MEASUREMENTS: AUNE X1 (Mark I) [UPDATED].

As we all know, manufacturing capacity has shifted to Asia over the decades. Almost all the high tech gear we use in our daily lives are "Made in China" or Korea, or Japan these days. So why not commoditization of high performance audio and buying "the good stuff" from there as well?Over the last decade, there has been a nice proliferation of extremely high performing and inexpensive gear coming out of Asia available on places like eBay among other...

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MEASUREMENTS: Oppo BDP-105 as USB DAC.

Thanks to my good buddy Phil, I got a chance to hook up the test kit to his newly acquired Oppo BDP-105 player last week...(Yup, that's his Vitus Audio amp under the Oppo.)As many of you know, this is the new "jack of all trades" Blu-Ray player from Oppo. Apart from the video wonder this device is capable of (including 3D, 4K upconversion...), for audiophiles, the internal DAC is the well-respected "ESS SABRE 32 Reference ES9018" in dual configuration...

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MEASUREMENTS: Asus XONAR Essence One [Updated June 25, 2013]

As I indicated in the E-MU 0404USB page, this is my new workstation DAC. The measurement setup is somewhat different but I will use the 040USB done on the workstation itself rather than the laptop I used in the previous page:- Computer: Intel i7-3770K @ 4GHz, 24GB DDR3, ASrock Extreme 4 motherboard- E-MU 0404USB --> USB2 of the computer motherboard using generic USB cables. E-MU located about 3 feet from the main computer (too close results...

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MEASUREMENTS: MUSE Mini TDA1543x4 NOS DAC! [UPDATED]

For fun, I thought I'd run an old NOS DAC I had lying around to see how it measures...This is the ancient Philips TDA1543 DAC (data sheet says 1991), 4 chips in parallel - supposed to improve noise measurements. This particular model is the MUSE Audio one you can find on eBay for about $60 with case & wallwart... For this test, I actually ran it with a better AC adapter (Samsung 12V, 2A unit). The DIR9001 digital receiver in this unit allows...

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MEASUREMENTS: What 'lo-fi' looks like (SONY CFD-S05).

<Originally posted on Squeezebox Forum Feruary 13, 2013>I realized over the weekend that it has been at least 10 years since I actually played any cassette tapes! My dad was interested in getting some old cassettes transferred and I discovered both my cassette players at home didn't work.So, off to the local Wal-Mart-like big block store and I came home with this beauty :-)The Sony CFD-S05 does a lot for $60. It's a smallish boombox CD player,...

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MEASUREMENTS: Logitech Squeezebox Boom & Radio.

Well, the Radio is (sadly) the only Squeezebox device still in production these days. DAC is the TI TLV320AIC3104.I calibrated the headphone output to my E-MU 0404USB, WiFi streaming, measured with the usual i7 workstation.Not expecting hi-fi performance out of this unit of course and pretty well got what was expected... Overall, an OK performer in the 16-bit domain for music streaming duties and incapable of taking advantage of 24-bit audio...

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MEASUREMENTS: Behringer DEQ2496.

<Originally posted Feb 17, 2013 on Squeezebox Forum>This weekend, I decided to hookup the Behringer DEQ2496 digital EQ processor to the test gear and see how this measures. Normally, this unit is set up to provide room EQ via a digital loop with the Transporter so I've rarely had a listen to the analogue outputs.Internal DAC is the AKM AK4393, the little brother of the Transporter's AK4396. About 6 months ago I actually hooked the DEQ4396...

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