M-Audio Transit

Adrian,

I use the transit without issues but that is on XP. I cannot speak for Vista or 7 unfortunately.

The TC Electronic products, studio gear, are popular. JS will most likely chime in on that one.

At that level of cash I might recommend a very nice soundcard, which would easily match or outperform a Mac's internal card with digital out. There is no reason why it cannot.

Also, people seem happy with a streamer like the SB, Transporter, Apple TV/Airports etc....

There are many options. Typically there are reasons why one chooses one rather than the other, e.g. Mac owner, dont want a computer is the listening room, blind allegiance, price, ease of use, interface etc.....

What are your short-comings, obstacles, prejudices and ideals? Then people will be able to help you get dialed in.

-patrick

Adrian - if you are looking for something external you may want to look at the EMU USB 0404.

Otherwise there are plenty of internal cards worth looking at - I recently dropped an ESI Juli@ into my machine with great results over the onboard effort and I spoke to ESI and Win7 drivers are in the pipeline and Vista are currently available (and partially work with Win7)

Patrick,

This is strictly for PC audio while I'm working in my study. I have optical out from the onboard sound feeding a Beresford DAC and Dynaudio MC11 speakers + sub. I've invested in a decent speaker setup and a reasonable DAC, I think the onboard sound on my Asus Rampage Formula motherboard is the weak link. I'm currently using Vista 64, soon to be Win 7. I use foobar with the WASAPI plugin as my player.

This setup is quite separate from my Naim system (which I am feeding with a CDS3 and a Squeezebox Receiver via a DacMagic).

Basically I'm looking for a better quality digital optical audio out from the PC than I'm getting from the onboard sound. Having seen references to the M-Audio Transit I thought it might be the answer but it seems their driver development is lagging behind the times.

Occean, thanks for the pointers to the EMU and ESI products. I don't mind internal or external, but I did think external was better as it's outside the electrically noisy PC case and less likely to be compromised.

Cheers,
Adrian

I think Beresford now do a DAC with USB input - might they upgrade/exchange your unit? Would be very neat if they did.

likes,

You are right, the new Beresford DAC would be a good solution but as I already have two low(ish) end DACs I don't really want to buy another. I'd be surprised if Stanley would do a swap/upgrade but I suppose it's worth asking.

The DacMagic has USB but no volume control or headphone socket which I need. It may also be out of a job if another (considerably higher end) DAC we're all waiting for lives up to expectations!

Adrian

Might be worth making sure your pc is the problem. Does feeding the Beresford from your squeezebox improve things?

quote:

Originally posted by pcstockton:
Adrian,

I use the transit without issues but that is on XP. I cannot speak for Vista or 7 unfortunately.

The TC Electronic products, studio gear, are popular. JS will most likely chime in on that one.

Sorry, no clue without ever having used it. Likely a driver issue with 64 bit OS if there is one. May work fine with 32 bit and I believe the drivers for Vista and 7 should be very similar if not the same. a good reason to use a trnasit would be ASIO though I understand new versions of WM in vista/7 can be configured with waspi to be accurate.

JS,
am i having a stroke or something? I thought you were all about the TC products?

-p

No. I do think th Konnekt 8 a great tool if used correctly but I'm unfamiliar with the transit or even if a TC will work with 64 bit OS.

sorry for misleading.

There is someone on here who talks about the Konnect a lot, and I figured would know the most about the OP using it as a converter. For some reason I thought it was you.

ooops,
patrick

I meant no, your not having a stroke.

quote:

Originally posted by js:
No. I do think th Konnekt 8 a great tool if used correctly but I'm unfamiliar with the transit or even if a TC will work with 64 bit OS.

Officially there are no 64 bit drivers for the Konnekt family, as I know.

quote:

Originally posted by Adrian Pasciuta:


Finally, are there any reasonably priced alternatives to the Transit that anyone would recommend?

There is something interesting and affordable.

You can try the M2Tech HiFace USB2 - to - SPDIF converter. It is a new USB 2 interface with coax SPDIF RCA or BNC connector which has (or promised) 64 bit drivers for Windows and Mac (in beta) and a driver for Linux too and, it works as ASYNC USB2 converter and can put get 192k/24 bit audio from the computer to an external DAC with quite low jitter, certainly lower than the Transit or the EMU interface. Cost is 99 Euro. Hope to have one in 3 weeks time. On Mac it does not use the core audio subsystem, grabs the packages before the go through Core Audio, as it was told by them. So a kind of poor man's hardware based Amarra :-)

I use M-Audio Transit on XP. The SQ is very good.
M-Audio drivers (USB and Firewire) did always have issues whatever MA gears I used.
They tend to fall down, sometimes unseen when USB is plugged and you have to re-plug USB to catch up again -- not frequently. I used Soundblaster before -- the S/PDIF was much worse in terms of jitter but no problem with drivers.
Anyway -- PC/Transit is a very good digital source and with reclocking DAC can sound as perfect. The drivers issues are minor and not much annoying.
I think Transit is one of the cheapest USB/Tosslink converters -- at least among those who offer low output jitter.

