DIY digital music system

[AlanH]

As for ease-of-use, I like my current setup, but I guess you guys would consider it a turn key system. It comprises a Mac Mini, an AppleTV, and a couple of AirportExpress stations (each located in different rooms) .

Everything is connected through WiFi so I rip CDs using Apple lossless on the Mac Mini and then I can access the music tracks from the AppleTV or the Airport Extreme. In the case of the AppleTV, it looks like iTunes on the TV. In the case of the Airport Extreme, I use my iPhone as the remote to 'see' and control what's playing. Both the AppleTV and Airport Extreme have digital optical output. In the case of the AppleTV the digital signal goes into an Anthem D2 processor, which upsamples to 192 kHz and has a pretty good DAC section. In the case of the two Airport Extremes, the digital signals go into Pioneer Elite and Harmon/Kardon receivers.

Here's my quick pros and cons for this setup.

Pros
1. At the risk of sounding like an Apple commercial, it just works. Both the AppleTV and iPhone/Airport Extreme interfaces are very easy to use and work 'right out of the box.' I used to have a MediaCenter PC and while it worked out of the box, shortly thereafter it became a major headache (virus software, windows updates, crashes, etc.). While iTunes doesn't do everything as efficiently as I would like, it's easy for me to navigate and find what I want.

2. Video on the AppleTV is easy too. Call up the iTunes store on the TV screen and download movies or tv shows. Some are available in HD.

3. The (loud) Mac Mini is in a different room from where we listen and watch so there's no fan noise.

Cons
1. In the case of the Airport Extreme stations, there is no hard disk, so the music must stream from the Mac Mini. Occasionally there are drops. I also don't know what the streaming does to the integrity of the audio, even if it's ripped in lossless format. This problem goes away with the AppleTV since there's a hard disk and the full Apple lossless files are stored locally.

2. I've read somewhere that optical digital is not has good as S/PDIF. I'm not sure if that's only over long cable runs or what, but the Apple products only have optical (or analog) output.

3. The HDMI output from the AppleTV does not work with the Anthem processor. For some reason the handshake doesn't work and Anthem has yet to address the problem.

Anyway, there's another easy option, if anyone is interested.

[JeremyG]

Here's another vote for the Apple TV. Extremely easy to set up, and it's got just about everything you need to play music/video over your HT. Mine's plugged in HDMI to my Marantz. That's it. I've got music stored in Apple Lossless format on both the Apple TV hard disc and an external disc. The UI is easy, both with the little remote that's included and with my iPod touch which I use as the remote via Wi-Fi. You can also use whatever size hard disc you want and stream music/video to the Apple TV if you have more than what the internal hard disc can hold. I haven't had any problems in two years streaming over a 802.11G connection. I use Max to switch encode between Apple Lossless and Flac or anything else I get my hands on.
Is it easy? My wife can work it all.

Jeremy

[Hank]

Interesting stuff. I've observed two of our local home theater/audiophools develop and then lose interest in their high end HTPC's and I'm not interested in a PC based audio setup. I've been keeping tabs on an interesting little company (I'm an underdog fan) by the name of Popcorn Hour. Their A110 and C200 look interesting:

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog

Last week I acquired, under pressure from another local video buff, a new PS3 Slim that might fit into the equation. As if I had enough spare time to get into all its features. :roll:

[Licinius]

Interesting stuff. I've observed two of our local home theater/audiophools develop and then lose interest in their high end HTPC's and I'm not interested in a PC based audio setup. I've been keeping tabs on an interesting little company (I'm an underdog fan) by the name of Popcorn Hour. Their A110 and C200 look interesting:

http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/index.php?pluginoption=catalog

Last week I acquired, under pressure from another local video buff, a new PS3 Slim that might fit into the equation. As if I had enough spare time to get into all its features. :roll:

The popcorn hours rock for video, esp HD mkvs - but they suck butt for music, the interface is terrible, the output marginal; if you wanted to use it as such, you'd be hating yourself. I have two, but at the end of the day popcorn hour for video, squeezebox for audio.

Edit: I have A100/110s, I have not used the C200, but looking at videos on youtube, it seems to have a very similar interface.

[Hdale85]

I own a popcorn hour as well (although not in use atm). I find my HTPC to be far better! Video quality in linux with VDPAU is far better then anything else I've used. It looks just phenomenal. I generally find the the Linux ALSA drivers sound better then a lot of other solutions as well. Of course having a quality digital output for my DAC is probably a good thing as well.

