps all the strengths without the sharpness.

thanks man.

Mind blown at how it could make a difference though, I thought they would all be exactly the same as the dacmagic does all the work, but obviously the cables alter something.

[dc]

not all digital outputs are bit perfect

and from my findings and research (admittedly, years ago) very few on-board chipsets are

[Benno1988]

Im about to test the difference between USB to the D1 and TOSLINK from the mobo to the D1. I think the TOSLINK will be a bit cleaner, but who knows!

[flognuts]

unbelievable the difference this has made.

Perhaps because the STX share the toslink and coax out put, the light source interferes with the coax cable?

[Buffalobiian]

unbelievable the difference this has made.

Perhaps because the STX share the toslink and coax out put, the light source interferes with the coax cable?

For the longest time I thought The dacmagic wasn't up to scratch, which is why I was looking to upgrade it. I though it had overly piercing highs, mainly with voices. After reading the post further up about the STX coax been the baseline I decided to delete the stx drivers and install the realtek motherboard drivers and use the optical out from that.

Maybe you just like a less sharp sound as previously suggested.

ASIO for me was too harsh, but then I got some darker 'phones and it felt right. This was all from the ST's RCA-out.

When I got an external DAC and ran it off the ST's coax, it got borderline.

Upsampling on the ST, as well as supersamping on an external DAC also mellowed the highs. I've read comments that some listeners like increasing the sample rate because it sounds more organic, but I prefer the sharper portrayal in my current set.

[dingostolemyipod]

Digital transmission is a bitstream with no relevance to bass, treble, mids or music at all, until it is decoded. You'd need some serious voodoo in your digital cables for them to passively function as a DSP. If you've got some of that type of tech, keep it quiet, otherwise you might have cybernetic super-soldiers from the future coming back in time to destroy your cables, to prevent a future apocalypse.

[Buffalobiian]

Digital transmission is a bitstream with no relevance to bass, treble, mids or music at all, until it is decoded. You'd need some serious voodoo in your digital cables for them to passively function as a DSP. If you've got some of that type of tech, keep it quiet, otherwise you might have cybernetic super-soldiers from the future coming back in time to destroy your cables, to prevent a future apocalypse.

In case there was any misunderstanding, I attribute the findings in my previous comment to the dac change. I have not compared coax out with any other form of digital connection to discern whether the cable makes a difference to the sound.

What it does suggest though is that both my experiences and flognuts' coincide in that we've found moving from the Asus Essence ST/X to an external dac via coaxial output resulted in a sharper sound.

An article by stereophile finds in general that an optical cable is likely to have higher jitter than a coaxial cable. If you give that article merit, then it may explain flognut's observations that the coaxial connection seemed harsher than via optical.

My only gripe with that is that flognuts initially described the coax as having a "veil" over the music, which is generally used to describe a less revealing presentation, not more.

[BusinessEvolution]

My only gripe with that is that flognuts initially described the coax as having a "veil" over the music, which is generally used to describe a less revealing presentation, not more.

The term veil is used indiscriminately on headfi.

Headfi1: I think my headphones sound veiled can you look at the fr chart and tell me?
Headfi2: Fr chart doesn't look veiled
Headfi1: You are right, the headphones don't sound veiled after all.

[theeyealtering]

Sounds like they need to unveil their brains. *boom-tish*