External DAC for laptop: recommendations?

[humprof]

Humprof , I am curious to know if you resolved your differences in sound.

Hi bluelightning: I did, sort of. But I wasn't scientific enough about how I went about it to tell you what made the most difference.

To be honest, though: it started with making absolutely sure, on my AVR, that Audyssey hadn't turned itself back on (as it has a tendency to do) in my "Media Player" source settings. After that:

• My only active Playback DSP is now the SoX resampler (Playback Output Format: 24-bit)
• SACD tools settings are as follows:
• Output Mode: PCM
• PCM Volume: 0dB / LFE as-is
• PCM Samplerate: 176400
• DSD2PCM Mode: Direct (64fp, 30kHz lowpass)
• DSD Processor: none

I can't remember which other settings are relevant--or even whether all of the above are! All I know is that everything now sounds as good as any other source (including my Oppo), and that I no longer have any playback problems with SACD ISOs or other DSD files.