[---k---]

Paul,
Have we overwhelmed you with options yet?

Lots and lots of solutions for all budgets, time commitments, and expectations. No one solution fits all.

[Hank]

they suck butt for music, the interface is terrible, the output marginal

But, but they do FLAC, so how could their output be marginal?
I think my bubble is about to be burst...

[Hdale85]

Well depending on what output you are using they have been known to have rather poor analog and digital outputs. The digital has quite a bit of jitter and rather high distortion. The analog stage in it is not that great at all.

[rvsixer]

I just finished building up my music server on the relative cheap (still recovering from my layoff):

1) Intel Atom based system (Atom 230 motherboard, 512MB ram, 1TB Samsung Ecogreen F2 HDD, old case, old DVD drive, donated Audigy sound card for S/PDIF - system runs quiet and only 28W power draw working on getting that down with ACPI etc.)

2) Loaded up VortexBox (www.vortexbox.org. All in one NAS, CD/DVD ripper with auto cover art, Squeezecenter server, printer server, client backup solution. And FREE :T .

3) Ran coax cable from Audigy to amp.

4) Downloaded iPeng for iPhone as the remote control (fantastic program).

Not audiophile stuff some are talking about here, but less than $200 to finally have all my music digital, catalogued, and hassle free to listen to.

[chasw98]

Vortexbox looks very interesting! I need to look into this further. Rips to FLAC, grabs the album art, sounds too good to be true for audio on a hard drive!

[Paul Ebert]

To answer Ryan's question: Yes. A lot of this has gone right over my head (which is OK).

I just finished building up my music server on the relative cheap (still recovering from my layoff):

1) Intel Atom based system (Atom 230 motherboard, 512MB ram, 1TB Samsung Ecogreen F2 HDD, old case, old DVD drive, donated Audigy sound card for S/PDIF - system runs quiet and only 28W power draw working on getting that down with ACPI etc.)

2) Loaded up VortexBox (www.vortexbox.org. All in one NAS, CD/DVD ripper with auto cover art, Squeezecenter server, printer server, client backup solution. And FREE :T .

3) Ran coax cable from Audigy to amp.

4) Downloaded iPeng for iPhone as the remote control (fantastic program).

Not audiophile stuff some are talking about here, but less than $200 to finally have all my music digital, catalogued, and hassle free to listen to.

This seems closest to where I'd like to start. And, it provides another excuse to buy an iPhone or Touch :T

So if one had this system, would a good DAC be the next step?

[chasw98]

To answer Ryan's question: Yes. A lot of this has gone right over my head (which is OK).



This seems closest to where I'd like to start. And, it provides another excuse to buy an iPhone or Touch :T

So if one had this system, would a good DAC be the next step?

Let me tentatively say that the next major improvement would appear to be a DAC for 2 channel audio listening. If you were going to use this sytem to store DVD movies and listen back to them in Dolby, DTS, or some surround mode, an outboard DAC will not decode those scenarios. It just so happens that I will be at RMAF next week and will have the pleasure of spending extended listening time with 4 different DAC's ranging in price from $600 to $5,000. I will report back as to what and how much improvement can be heard. I think that if you have a really cheap digital source a DAC won't help you. If you have a great digital source with great DAC's built in, then a DAC might not help you. But with a decent digital source and a DAC that is matched to the quality of the source presented to it, then I think you will hear an outstanding difference.

Chuck

[bill_s]

My Digital Journey

I use a DIY music server installed in an aluminum case that looks like a big DVD player. It sits in the rack with my pre-amp and a CD player (no longer used at all). It’s quiet, 1TB of storage and I listen to a lot of music now. The server runs Windows XP and MediaMonkey for library management, outputting audio from onboard Coax SPDIF to an external 24/96 DAC. I use the ASIO driver to avoid the Windows KMixer with its high latency and resampling.

Al l CDs were ripped using the EAC CD ripper with AccurateRip to WAV files. Ripping CDs is great because you get a great file with all errors that were on the CD handled once and for all. Face it, CD players just don’t have the number-crunching power to keep re-reading and comparing subsequent reads until it is confident that it has extracted the data correctly. CD players have pretty simple error correction software. My music server does not have that limitation with its fast CPU. I think this is one reason my ripped files just sound better than a CD. As an aside, the PS Audio PerfectWave Transport and DAC combo is using the same EAC software to rip CDs to memory before playing them. Uh, it costs over $6k for the combo. I have started buying some hi-rez music online from places like HDTracks and Linn Music. These are FLAC files and are really nice.

