Usb dac

alienDog · 10-27-2011, 02:50 PM

I've been thinking about getting a USB DAC in order to improve the audio quality of my system. Does somebody have recommendations/experience in using one of these under Linux? Do they work "out of the box" or is some additional tweaking required? I'm not going to spend a fortune, so I'm more interested in low cost converters (say ~100€-200€).

AleLinuxBSD · 11-16-2011, 05:09 AM

SuperPro 707 DAC USB
Also reading the manual:
Super Pro DAC 707 (2009 Version) User Manual (600kb - pdf).

Quote:

When connected up to a PC via its USB port, the DAC 707 converts the digital data stream from the USB input directly into I2S and straight onto the DAC chip. This bypasses the inferior SPDIF digital audio data stream format entirely and should almost eliminate jitter, thereby improving sound quality.

seem an interesting feautures.

Despite i shouldn't buy anything i'm interest on a list of cheap (but good) USB Audio Class 2 (UAC2) DAC for Linux.

alienDog · 11-16-2011, 11:50 AM

I've heard good things about HRT DACs: http://www.highresolutiontechnologies.com/ I'm currently wondering if the DAC I'm going to buy should have a headphone amp as well. I do tend to listen music on my laptop using just the headphones, so it might be a good idea. Maybe NuForce Icon microDAC-2: http://www.nuforce.com/hp/products/iconudac2/ I have no idea if either of these work under Linux, so that remains to be tested.

AleLinuxBSD · 11-17-2011, 11:20 AM

This user said that use HRT Music Streamer II and the more expensive solution (far off your max budget) HRT Streamer II+ on different distro without problems.
HRT Music Streamer II with KDE: what's the best configuration?
Support for HRT Music Streamer II
Matrix:Vendor-Nuforce
But only the uDAC-2SE and uDAC-2SGE are designed for Asynchronous USB Audio mode.
And the asynchronous mode is an important feautures for reduce jitter.