That 48K Sound!

In the latest issue of the Absolute Sound, I stumbled upon a press release of the new Audio Research DAC, and gee wiz, it has a USB DAC that takes samples up to 48K. Well, gosh oh golly.

If the price of imported equipment is not getting to USA manufacturers, the sheer lack of technology will. It seems that most of them (sans but a few) really understand computer audio or are at least making an attempt. So, my advice is, if you are going to come out with a new USB DAC and use 10 year old technology, then do yourself a favor and omit the USB capability all together and stick to making ridiculously priced preamps, amps and an occasional decent cross over. And don't do that wireless server thing... please, our ears!

There are so many issues with using audiophile grade USB technology that it eludes most high end manufacturers. This will ultimately not be so good for the CES crowd as young upstart companies, who advertise on head fi through tenacious postings, show that the poor USB capability can be solved with software and an inexpensive cable. So, if you are looking for USB capability from the mainstream affluent, my words of advice:

Caveat Emptor.

First, let me say this: as good as you think it sounds, playing music through a USB port is not going to be as good as a decent CD player or transport. And, I don't care if its 96K or 192K on that there computer hard drive - the problems with USB double and triple as the native clock speed increases. There are so many problems with using a computational device (PC) as a music streamer that I cannot list them here. We do a reasonable job explaining this in our videos: the block read/write nature of PCs as opposed to streaming, EMI interference from monitor screens, fans, graphics cards, the USB drivers, slow disk drives... the list goes on.

But, hey I am here to help high end manufactures get their skin from unknowing suckers wishing to over pay for decent sounding technology, so listen up:

First, don't believe those USB converters that claim they can extract 192K from USB without replacing the PC drivers. Now, you can certainly correct the clock and send it up to 192K, but what good is it if you destroyed the resolution of the music to begin with? The only right way to do this is to replace the USB drivers with software that hand shakes with your DAC hardware. In this way, you will be using less of the "re-clocking" trick (and that is what it is, its a trick) and more of the pure music. The next thing to do is use a short USB cable, the shortest that you can possibly run between the USB port and the DAC. (You can still charge your astronomical tuft-hunting prices for this cable, lets say $899? even though you can buy it from Radio Shack, for $1.49. Shhhh! I won't tell anyone)

So there you go, its that easy. Your only problem is your competition. Its out on the web. The Musiland Monitor 02 allows audiophile sound quality through a USB with native 192K clock speeds. And now the bad news: it does all this for $189.00.

Good luck with your 48K sound.

All the best,

Vic