I access the music server either from my desktop PC or a laptop since the music server is headless (no monitor, mouse, keyboard). Since the music server is on my network, I can also access the music that is stored on it from any PC in the house. In my bedroom is an Intel Atom based machine stuffed in an old Onkyo DVD case. In addition to playing music from the music server I also feed the video to my LCD so I can watch Netflix movie downloads or HULU TV. I use a wireless keyboard and mouse for this PC just because it is easier to surf the internet with them.

If anyone is interested I can post the exact hardware I used and post some pictures. I really have not spent I lot of money and for the first time since I bought a CD player in the 1980s(first US Sony model for very big bucks back then) I am happy listening to my music!

[rvsixer]

So if one had this system, would a good DAC be the next step?

I did neglect to mention I am using my Rx's built-in DAC.

One of the reasons I chose VortexBox is it uses what I consider to be one of the best ripping programs out there (cdParanoia , which on several occasions has done a better job for me than EAC). So basically you will have excellent FLAC files, which will not degrade from any future upgrades in the chain. My own future plan is a set of DIY speakers, followed by a DIY chip/tube amp fed from a dedicated stereo DAC.

VortexBox certainly is not perfect, as on obsure recordings it does not always automatically get the album/tracks/art correct. But I have tried building a media center from FreeNAS, Ubuntu, Windows Home Server, etc, and this was by FAR the easiest solution for me.

[Paul Ebert]

... I think that if you have a really cheap digital source a DAC won't help you. If you have a great digital source with great DAC's built in, then a DAC might not help you. But with a decent digital source and a DAC that is matched to the quality of the source presented to it, then I think you will hear an outstanding difference.

Chuck

This makes sense to me, but what constitutes a really cheap digital source and a great digital source? I assume that my Sony DVP-S7000 is a pretty cheap source. One question that would help me is what, exactly, are the sources of jitter? I understand what jitter is, but where does it typically occur? Does it occur in the transport? Is it generated in the interface between the transport and the DAC or is the DAC the biggest factor?

Same for a HTPC. Does it originate in the CD transport (which always seem really cheap to me) or in the sound card or somewhere after the sound card?

I assume that by connecting the sound card to a DAC or processor of some sort via coax allows one to keep the PC far enough away that it's fan noise isn't an issue. Correct?

[Paul Ebert]

I did neglect to mention I am using my Rx's built-in DAC.

What is an Rx? A stupid question, I'm sure. ops:

[blue934]

there is a lot of mention of ripping programs to get lossless files. i use windows media 10 for my lossless, is this not the way to go?

david

[Hdale85]

The programs most of us use to rip music to lossless has many layers of error correction embedded that windows media player does not have.

[bill_s]

I am not an expert by any means, but as I understand it, in audio reproduction jitter matters where there are A/D or D/A converters involved. CD, DVD players and of course stand-alone DACs are by far the most numerous type of equipment employing D/A converters. . Jitter, being an analog quantity, can creep in at various places. The D/A converter built into CD or DVD players can be "infected" by jitter through various crosstalk mechanisms, like power supply contamination by power hungry motors (spindle / servo) or microphony of the crystal generating the sampling clock or capacitive / inductive crosstalk between clock signals etc. I personally think many circuit designers do a good job dealing with jitter induced during transfer. CD rippers like EAC or Cdparanoia do a great job using a variety of mechanisms while performing sector reads (Yellow Book (CD standard) vs the data extraction performed by CD players using the Red Book (audio CD standard) which does not require block-accurate addressing. With a CD player this can lead to the glitches that sound like tiny repeating clicks during playback. Side note, I tend to prefer Plextor or LiteON drives in my computers. I also use the digital interface on my drive connected to a SPDIF header on the motherboard, avoiding an unnecessary D/A conversion inside the computer where jitter can potentially be introduced. It seems most system builders never knew what those pins were for on the CD drives and/or the motherboards did not have a SPDIF header. I guess that is why a lot of newer drives do not have a digital out.

