Digital computer audio is evolving so quickly it is hard to keep up with it.
At present I'm using two computer systems- on my Tannoy Gold system driven by 6EM7-300B-6C33C-B Single Ended amps /JBL active subs from a 6SN7-71A preamp, the digital system is windows7/JRiver media16/Emperical Audio OffRamp4 usb-spdif convertor into a Eastern Electric Minidac with Sabre chips and ECC99 tube output stage. All files are upsampled to the dacs upper limit of 192KHz.
Very nice musical system.
The other system is a bit more complicated as it is a fully active 3 way electrostatic/ribbon /12" bass driver with DEQX digital crossover , DHT preamp, blah blah blah.
The exciting bit is the digital componentry which is the EXA U2I usb-i2s convertor, a Buffalo2 Sabre dac and my own very evolved (and accurate) tube output stage. 384Khz capable throughout, and i'm using a macmini installed with PureMusic to upsample all my computer files to 352.8 or 384Khz playback.
192KHz upsampling can often give good results, but the magic really starts to happen at 384Khz and I was quite stunned by how good this computer audio system is . Even lowly 44.1Khz files are much better sounding when upsampled to 352..8Khz.
768Khz will probably be even better, but a few years away yet. In the meantime I'm building a couple of these very special dacs for my friends. They are expensive- the digital components alone cost in excess of $1200, so from a mainstream manufacturer expect a minimum total cost of around $5000.
Spectacular sound.