Stay away from PC -> USB/DAC if you value the low noise hi-end reproduction.
I can't say for all -- but many DACs have a serious grounding issue through USB.

Adrian,

I have M-Audio Firewire Solo, it's brilliant right into M-Audio BX5a Deluxe. Stay away from USB devices if you can.

cheers

quote:

I'm also going to upgrade to Windows 7 64bit

Upgrade? Are you sure?

Hi Adrian -

Am using the Transit with my Vista 64 desktop and it works great. Also, saw that M-Audio has posted a beta driver for Windows 7.

Only setup trick to get 24/96 output working was to disable input. The Transit is bi-directional. When input is turned on, output is limited to 24/48.

Regards,

Hook

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:

quote:

I'm also going to upgrade to Windows 7 64bit

Upgrade? Are you sure?

My thoughts exactly ... IF you have a working music server, then there is no real benefit of moving to Windows 7 and lots of potential problems as with any upgrade. I think a lot of people could benefit from taking a leaf out of the corporate book and when you have a working system, only upgrade when the technology has become mature / stable.

Eloise

Thanks for all the input.

The consensus seems to be to stay away from USB DACS. I'll shelve that option.

Hook, it's good to hear you've managed to get the Transit working on Vista 64. Are you actually using the recently-posted beta driver or have you got one of the earlier versions working?

Point taken regarding the Win 7 upgrade. I'm in no rush and this will happen in parallel to my existing Vista install when reasonably sized SSDs become affordable. Not sure when that will be, but the apparently glacial pace of Transit driver development was a concern.

Adrian

quote:

Originally posted by ferenc:

quote:

Originally posted by Adrian Pasciuta:


Finally, are there any reasonably priced alternatives to the Transit that anyone would recommend?

There is something interesting and affordable.

You can try the M2Tech HiFace USB2 - to - SPDIF converter. It is a new USB 2 interface with coax SPDIF RCA or BNC connector which has (or promised) 64 bit drivers for Windows and Mac (in beta) and a driver for Linux too and, it works as ASYNC USB2 converter and can put get 192k/24 bit audio from the computer to an external DAC with quite low jitter, certainly lower than the Transit or the EMU interface. Cost is 99 Euro. Hope to have one in 3 weeks time. On Mac it does not use the core audio subsystem, grabs the packages before the go through Core Audio, as it was told by them. So a kind of poor man's hardware based Amarra :-)

This link is very interesting, and an elegant solution too since it is very small and it is plugged straight into the USB port.
I think it bypasses completely the OS audio mixer since it uses KS. Shame it only works with foobar until now. IMO, the bundle of proprietary USB driver (Async), good quality clock and 192/24 support put this device ahead of most competitors. Maybe in the same league as a Lynx/RME soundcard?
I will give it a try when it will be compatible with J.River player.

ferenc, the M2Tech HiFace does look like a promising alternative to the Transit.

The foobar player requirement isn't a problem for me as it's currently my player of choice. I use with the WASAPI plugin to get bit-exact output rather than Kernel Streaming which (according to the foobar doc page) was designed for XP/2000 and isn't guaranteed to be compatible with Vista/Win7.

Shame the S/PDIF output is coax rather than optical though. But definitely worthy of further investigation.

Adrian

Hi Adrian -

Am using the latest Vista driver (5.10.0.5125).

When I couldn't figure out how to get 24/96 output working, M-Audio support (not the best) suggested giving the Windows 7 Beta driver a try. So Vista and Windows 7 must be pretty close when it comes to USB drivers.

FYI, am connected through the Transit to an MF V-DAC (Naim DAC on pre-order). Heard no difference in sound between straight USB and USB/SPDIF optical conversion using the Transit. Maybe the benefit of electrical isolation was balanced by the extra connections and electrical/optical conversion. No clue.

The rest of my setup is Nait XS/Flatcap XS/Harbeth C7s. Perhaps this is not a precise enough lens through which to hear such extremely subtle differences in sound? Or perhaps it is my 52 year old (Grateful Dead concert damaged) ears.

Hook

quote:

Hope to have one in 3 weeks time.

ferenc

Would you mind to post on findings. Thanks.

And if someone could try it via wasapi exclusive. I think it rather important for most consumers looking for bit perfect lower system noise. Would allow not using the windows mixer via WMP, IItunes, J. River and probably the next MM. Not that Foobar isn't viable but folks like their current players and even WMP could be a good thing used this way.

Ferenc, do you know if it's ground is isolated? I've noticed some very small surface mount x/formers in other devices from audiotrak and April Music (Stello U2). U2 also looks to have some on board regulation for the USB power, clocks(for asychronus usb?) and is coax or I2S out only. No idea how it sounds and it costs probably twice as much as the h Hiface.

quote:

Originally posted by js:
....
Ferenc, do you know if it's ground is isolated?

I do not know, so I asked, waiting for the answer.