Yeah read up on the tone board, looks quite interesting. Similar to an idea I had at one point of using a Pi with a Phat Dac. Would work out a lot cheaper and still does 24-bits at 192KHz too. Not sure if I'll ever need optical or not unless phono becomes obsolete. Would you say you've noticed a difference using optical?
Do you hear a rather noticeable humming noise from the Atom's power adapter? I thought mine was faulty but apparently it's normal from what distributor said.
No real audible difference I just didn't want to take up a usb slot, also like being able to use the eq from the onboard soundcard for it without having to install something like Peace/APO.
Yea the noise my first adapter was making was extremely loud after a few hours of use. The place I bought from sent out a new one, that's only made a loud hum once. Now I have to place my ear on it, to hear the hum and it's same as the OL Dac's smaller adapter noise when ear placed to it. I did buy a new surge protector though, as it seemed to be made worse by the one I had it first plugged into.
I've also moved the plug order around, I had an email from the surge protector manufacturer that suggested I do this as well.
So originally it was plugged in like this and causing the most noise:
Wall Socket>Surge Protector(Atom>OL Dac>PC PSU>Monitor)
Now I have it so the Atom is the last thing plugged in on the surge furthest from cable to the wall:
Wall Socket>Surge Protector(PC PSU>Monitor>OL Dac>Atom)
I don't know if it's just coincidence, but since doing this I don't have to turn off at the wall after many hours of use (sleep in same room so was having to turn it off at the wall). Gonna eventually plug it back into the original surge adapter in the new order to test as well.