Just to make sure we're on the same page regarding cheap computer CD drives, they really are not. Not saying they are perfect because they are definitely not. And neither are the drives in CD players. But keep in mind that we are not listening to CDs from the optical disc in our music servers (some may build servers with no drive in it). We have extracted the data first (ripped) into a bit-perfect WAV, FLAC, AIFF, etc, file. Now all we have to worry about is what what happens in the chain converting the bits in the file from the computer to analog for the pre-amp or receiver. Hope I did not consume to much band-width here.

[chasw98]

This makes sense to me, but what constitutes a really cheap digital source and a great digital source?

I am not sure what a great source is or isn't and I am not sure what a great transport is or isn't but here are some comparisons.

The $6,000 PS Audio Perfect Wave transport is based on an Asus transport I believe.
My $5,000 (retail price) Lexicon RT-20 player is based on a Pioneer transport as is the $6,000 Ayre DX-7. So there are some examples of what a good transport can be I guess.

The next step is what do the manufacturers do to read the digital signal perfectly and make it come out of a hole in the back of the machine? This can be where the secret sauce is applied. Stiff isolated power supplies, precise master clocks, and reclocking are techniques used in aftermarket mods to make transports work better. Which units come from the factory as excellent transport/digital output units? I am not sure how to rate one over the other except to listen. It appears to be hard to get info and compare transports. Jon Marsh uses a $640.00 Cambridge Audio unit with his new $5,000 Berkely DAC! So price is apparently not the overriding factor in a transport. But I'll be d*mned if I could pick out a good transport even with a whole list of tested specifications. Maybe Jon will chime in with some tips and hints in what to look for in a transport.

[bill_s]

Paul, there are so many ways to skin the cat with digital audio. And you have seen some good solutions from people here. I suggest you start with what you have and go from there. If you have already posted that I will have to go back and re-read this thread.

I guess I would look at it this way: (1) rip your CDs to your preferred format, (2) figure out how to connect to your receiver or pre-amp. If you want to get started on the cheap just to start learning, use your computer's on-board audio with a cheap Radio-Shack RCA cable (assuming the PC is close to your audio system). This way you can at least decide what media player you like. Some like the Windows media player, some like iTunes, some prefer MediaMonkey. For what it's worth I think Windows Media Player and iTunes (Mac and PC) do a good to great job making bit-perfect file copies. I just happen to be a geek and use EAC. dBpoweramp is another great tool for ripping, organizing and playback.

If you decide you like the convenience of computer based playback, welcome to the club! Now you can start going crazy on how to get the music from the PC to your audio system. Some have mentioned SqueezeBox. Not bad, but I am an audiophool geek for over 40 of my 54 years. I prefer PC to DAC to pre-amp. Obviously, this is my main audio system. SqueezeBox is great since you can easily connect your PC to your audio system even when they are in different locations and also add other locations as needed. Of course I can do the same with my set-up. My main music server in the living room is accessible by my Intel Atom based pc in a DVD case in my bedroom system. It's just an issue of network access and easy to do.

I would suggest you rip to either WAV, FLAC or AIFF. AIFF is best if you use Mac or Windows iTunes though AIFF files cam be used by other media players as well. FLAC and AIFF are superior when it comes to Tag data. WAV format (MS and IBM creation) does not have tag data. This means that if you use WAV files and say Windows media player, Win Media player will keep album art, track number, track name, artist, composer, date, etc in it's own database. Not a problem unless you decide you want change your player because you think MediaMonkey or SongBird is the cat's pajamas. Then you will have to go through the whole process of getting tag data again which can be a royal, time-consuming PITA. To avoid that use FLAC or AIFF. I must be a masochist since I continue to rip to WAV. But I have converted some of my WAV files to FLAC keeping the original WAV files on one of my file servers. I find no audible difference between the WAV file and the FLAC file, so go FLAC (or AIFF).

