Learning about Hi-Fi

Originally Posted by seepra 

Well, there are generally two ways to learn more. Other is the subjective audiophilia, where you pretty much go by product recommendations and word-of-mouth and anecdotal evidence as far as product quality goes with little to back up the claims. Then there's the "objectivist" sect, which pretty much only trusts on measurements and blind testing to eliminate any sub-conscious and imagined "improvements" in the system.
I strongly suggest an approach somewhere in the middle, because while objective sound quality is obviously important, not everyone might enjoy or need a "flawless" sound with a flat frequency response and the such. It's still, very much the optimal starting point for a good system, but you should always listen to what you want to buy first, and trust less on things people say, even if they had proof
For great information sources about audio facts and the such, I recommend you look at sites like:
HydrogenAudio
NwAvGuy's blog (also check out his article of What We Hear to better understand the psychology of audiophilia, and I definitely recommend the article on op-amp myths just to give you perspective how widespread and accepted some completely flawed concepts about audio are, and how equally much you should take a lot of people say with a grain of salt).
The Spanish version of Matrix-Audio has a lot of good blind tests to further highlight how little do high-end products like Benchmark DAC1 matter in an actual listening scenario, it's almost intelligible with Google Translate.
Gearslutz forums also have some great information on hardware, although they cater more to the studio and PA folk. You can still learn an awful lot there!
You can of course read articles from What Hi-Fi and the such but remember that they have an agenda, as they are dependent on sponsor funding. They're still great sources to pick up inspiration as to what to buy, but I would not trust their reviews too much. I cannot really recommend Head-Fi as people who disagree about sponsored products on the site get booted, and I got banned for politely telling a person to consider changing the 100 miles of aluminium to his power plant if he thinks that power cables affect sound somehow. They've also muted voices of people who have spotted serious flaws in their sponsored products, which is very concerning.

Originally Posted by bumblebee1980 

I recommend starting with the room.
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/610173-acoustics-treatment-reference-guide-look-here.html
my office has Owen Corning 2", 4" 703 and 705 absorption panels even a cloud above my head. one thing I like about headphones is the room is not apart of the equation and you get more mileage for your money so that might be something that interest you.

Originally Posted by seepra 

No problem. The only place where I don't recommend skimping out on is the actual transducer, ie. the speakers or headphones. It takes some R'n'D to actually make a cabinet that plays well with a transducer with very low distortion and even frequency response, much more so than applying some already existing good IC circuits, even though some audiophiles will demand otherwise and openly discredit empirical evidence and correctly executed blind testing (they sometimes have these endearing blind tests with no proper documentation or repetitions where everyone mutually agrees something sounds way different, but it's not a statistically valid experiment without several repetitions).
But yeah, when you get to the essence of it, I'd be saving for a pair of good speakers/headphones and worry less about the DAC, unless you have some very specific features in mind like integrated DSP or room EQ or balanced outputs (for which the Behringer DEQ2496 has been blind-tested to be indistinguishable from the Benchmarc DAC1 by Matrix-Audio).
Also, from the identical master file, 24-bit/192KHz and 16.bit/44.1KHz can't be distinguishted without sighted expectation bias. What 24-bit DACs are good for though, is digital volume control. If you first set volume lower digitally on a 16-bit DAC, and then amplify it with a pre-amp to very high levels, it's possible to start hearing the quantization noise. (But this doesn't mean that your source files have to be 24-bit, because a DAC in 24-bit mode should in most cases stretch the source to full 24-bits to have more option with the volume levels)
This video does a good job explaining plenty of audio phenomena in a scientific and sensible way, including the amount of bits required for music

Originally Posted by Mygaffer 

Well budget plays a large role when putting together a sound system. I have a link in my sig where I detail ways to save money by buying used. I am very happy with with my current setup but doubly so when I consider how little money I spent.
The third post in the thread is where I actually give tips detailing where I look for bargain gear.

Originally Posted by seepra 

No problem.
S/PDIF is mostly handy in my opinion, when you want to do the D/A conversion in a receiver. There are several stereo-amplifiers with a DAC built in (Onkyo A5-VL comes to mind), and 5.1/7.1/etc. receivers are essentially meant to do both DA-conversion and amplification. Also I might add, that using the optical S/PDIF is very handy for separating your amplifier and computer's grounds from each other, eliminating one possible point of ground loop hum/interference from computer PSU if you are suffering from any (I keep talking about ground loop in many of my posts because I've just happened to personally run into it in my own and other people's set-ups a huge lot. It doesn't always happen, but if you want to play sure optical is nice way to clear grounding issues that coaxial or USB might cause).
If you have a receiver around, I personally would go with optical S/PDIF, also called TOSLINK. If you don't and are looking for a DAC, you can of course consider options that have separate PSU and have digital optical inputs, but unless you're absolutely sure you're going to have a ground loop issue or your speakers are sensitive to such, you can equally well go with USB and be very happy (although a receiver is still a good option). The ones and zeros don't know what are they going through, and they will for all intents and purposes be identical no matter do you use AES/EBU, TOSLINK, coax. or USB, so don't worry about the format too much, your computer and the DACs should handle it okay

Originally Posted by bumblebee1980 

I do not like buying used headphones or speakers but separates absolutely. check out Audiogon.