trisweb - ProductWiki

trisweb commented on Behringer UCA202 U-Control edited a comment

trisweb — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:29:53 -0400

July 28, 2009 at 11:29 pm

trisweb commented on Behringer UCA202 U-Control edited a comment

trisweb — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:58:29 -0400

July 28, 2009 at 9:58 pm

trisweb commented on Behringer UCA202 U-Control edited a comment

trisweb — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:52:50 -0400

July 24, 2009 at 8:52 pm

trisweb updated 2 products

trisweb — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:53:53 -0400

1. updated Yamaha HTR-5960 - July 21, 2009 at 8:53 pm

new pro/con: Good phono pre-amp stage
new pro/con: Easy-to-use remote
new pro/con: Banana-plug posts for nearly all speaker connections
new pro/con: Assignable and re-nameable audio and video input settings
new pro/con: Automatic speaker and room calibration
new pro/con: Excellent distortion-free clean sound
new pro/con: Excellent power capability
new pro/con: Front A/V and Optical inputs
new pro/con: Multichannel analog preout.
new pro/con: Plenty of inputs - both digital and analog.
tapped as "love it"
tapped as "have it"

2. updated Sony STR-DG520 - July 21, 2009 at 8:35 pm

agreed: "Good value receiver with 2 HDMI inputs"
agreed: "Doesn't decode HD audio"
disagreed: "Decent audio ouput power - 100 W"
agreed: "No video transcoding or upscaling"
agreed: "No front inputs"
agreed: "Only 3 digital audio inputs in total (2 optical + 1 coax)"
agreed: "Only has binding post speaker terminals for 2 channels"
new pro/con: Horrible muddy sound quality; not high fidelity.

trisweb commented on 4 items

trisweb — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 20:45:16 -0400

1. commented on Yamaha HTR-5960 - July 21, 2009 at 8:45 pm

"A Quick review - I love this receiver. My main concern is audio quality - it excels even with my 4-ohm ADS bookshelf speakers and powers them to their fullest with no audible distortion. The 'direct amplify mode' is excellent - truly sounds like nothing is between the music and your ears. The inputs available are extensive and capable. It has plenty of both optical and coax digital ins and outs, and plenty of analog as well. It's a slightly older receiver, so no HDMI, but it does up/down/sideways conversion of all video signals to whatever monitor output you want (component is what I use) which is very nice. All of my non-HDMI signals go through the receiver and it works pretty well. I use it every day every time I turn on the TV or listen to music, and I couldn't be happier with every aspect, but most of all with the sound hitting my ears. Some would call it almost too perfect - for those I say get a tube amplifier :) But for any other purpose, this thing is awesome. Highly recommended."

2. commented on Sony STR-DG520 - July 21, 2009 at 8:17 pm

"Others have covered the technical limitations/features of the receiver - let me put a word in about audio quality. It's really astonishingly bad. I mean, I'm picky about sound quality, but not that picky - but the difference was night and day between it and my little T-Amp. The T-Amp was like crystal in comparison - the Sony 520 had absolutely zero imaging, obviously bad stereo crosstalk (how often can you even hear that??), clearly introduced signal distortion... I could go on. The sound was essentially dead. Amplified, but dead. Opting not to kill my beautiful music, I went with a 1-year old used Yamaha HTR-5960 and couldn't be happier. The amplifiers in the Yamaha's are clean and clear. But then, at a price point this low, any amplifier is probably going to be less than great, and you do get what you pay for - I was just surprised that I could hear it with such clarity (or lack of clarity, as it were). I can't recommend this if you have good ears. You have been warned."

3. commented on Behringer UCA202 U-Control - July 21, 2009 at 7:59 pm

"I love this little thing! I'm so surprised at the high sound quality out of such a cheap USB interface. Stereo separation is great, frequency response is flat, doesn't color the sound or introduce muddiness or distortion, imaging is top notch. Just a nice clean signal, in and out. Can't ask for much more than that at this price. It's also great that everything "just works" out of the box (I'm using OSX - but I assume for Windows as well). Other USB audio interfaces I've used have horrible drivers that required restarts of programs, unplugging the USB and plugging it back in, etc. - but not this thing - it just works. Awesome. I highly recommend this for anyone who owns a laptop and a good pair of headphones or speakers, since it will be many times better than the headphone jack on any laptop. Even my MacBook Pro (which generally has the reputation of being 'good for media') has horrible muddy noisy sound out of the headphone jack. At this price, everyone with good ears can enjoy a nice clean sound from any computer."

4. commented on Tascam US-122L - July 21, 2009 at 7:48 pm

"Unfortunately this device has horrible support and drivers for Mac OS X. With the 1.12 drivers and older firmware, it worked intermittently. Sometimes had to re-plug USB to get it to detect the device. At times playback would fail in iTunes, Songbird, and VLC, and would have to restart the program to get it to recognize it again. Upgrading to the 1.12 firmware completely kills the support for the device under Mac OSX. You cannot downgrade the firmware, so I was out of luck. I ended up returning it, though it was a versatile and cool device, it just sadly had horrible drivers for OSX. I got a separate Mixer+USB Audio interface (for cheaper albeit without MIDI), and I'm much happier."

trisweb updated 2 products

trisweb — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:49:40 -0400

1. updated Behringer UCA202 U-Control - July 21, 2009 at 7:49 pm

tapped as "love it"
tapped as "have it"
new pro/con: Only 48KHz/16-bit maximum
new pro/con: High sound quality
agreed: "Line level inputs - no preamplification"
agreed: "Only 2 input channels (L/R)"
agreed: "Small, portable unit"
agreed: "S/PDIF digital optical output for direct DAC conversion"
agreed: "Dedicated stereo headphone jack for monitor ins and outs with volume control"
agreed: "USB bus powered - no external power required"
agreed: "No software drivers required"
agreed: "High quality components"
agreed: "High quality components"
agreed: "Inexpensive - only $25"

2. updated Tascam US-122L - July 21, 2009 at 7:42 pm

new pro/con: Can only use 2 inputs at a time (Either Mic or Line)
new pro/con: Excellent sound playback and recording quality at 96KHz/24-bit
agreed: "Poor support from Tascam"
untapped as "have it"
tapped as "have it"
new pro/con: Poor drivers for Mac OS X

trisweb joined the site

trisweb — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:38:17 -0400

July 21, 2009 at 7:38 pm