[littlesaint]

I am not an expert by any means, but as I understand it, in audio reproduction jitter matters where there are A/D or D/A converters involved. CD, DVD players and of course stand-alone DACs are by far the most numerous type of equipment employing D/A converters. . Jitter, being an analog quantity, can creep in at various places. The D/A converter built into CD or DVD players can be "infected" by jitter through various crosstalk mechanisms, like power supply contamination by power hungry motors (spindle / servo) or microphony of the crystal generating the sampling clock or capacitive / inductive crosstalk between clock signals etc. I personally think many circuit designers do a good job dealing with jitter induced during transfer. CD rippers like EAC or Cdparanoia do a great job using a variety of mechanisms while performing sector reads (Yellow Book (CD standard) vs the data extraction performed by CD players using the Red Book (audio CD standard) which does not require block-accurate addressing. With a CD player this can lead to the glitches that sound like tiny repeating clicks during playback. Side note, I tend to prefer Plextor or LiteON drives in my computers. I also use the digital interface on my drive connected to a SPDIF header on the motherboard, avoiding an unnecessary D/A conversion inside the computer where jitter can potentially be introduced. It seems most system builders never knew what those pins were for on the CD drives and/or the motherboards did not have a SPDIF header. I guess that is why a lot of newer drives do not have a digital out.

Just to make sure we're on the same page regarding cheap computer CD drives, they really are not. Not saying they are perfect because they are definitely not. And neither are the drives in CD players. But keep in mind that we are not listening to CDs from the optical disc in our music servers (some may build servers with no drive in it). We have extracted the data first (ripped) into a bit-perfect WAV, FLAC, AIFF, etc, file. Now all we have to worry about is what what happens in the chain converting the bits in the file from the computer to analog for the pre-amp or receiver. Hope I did not consume to much band-width here.

When most people talk of jitter, they are talking about digital communication. Anytime you have devices transferring digital information, jitter occurs. Information is encoded as signal changes (voltage, wavelength, etc.) over time. Time is determined by the devices internal clock. Some clocks are better than others. The more accurate the clock, the less jitter a device introduces. However, you also have to consider that two devices communicating may not (and generally do not) have identical clocks, so there will always be some jitter introduced unless your system uses a master clock which is common in networking and telecomm, not so much in audio. When good components are used, this jitter, while certainly measurable, is rarely audible since there will usually be higher levels of distortion in the D->A conversion and amplification.

[JonMarsh]

I'm no guru in this area. But for starters, I bought the Cambridge 640C (originally as a "transport" to use with my PS Audio DL-III) because unlike most CD players in it's range, it DID have jitter specs, and ones that compare very favorably with "high end" DACs measured at Stereophile, including the Benchmark and others much more expensive. It had a lot of nice specs on other things, too, but I didn't really care about the balanced differential Wolfson DACs with balanced Bessel filter and what not, I cared about it's performance in reviews on error correction/drop out tests and correlated jitter. It's replacement is even better- see that module on the left front in the interior?




THAT is the servo driver for the CD transport- the transport obviously being in the center. You don't normally find this level of attention to CD transport in a $1,500 - $2,000 player, much less a $699 player. So maybe by Christmas I'll "upgrade" and hand off the 640C to my daughter. The 640C has a dedicated custom servo modujle, but the 650's is supposed to be better.




I think a lot really depends on the SPIDF or AES/EBU receiver design and what ever measures are taken to deal with jitter- the common thing of late has been to use one of the TI/BB ASRC chips to up-sample and "de-jitter", but many folks now agree that this sort of homogenizes the sound and destroys some important audio information.

I agree though that all of this may be unnecessary if you use a computer system, rip bit perfect to disk (the jitter doesn't matter when you're ripping, it only matters when you're playing back at the DAC). But then you have the issue of how do you generate the bit stream to whatever you do use as a DAC, how much jitter is in the clock and clock plus signal. A computer is an electrically noisy area to do this, both common mode noise and differential mode noise, and even with high grade output cards, like the Lynx AES, some have found significant audible benefit in using a re-clocker like the Antelope DA. This device can receive a SPDIF or AES/EBU signal, separate clock and data, and re-clock the data to a very high quality low jitter clock, and output the result back on SPDIF or AES/EBU. (No, it DOESN'T have TOSLINK connectors!! :W )
We're getting a little atmospheric here, for home audio, but in the pro world this kind of stuff is pretty routine, guys. It may be next on my shopping list, based on current research.






I2S should be a much better way to connect a transport and DAC with a signal and clock on their own lines. But somehow the Berkeley does amazing things over SPDIF and AES/EBU; the closest to which I've heard has been high end Firewire. I like Firewire conceptually, and some of the available converters, specifically.

