Total BitHead Problems & Solutions
A week ago I ordered a Total BitHead. It arrived and showed quite a lot of promise but I noticed that the onboard DAC mangles certain types of sounds. OSX system sounds are a good test case, /System/Library/Sounds/Ping.aiff in particular. Through the standard headphone jack it sounds like a clear "ping" falling off to silence. Through the BitHead it sounds crunchy: I can hear the DAC kick on at the start and off at the end with digital-sounding static in the middle.
I sought technical support and headphone.com was admirably eager to please, but the replacement unit suffers from exactly the same problem. This weekend I'll probably buy a cheap USB DAC from Fry's to see whether my Mac isn't sending to the USB DAC or whether it's the Headroom DAC that has the problem receiving it.
Update: matrushkaka's 12" PowerBook and my PC don't have this problem. Looks like the BitHead isn't entirely to blame and that the problem has something to do with this particular mac.
Update: Reinstalled OSX. Now the BitHead sounds fine. Weird.
Update: The problem came back again when I played a video with Mplayer. At least the problem is reproducible now. Time to file a bug report.
I sought technical support and headphone.com was admirably eager to please, but the replacement unit suffers from exactly the same problem. This weekend I'll probably buy a cheap USB DAC from Fry's to see whether my Mac isn't sending to the USB DAC or whether it's the Headroom DAC that has the problem receiving it.
Update: matrushkaka's 12" PowerBook and my PC don't have this problem. Looks like the BitHead isn't entirely to blame and that the problem has something to do with this particular mac.
Update: Reinstalled OSX. Now the BitHead sounds fine. Weird.
Update: The problem came back again when I played a video with Mplayer. At least the problem is reproducible now. Time to file a bug report.