Just got a Musical Fidelity V Link Asyncronus USB to Spif. This unit cuts out the sound card completely and is producing some stunning sounds from my 4 way active system. One of the best upgrades value for money wise for a long time. From my sound card I favoured the coax Spif output with this unit in line it’s the optical output that is producing some stunning sounds.
Anyone else using this unit?
I still find ripping CDs at max resolution to the hard drive produces a better playback than direct from the CD?

Keep in mind that CD players are an electro mechanical interface with all the possibilities of jitter etc coming into play. Streaming audio via the V link bypasses most of the nasties and is certainly a much cleaner sound than via the sound card.
I sited this as a cost affective way of getting quality sound out of a PC . It may well be that a dedicated CD player costing vast amounts of money will sound as good or better, I use a laptop and was talking about PC based sound. Of course the is a max resolution when people talk about FLAC and MP3 files.. What specific employment do you observe? Not sure what your question means here I don’t go much for listing my gear as though its some method of reassuring the HIFI gurus that only they know what’s best. MY ears, the differences are so vast I don’t employ test gear. Something that measures perfect can sound crap.

You do come across as hostile this is suppose to be pleasure.

David wrote:

Just got a Musical Fidelity V Link Asyncronus USB to Spif. This unit cuts out the sound card completely and is producing some stunning sounds from my 4 way active system. One of the best upgrades value for money wise for a long time. From my sound card I favoured the coax Spif output with this unit in line it’s the optical output that is producing some stunning sounds. Anyone else using this unit? I still find ripping CDs at max resolution to the hard drive produces a better playback than direct from the CD?

David wrote:

I think for a start there are so many different ways of getting a sound that is acceptable to the listener it pays not to be too dogmatic. I am in the early days of developing my system with speakers from 4 different manufacturers running in active analogue mode. I started trying to sort out the sound I wanted with what I considered to be the weakest link, the electromechanical transducer which properly produces more measurable distortion than most other components? Room acoustics also play a massive role in how things sound. I am in the process of trying to get the best input but as with most people money is limited. There are times when one has to accept that the elimination of a component in the chain is most times going to result in a cleaner sound hence the Musical Fidelity V Link Asyncronus USB . Even the same unit in a different system will sound different we don’t all have the same mains supply, connecting cables, DACs, Amplification, with active or passive systems. Hence with my system bypassing the sound card with a Musical Fidelity V Link Asyncronus USB produced a much more dynamic clean sound with really clean production through the range. My sound card is only a cheap one. My DAC is also in need of an upgrade any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks for that most helpful but the V-Link was just a cheap try out and has proved its worth.

I’m also interested in your CD transport which one is it and your DAC?

Thanks