But I'm left in the uncomfortable position that the best sound I've heard to date, by a significant distance, not a subtle one, is using an interface that shouldn't work all that well, theoretically. So the boys at Berekely Audio must have some pretty good secret sauce poured into that unit, and I suppose it's in their best interests NOT to talk about it, if it's on the trade secret level and involves a concept most others haven't thought about or aren't using- no point leading them in the right direction. I say most, because I've heard the Spectral CDR-4000 sounds VERY similar to the Alpha DAC, but then, it's $12K, a one piece solution, and only plays CD's. Makes the Alpha look pretty flexible and attractive in comparison.

[bill_s]

I agree with what you say littlesaint. I was not very precise and definitely not an expert! I should have said in the audio field the term jitter designates a timing uncertainty of digital clock signals. That is, in an Analog to Digital Converter (A/D) the analog signal is sampled at regular time intervals; in the case of a CD, 44,100 times a second or every 22.675737 microseconds. If these time intervals are not strictly constant then one talks of a jittery conversion clock. In practice it is of course not possible to generate exactly the same time interval between each and every sample. After all, even digital signals are analog in their properties and thus are influenced by noise, crosstalk, power supply fluctuations, temperature etc.

So, a jittery clock introduces errors to the measurements taken by the A/D, resulting from measurements being taken at the wrong time. I sort of think think of it as what components are compromised by jitter, i.e., A/D and D/A converters and the Asynchronous Sample Rate Converter (ASRC). I am confident that designers and people like you understand all of this well enough and know how to reject jitter and/or re-clock the signal so people like me don't have to worry about it. Thanks to you all!

I am now looking to make a major upgrade and buy a top-notch DAC. Probably one with SPDIF coax and optical plus USB input. I like to having connectivity options!

[bill_s]

I am considering the Berekely Audio Alpha DAC also. I have heard it and am trying to figure out how to sneak $5000 past the wife! Plus the Lynx card!

[Hdale85]

Well Jon sure seems to love it It definitely looks like an excellent unit!

[JonMarsh]

You'll love it if you do. You know, the problem is probably reciprocity- Berekely DAC, jewelry. (Unless your wife is into something else besides jewelry! :W )

[Hdale85]

It has to be substantial jewelry though A 100 dollar pair of earrings is unlikely to make her over look anything hah.

[bill_s]

Maybe I could trade the wife in on the Berkely Alpha DAC?

[bill_s]

I am also considering the Weiss Engineering Minerva because it ups the ante by including a FireWire interface. Like I said, I do like my connectivity options! Same price ($5000) as the Berkeley Alpha DAC but I have not heard it, yet.

[JonMarsh]

I am also considering the Weiss Engineering Minerva because it ups the ante by including a FireWire interface. Like I said, I do like my connectivity options! Same price ($5000) as the Berkeley Alpha DAC but I have not heard it, yet.

I'd recommend checking out reviews on Computer Audiophile, and definitely listening for yourself in person- I'd particularly recommend listening to some well recorded minimalist mic setup material, like the Sheffield stuff, Mercury Living presence classical, some of the Stereophile Jazz recordings, etc, in addition to good "standard" material. There is obviously a subjective element to "taste" with this; if you lean more to a live sound, and can deliver a good feed, then the Alpha DAC may be your choice. If you like a really clean more focussed studio sound, (think Steely Dan, for example), then the Minerva may be your cup of tea, particularly given the Firewire interface and the reported performance with Amarra as the playback engine.

Alpha DAC review


Weiss Minerva DAC Review


One of my next pursuits is looking at options for getting SACD onto the music server, either by analog or digital rip, and seeing how that sounds in 24/192 playback; I've got WAY too many single layer SACD that are otherwise "stuck" playing back through a conventional player. And I think the Alpha DAC would force me to upgrade from my SA-11 to at least an SA-7 to have some parity with SACD playback.

As usual, YMMV! I still haven't really had time to play with my Fireface 800 yet, so I need to integrate and digest before considering any further changes beyond speculation. :W

[bill_s]

Jon,
That's the problem with having wide-ranging taste in music. But, I am sure I would be very happy with either DAC. I made the decision a long time ago, to go with a computer based transport and figure out how to get the bits out to my audio system. Mostly because I thought I could do better for a transport than any CD player I could afford then. Yes, getting the bits out (DAC) costs money but I am satisfied that the transport is covered. By the way, my friend's Mac mini and Stello DAC via USB sounds great and that did not cost him a fortune. I will definitely check out Computer Audiophile. Thanks for the tip.

