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Computer nerds rejoice! No longer must you bear the abrasive swill that passes for computer audio, for we have for you a magical jumble of gizmos to spin your straw data into gold. The items in question are the Rega DAC and the Musical Fidelity V-Link. Some of you may be familiar with the much lauded Rega, a digital-to-analogue converter that has garnered so much praise in the little time it has been out that one would believe the reviewers were more corrupt than Wollongong council.
The Rega is bristling with inputs and outputs including a USB input. Ordinarily one would cram a half-decent USB cable from a computer into the Rega and be done with it. That, however is only half of the story because if you really want to eke out the very last ounce of performance from your computer files then you're going to need a little magical box, and that box is, yep, you guessed it, the Musical Fidelity V-Link.
What does it do? What doesn't it do? Actually, quite a lot. If anything the V-Link has just one task; to produce optimal digital sound via asynchronous isochronous jitter reduction running up to a 24bit 96khz data rate. Asynchron-wha? Forget the jargon, the key word here is 'jitter'. Jitter is in layman's terms time-based errors derived from digital pulses (or instructions if you will) that are out of order. Basically when data is sent between analogue and digital domains they flow in a set of ordered instructions that, if not tightly scrubbed and controlled, can arrive out of order, leading to a degradation in sound. Thankfully steps can be taken to all but banish jitter, or at least mitigate it to the point it doesn't overtly impact the overall sound quality. Data spewing forth from the USB out from your computer to a DAC can be exponentially improved by ensuring the jitter is kept at bay by the V-Link.
The banishment of jitter alone would make the Musical Fidelity V-Link an essential partner in any computer/DAC based system but there's one other exceptional feature to crow about, and that is the ability to play high-resolution audio files up to 24 bit, 96Khz. Unless you have invested in a rather impressive and expensive soundcard for your computer you'll find that you likely won't be able to play those aforementioned better-than-CD-quality files at their desired resolution. The reason for this is that the computer will throttle the output to 16 bit, 44/48Khz. With the V-Link you can play those files properly as the Rega is more than capable of wresting the full potential out of those songs. Which means you can finally play Bearded man sits in an Anechoic Chamber and Plays the Flute Volume 37 that you downloaded from HDTracks.com!
Ok, so we now have the hardware to really get your computer singing but we'll need some cables to hook it all up. To get the best out of the gear the cables will need to be of high quality, but not having-an-AVO-taken-out-on-you-by-your-wallet expensive. For that we have assembled a collection of QED cables that are synonymous with affordability and performance. As the V-Link gives you the choice of a Coax or Tos-Link digital output to the Rega we figured we'd give you the choice of deciding which one to use.
Alright, you're all set! Feel free to give us a call or shoot off an email if you have any queries in getting this all set-up ... or whatever.
More information:
Rega DAC digital to analogue converter
Musical Fidelity V-Link USB to SPDIF converter
QED Reference audio interconnect
QED Profile optical cable
QED Qunex P75 digital coaxial cable
