USB Driver Bit Rate Settings

[Edward]

Yes fully agree - to keep sadness at bay one has to play and try things out. And money is meant to be spent,

If you get a chance - you will need a helper on this who can take simple instructions - try line up the same albums (or series of tracks) both at Redbook and a high Rez (say 24/192 or DSD) and get your helper to switch randomly between tracks and rez without you being told which is which. And both of you to take notes - and then compare. Would be interesting what % success you have.

In order to further reduce differences between different mastering simply use high rez files and downsample to Redbook. (in JRiver select tracks > Library Tools > Convert Format).

E

[AlfaGTV]

Thats a very nice CD/SACD! And i'm convinced it also does a great job as a DA converter. I was a bit confused over it's capabilities thoguh, and in the manual it states that the digital inputs are only for RedBook material, 16bits 44.1khz sampled PCM:

Digital Input
Optical: - 15dbm to -21dbm (PCM1 - CD Format only)
Coaxial: 0.5V p-p/75 ohm (PCM1 - CD Format only)
Sampling Frequencies: 44.1kHz (PCM1)

If you really like to play back DSD in it's native resolution you will need that Black Label DAC (or similar, i also own and like SMSL)
I'm not certain it will outperform downsampled material through the Mac though?