[mr.hidef]

oooh! that Cambridge audio unit looks nice. :E

[Coconutout]

i don't know how good of a sound card i must spend on for to get my pc up to the standard of a poor transport that is my Philips dvd963 but 44.1hz from chaintech av710-foobar-wasapi is still a leg behind the same file ripped to a cd playing through the philips on the same dac. i could be doing something wrong because the antique dvd963 was never praised for its transport capability while bit-perfect from wasapi on vista pc is suppose to be all that... lol when i want the most out of certain songs i rip them to a cd then put it in the dvd player right next to the computer- its pretty lame xP

[---k---]

Vortexbox looks very interesting! I need to look into this further. Rips to FLAC, grabs the album art, sounds too good to be true for audio on a hard drive!

Yes, I agree. Thanks rvsixer for pointing it out.

I've spent some time on http://vortexbox.org/ lately. I'm very tempted to just buy their $350 box and stick it in my closet next to the routers. It doesn't look like I can build one significantly cheaper. My collection needs to get off my desktop and be converted to FLAC. This seems to solve many of my problems. DANG THESE FORUMS! All they do is make me spend money.

[bill_s]

i don't know how good of a sound card i must spend on for to get my pc up to the standard of a poor transport that is my Philips dvd963 but 44.1hz from chaintech av710-foobar-wasapi is still a leg behind the same file ripped to a cd playing through the philips on the same dac. i could be doing something wrong because the antique dvd963 was never praised for its transport capability while bit-perfect from wasapi on vista pc is suppose to be all that... lol when i want the most out of certain songs i rip them to a cd then put it in the dvd player right next to the computer- its pretty lame xP

I have heard other people, myself included, like their ripped CDs over the original. Don't know why other than the original CD having lots of errors and the simple error-correction software on the player just cannot handle it. If you are running analog from the Chaintech then you are using the DAC on the card. Some people are ok with the resulting sound. I think most of us here, yourself included, would not like it all that much. If that Chaintech has digital out and your receiver or pre-amp has digital in, you could try that and see if you like the DAC in the receiver. If you want to try something a little better than the Chaintech there are a lot of USB DACs out there, from $100 FUBAR DAC up to Gordan Rankin's tube-based Wavelength DACs.

[geno742]

I have heard other people, myself included, like their ripped CDs over the original. Don't know why other than the original CD having lots of errors and the simple error-correction software on the player just cannot handle it. If you are running analog from the Chaintech then you are using the DAC on the card. Some people are ok with the resulting sound. I think most of us here, yourself included, would not like it all that much. If that Chaintech has digital out and your receiver or pre-amp has digital in, you could try that and see if you like the DAC in the receiver. If you want to try something a little better than the Chaintech there are a lot of USB DACs out there, from $100 FUBAR DAC up to Gordan Rankin's tube-based Wavelength DACs.

Yep, that is pretty much what my setup is. I have a xp based machine I built several years ago that has a Sapphire xp9600 video card installed. That card has optical out which is connected to my Emotiva pre/processor which supposedly has state of the art dac's.
I ripped my cd's with dbpoweramp converter into wav. files and stored them in "my music" windows file. Got lots of memory in that machine so file size is not an issue.
Imho, the music played back from the computer does sound better than the music played back on the Phillips dvd player which is also connected to the processor by component cable. Same dacs in use both ways.
The only downside is the steps needed to actually play music.
I smell a squeezbox in the near future.

[Dennis H]

Some CDs come with jitter built in from the pressing plant. You either need a good DAC that can cache and reclock the signal or ripping to the hard drive will do the same thing.

http://www.rogernichols.com/EQ/EQ_2000_02.html

[Dennis H]

ARTA has a jitter-test signal that works in demo mode.

"ARTA Note 2: Jitter test signal is a sine signal with a frequency equal to 1/4 of the sampling rate, and with a LSB bit toggled with a frequency equal to 1/192 of the sampling rate."

The idea is you play the signal and look at the spectrum. There will be sidebands and the lower the sidebands are below the main signal, the lower the jitter. It takes a good sound card though or the jitter sidebands will be swamped by the noise floor. 30ps of jitter is about -125dB and 300ps is about -105dB at 11025 Hz.

