h264

It's basically what I've been saying for a while, not to mention what's been in the FAQ since day 1. Excellent article. Some of the comments are pretty entertaining.

yeah, I need to update that FAQ review list already.

O3 isn't the same as O2

Don't forget that sheet metal headphone stand!

Maybe I'm the only one, but I heard no difference besides volume of the surround rendered effects in the SBX studio. Positioning was accurate both while stationary and moving for all those technologies.

I've never listened to the actual headphones for a long period of time so I have no opinion on them I'm just not responding to this topic.

That will be fine; maybe not terribly loud, bit fine.

it really shouldn't sound different, there's no difference in playback, same codec and probably same decoder for both at this point.

soon he'll be batch tagging from the clipboard with dynamic metadata fields like a pro

It's not? I find them pretty similar at least when the COPs are on setting #2. The COPs are much more comfortable though.

See, the big problem here is some of us ... veterans ... are using the common wisdom from a time when motherboards had NO audio inputs/outputs. But then again we used to need daughterboards for hard drives, modems, network interfaces (remember THICKnet?!?), and all sorts of other stuff. Back then you needed a LOT of different cards to build a good computer, but now it's all just built in and every bit as good. We don't still put math processors into our motherboards, but we used to. Soon, graphics cards will be unnecessary, and then maybe the whole concept of a daughterboard will exist only in a computer museum somewhere. It'll be sorta sad though since CONSUMER computers will be much harder to customize (server boards will always be ... uhhh... scalable). So I'm gonna take another swig of beer and remember the good old days one more time before they slip away...

Monoprice 8323 would be my pick.

yeah, tack that up as a "feature request" on that pie-in-sky amp you're making

you don't have said phone/vita plugged into the input jack on the front at the SAME TIME as the ODAC, do you? Causes that sure causes the level to drop on my O2+ODAC when I try it.

hmmm, weird idea, try a different USB port. Like one on a powered hub, such as your monitor or something. Also make sure you click that balance button and make sure those are both 100% too.

any chance you could post a picture of your audio settings window?

what version of windows do you have? XP had that "wave" level sometimes you used to have to turn up. Make sure the ODAC "volume" is 100% and then adjust the O2 from there.

Actually Biostar's boards have very good onboard audio. They call them "hi-fi" boards after all. I got an $80 mini-ATX board for my new media PC and I was pretty impressed with the Realtek 400 series chip it came with. I just use the HDMI port on the back for the audio to my receiver, though. all my motherboards are Biostar boards cause I'm a cheap ass, I know.

I'll give you some soundcards may have an output an onboard might not, but a slightly higher snr is usually inaudible and rarely tells you anything about the signal quality. Their headphone output's output impedance is usually high doing the most actual damage to the signal on a soundcard. There's just no way a higher output level makes a lot of sense to the average consumer except to damage their hearing especially when it comes to low impedance headphones and powered speakers.

They've been audibly transparent since the 800 series.