DAc and software?

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I'm about to but a DAC for PC playback thriugh HI-Fi and am trying to decide which one to buy. Quite a few choices which have USB inputs. DAC Magic, Beresford TC-7520 or recently reviewed HRT USB DAC music streamer. A difficult choice (any advice welcome) but I thought the set up process was easy until I read this article which threw me a bit. Any help or comments please.

"Once you have connected a PC to the Beresford TC-7520 DAC, all that remains to be done is to ensure your music software is able to output its sound to the Beresford using a method that bypasses the Windows mixer. In XP this means ASIO or Kernel Streaming and under Windows Vista/W7, ASIO or WASPI output. Foobar is one of the few PC media players that allows for direct output, and essential if the resampling and mixing that the Windows Mixer can incur, although some people have had similar success using a Direct Show filter called Reclock"

 

[Anonymous]

Philmate:
I'm about to but a DAC for PC playback thriugh HI-Fi and am trying to
decide which one to buy. Quite a few choices which have USB inputs.
DAC Magic, Beresford TC-7520 or recently reviewed HRT USB DAC music
streamer. A difficult choice (any advice welcome) but I thought the set
up process was easy until I read this article which threw me a bit. Any help
or comments please.

"Once you have connected a PC to the Beresford TC-7520 DAC, all that remains to be done is to ensure your music software is able to output its sound to the Beresford using a method that bypasses the Windows mixer. In XP this means ASIO or Kernel Streaming and under Windows Vista/W7, ASIO or WASPI output. Foobar is one of the few PC media players that allows for direct output, and essential if the resampling and mixing that the Windows Mixer can incur, although some people have had similar success using a Direct Show filter called Reclock"

Don't worry about all that, that's just about "tweaking" Windows to make sure it doesn't fettle too much with the sound output of your music. All the DAC's you mention will still work fine and are very simple to set up. They are pretty much plug and play. All i can say as far as which DAC to chose is that i have the DAC Magic, and also had until very recently the Firestone Audio Fubar 2 USB Dac. Both are excellent boxes, the Fubar being cheaper but only having a USB input. Depends what your budget is really. I have read some very good reviews of the Beresford and i'm sure some owners will come along shortly and advise further.