Jitter(ps) = 2*10^((dB/20)+12)/(pi*F)

Here's a 1-minute wav that can be burned to a CD (44100 sampling, 16 bit, F=11025, -3dB Fs). Just play it and use your favorite spectrum analyzer. (This isn't a tweeter friendly signal so watch the volume control )

Article about jitter: http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/jitter1_e.html . The next page explains testing for it (link at the bottom).

[geno742]

Yep, that is pretty much what my setup is. I have a xp based machine I built several years ago that has a Sapphire xp9600 video card installed. That card has optical out which is connected to my Emotiva pre/processor which supposedly has state of the art dac's.
I ripped my cd's with dbpoweramp converter into wav. files and stored them in "my music" windows file. Got lots of memory in that machine so file size is not an issue.
Imho, the music played back from the computer does sound better than the music played back on the Phillips dvd player which is also connected to the processor by component cable. Same dacs in use both ways.
The only downside is the steps needed to actually play music.
I smell a squeezbox in the near future.

OOOOPS!!
Dang. who care what video card I have. The motherboard audio card has optical out and that is what I use to connect the pc to the pre/processor. So sorry.

[Coconutout]

I have heard other people, myself included, like their ripped CDs over the original. Don't know why other than the original CD having lots of errors and the simple error-correction software on the player just cannot handle it. If you are running analog from the Chaintech then you are using the DAC on the card. Some people are ok with the resulting sound. I think most of us here, yourself included, would not like it all that much. If that Chaintech has digital out and your receiver or pre-amp has digital in, you could try that and see if you like the DAC in the receiver. If you want to try something a little better than the Chaintech there are a lot of USB DACs out there, from $100 FUBAR DAC up to Gordan Rankin's tube-based Wavelength DACs.

but this is how my setup is. i'm playing the mp3 file to the optical out from the chaintech to a tube dac that's actually the most expensive piece of my components. but when that same file is burned and put into the philips, theres more bass, deeper sound staging and... pretty much better everything. i feel another onset of upgraditis coming that ive contacted from my soundcard.. *shivers. or perhaps i need to find a better upsampling plugin for foobar even though i'm sure secret rabbit code is the best one on google, because when the file is upconverted to match my dac's architecture, bass and imaging becomes just as good as the philips while a plasticly veil drapes in front of the music. so naturally i disable it again and wonder how it could've been...

[Hdale85]

MP3's????

[Coconutout]

...sure why not. i'm a sucker for convenience. every now and then i'll buy a cd of an artist i really admire but most of the time it's 51 cents per album at mp3fiesta.com xP

[JonMarsh]

Yes, but MP3's don't sound very good, they have even poorer compression characteristics than Apple AAC, which is MP4, and about twice as effective for "information versus file size". So, for someone interested in DIY speakers, vacuum tube amps, etc, Dougie and I find that incongruent; a provoker of cognitive dissonance. :W And running an MP3 through a digital upsampler is about the equivalent of having a JPEG that has been saved with pretty high file compression (i.e., lost detail) to small file size, then trying to upscale it in Photoshop, to print out at a larger format. Generally, it doesn't work so nicely...

[Coconutout]

thank you for your informative insight. i haven't evolved much from my college dorm room days it seems. still putting greater value on free things i get from fellow pirates. but the greatest fault of me when it comes to audio is my choice in genre- electronica; and the flaw being it's availability. there was a time when i bought a sony turntable with a shure needle hoping to start a vinyl collection. and often times i wonder if i want a diy cdp. however the conclusion's always that there isn't any way to pay for the obscure artists i like unless im ordering from an equally obscure website in UK paying premium for the shipping and the medium of the album i've already listen to once on mp3 which is how i find out if they're good or not. Because for IDM genre, there is no record store one can walk into and expect to be able to pay for premium fidelity among numerous choices of artists. i frequented the biggest music store in west coast called amoeba when i was living in LA and even from there i was only able to find 4-5 vinyls of artists i cared to pay for before my turntable was starting to collect dust. and those 5 albums are still the best audio experiences i've ever had. even with my now more advanced setup no mp3 could ever come close the sonic impact of vinyl bass (mmm.. vinyl bass..) and the countless cds i bought and exchanged there all helped me respect the music more. i doubt i would've ended up dedicating this much to the hifi hobby on mp3s alone. but now i live in a rural area so no more amoeba- only drooling at international online orders that i can't afford and have no patience to wait on. it's a sad reality for idm lovers but really, its either the mp3 or the slowest and most expensive collection building possible.