[Luckyleo]

The note below was taken from a Sterophile Magazine review of a Bel Canto USB Link 24/96 USB-S/PDIF converter. It states below that one must appropriately adjust the midi settings in order to hear benefits of this hardware. Not being well founded in the basics of computer audio I was wondering if this would apply to a dac such as Headamp's Pico 24/96 upsampling unit.

Appreciate your help!

Thanks

Leo



With the Mac, the Bel Canto needs to be selected with the Audio Midi Set-Up utility and have its sample rate set to match that of the music to be played. (Go to Applications/Utilities/Audio Midi Set-Up; in the right-hand portion of the panel, select the Bel Canto as the output device; then click on Properties at the left.) If you don't do this, the Link has no way of knowing what the file's sample rate is—unlike a specific audio serial format, such as AES/EBU or S/PDIF, USB doesn't include a data field to specify sample rate, but defaults to the sample rate of whatever was the last file played, using the host computer's sample-rate converter to transcode the audio data. Some programs, such as Peak, use the Mac's CoreAudio interface to switch the USB datastream to whatever is required, but with iTunes on the Mac, you need to manually change the sample rate with Audio Midi Set-Up whenever you select a file with a different sample rate. Otherwise, you'll get no audible benefit from playing a hi-rez file.

 

[Luckyleo]

Bump?

 

[yourstruly]

So I take it you can't hear anything out of your Pico right now? You didn't say specifically, but if you can already hear sound out of Computer->Bel Canto->Pico->Whatever, that means you already have the correct settings. All it's saying is you need to match the sampling rate on the Bel Canto to the sample rate on the file.

I don't know the software on the Bel Canto, so I can't give you detailed instructions, but you can see the sample rate on songs using iTunes on windows by right clicking the song and checking info. The sample rate should be there. Make sure it matches with the sample rate on the Bel Canto, and you're good to go.