Topic: Apogee MiniDac w/Firewire Bit Perfect?

[F0CKER]

I'm looking into picking up the Apogee MiniDac with Firewire card.  I'm using Foobar2000 as my media player.  Will I be able to get bit perfect playback using the firewire as my digital out?  Is there anything windows might do to a firewire connection to interfere with the digital stream?  Would I need to continue to use Kernel Streaming / ASIO in Foobar to allow for bit perfect or is that a non-factor with using Firewire?

[BobW]

Bit perfection is a concern for Digital to Digital dubs, such as DAT transfers
A/D and D/A isn't a bit to bit process

I hope that helps...

BTW, latency, sonic transparency,and jitter may be of bigger concern to you.
The MiniDAC is a nice box.
I like the Benchmark, others like the Grace M902, there are a few other great players in the game.
In short, you could do allot worse than a MiniDAC!
No one else is doing Firewire to my knowledge, and Firewire has the reputation of being far superior for constant stream data than USB2.0

[MattD]

I like the Benchmark, others like the Grace M902, there are a few other great players in the game.

Mytek

No one else is doing Firewire to my knowledge, and Firewire has the reputation of being far superior for constant stream data than USB2.0

Metric Halo

[F0CKER]

Bit perfection is a concern for Digital to Digital dubs, such as DAT transfers
A/D and D/A isn't a bit to bit process

I know that, I guess I should restate the question a bit.  When sending audio out through a soundcard, using a media player like Foobar for example, to get bit perfect playback through the soundcard you need to enable ASIO or Kernel Streaming.  Otherwise the audio is sent through Windows kmixer and the signal is altered (resampled, etc) and apparently is not bit perfect.  My question is, using firewire to the Minidac is the Minidac getting a true, unaltered signal, w/o any interference from Windows?

Here's some more on the subject...
http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=88852

[BobW]

That's sort of a misuse of the meaning of bit-perfect.
You want a driver that doesn't resample.
You want a media player that supports it.

ASIO is a good way to go, and is supported by most of the Audio Cards that start around $70.

USB and Firewire are merely the physical ports or transport system of the bits.

To net all of the jargon out and answer your question:
Ask your vendor first to be sure, but I'm willing to bet that ASIO Firewire and USB are supported.
It certainly is for the Mini-Me

Anyhow:
Foobar
[FILE] > Preferences > Playback > Output and select your output driver

[Nick's Picks]

right...
its all about the sound card and its ability to utilize various drivers.

the Apogee, probably comes w/software that allows it to interact w/a PC via firewire.  Otherwise, the PC wouldn't know to send audio data out that port to it. It probably shows up as a sound card for that matter (to the PC), and will definitely have superior drivers to support anything.

[F0CKER]

ahhh got it.  +t's all around!

[jlykos]

FYI, Stereophile hated the Apogee MiniDAC when they reviewed it a few years ago.  They reported that it was very brittle and harsh sounding (which is almost the complete opposite of the MiniMe; if anything, the MiniMe is too smooth and not detailed enough).  They (and many others that I know) liked the Benchmark D/A a LOT better.  You may want to audition the Benchmark before spending the cash on the Apogee.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I think the question of whether your soundcard/firewire/whatever is bit perfect is a VERY good one.

I found some problems in linux where applications would convert your data from 24 bits to 32 internally. You'd get 24 bits back that did not match what you started with.  Whether you can hear a difference is subject to debate.. But once the data is mangled, you can no longer use the valuable test of "is it perfect or not" as a check of the chain.

A lot of different libraries (not just drivers) can be involved in processing audio. Those libraries can be dynamically linked into the application.  Under linux, libsndfile is an example.  libsndfile tends to be pretty good about this but the apps that call it may not be.