Price Paid:  $49.00

Summary:
Xitel HiFi-Link (Analog)

HiFi-Link supports all lossy and lossless compression bitrates to 14M kbps (CD Audio) and DVDs across all formats including MP3, RealAudio, LiquidAudio, MP3Pro, Monkey’s Audio, WMA, CDA, etc.

The DirectSound output plug-in is available for Winamp, MediaMonkey (compatible with most all of Winamp’s plug-ins) RealPLayer, Windows Media Player and others. A standard soundcard can still be designated as the Sound Recording and MIDI music playback device.

It's output runs at 1vrms line-level and has been impedance matched with the included shielded studio audio cable ensuring full dynamic response with no high frequency roll off.

I have never detected any line noise. The sound is excellent, though it is an analog device and is more compatible with an analog amplifier.

Strengths:
TOTAL HARMONIC DISTORTION: Less than 0.005 percent.
CHANNEL SEPARATION: Greater than 90 dB.
AUDIO DAC: 20 bits.
ANALOG OUTPUT: 1V RMS, line level (impedance matched with the included shielded studio audio cable.)
ISOLATION: The circuit is fully isolated from electromagnetic radiation typically associated with computer audio.
SAMPLE RATES: 100 Hz to 200000 Hz.
HARDWARE MEMORY: N/A
HARDWARE MIXING: unsupported.
SPEAKER SETUP: stereo.

Easy installation.

Weaknesses:
No weaknesses detected so far.

Similar Products Used:
Various PC Soundcard models.