The $150 shiny white cat turd https://www.audioadvisor.com/ifipur3b-sil

My criticism of digital audio technology has remained the same all my life. It is as unreliable as it is innovative. For every amazing thing you can do with it, there's a can of worms opened in the form of endless technical difficulties.

For instance: digital noise. This little gremlin comes in many forms but today we will address what I have dubbed "processor" noise. The various bees nest of 1s and 0s running through your CPU, making a constant background clatter of sounds that end up in your ear and on your recordings. Probably my pick for top 10 downsides to using a computer for audio. Every time you load a page, move your mouse, scroll or click, you hear what sounds like cockroaches quietly playing hyperactive table tennis. I have included a recording of this sound, or I WOULD have, if the sound didn't magically disappear the moment I went to write this article.

Which brings me to another thing about digital devices. Inconsistency. Sometimes they work, sometime they don't and have fun trying to figure out why. Your only guarantee is that you WILL waste hours of your life trouble shooting to no avail. Trouble shooting digital audio can be an absolute nightmare. For instance, why was this audible digital demon farting on my computer for weeks on end, but then magically disappeared the moment I finally couldn't stand it anymore and decided to invest in a USB noise filter? Before the filter even showed up to my door, with no change to the system set up, the noise problem disappeared entirely. Why? Where? How? Who knows! It's like the computer saw I ordered a solution and just wanted to make me look like a jackass. Worst part is, I know from experience, the noise will be back. Just a matter of time. Like some bazaar Pokemon, it will appear randomly when I'm not even looking for it.

So, in spite of NOT having a noise issue anymore, when it was delivered, I attached my new shiny white cat turd to my schiit DAC. Now I get the privilege of hearing perfect digital sound. Every single 1 and 0 bit corrected with state of the art noise cancellation technology. With this increase in resolution, I can now hear every SINGLE tiny bloody mistake the mixing/recording engineers made when listening to my favorite music tracks. Every pop and click and digital distortion left on the original recordings. It drives me nuts. So I went from suffering my own computer's noise, to suffering other people's. lol

Some one once asked me, why I don't really listen to music. I told them, I can't, because I just start analyzing the track as an audio engineer. Looking for any mistakes, because, well, that's my profession. I have a real hard time just listening to music for enjoyment. So, I usually just don't bother. "how sad" they replied to me.

Is it? I can't tell. I've been like this since I finished Collage (or educational equivalent thereof). Music has been just as much about science and engineering to me, as art. Thank you shiny white cat turd. I now know, even my musical idols kinda suck at engineering.

Oh and look, even WITH the shiny cat turd, the noise is back again: (volume warning) http://www.sndup.net/3275x -RETURNS SHINY CAT TURD FOR REFUND- >.>;