Audiophiles: PC as a Music Source

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Oh, and since you asked, here is a 24/192 vintl rip of the latest Sade LP:

Sade - Soldier Of Love (2010) 24bit/192KHz Vinyl Rip | AvaxHome

Ha. Ha. To get illegal 24/192 Sade, I have to rapidshare 9 files & unpack them . . . to get clicks & pops & vinyl distortion The proverbial two forward & one back?

Soldier of Love (the track) does have great bass impact btw. Very well produced.

But I agree, 88.2Khz or 96Khz digital releases would be enough. I am limited to 100Khz here anyway with my pre/dac configuration.

Ian

[Eric Coffey]

Yeah, I forgot the after that link.

[greglepore]

To revive an old thread, finally got on this bandwagon-was using Airports with an Airfoil equipped PC, and still will on the casual systems, but its somewhat lossy so...

Dug out an old laptop and bought a USB SPDIF converter from M2 Tech (its tiny, well though of, and 4x the price of the Chinese ones on ebay, which for all I know are as good?). It comes with very well written PDF instructions, and there are available plugins for Foobar and Media Monkey to allow direct kernell access - you can use asio if you want but don't need to.

I'm astounded at the difference in audio quality. I expected an incremental improvement, but no...there's a sense of space and air returned to good recordings that I've missed since I ditched vinyl.

The best part for me is the number of 24/96 live shows that are available on legit sites like Dime...some of these sound astounding-ie the transfers from soundboard recordings of some Springsteen shows from the 78 Darkness Tour (these were legit soundtruck recordings, not just a board patch), or the Leonard Cohen shows from MSG. Sublime stuff all, not to mention the pay to play stuff at HD.

[imcarthur]

Originally Posted by greglepore

I'm astounded at the difference in audio quality. I expected an incremental improvement, but no...there's a sense of space and air returned to good recordings that I've missed since I ditched vinyl.

That's great Greg. My system hasn't changed except for a few new dacs.

Except . . . I spent a couple of days last summer - and a few hundred dollars - and I treated my office to some sound tuning. I built 3 bass traps & strategically damped some mid/high zing with insulation. That, coupled with my latest dac is spoiling me. Now I don't come home from a show & leave my system off for a week. And I can listen to 80s rock without searing my ears - although that is a questionable benefit.

Ian

[89911]

Anyone try this:

AudioQuest DragonFly Plug-in asynchronous USB digital-to-analog converter at Crutchfield.com

I saw it in my latest Crutchfield catalog and they generally don't sell junk.

[imcarthur]

No. I have seen it & other micro dacs but I haven't heard credible reports on sound. The lack of its own power supply means that it is using the USB link for power which is far less than ideal IMHO. You can buy a decent outboard dac for $399 with a wall wart ps. Insert bias warning here . . . Check out the MyDac from MicroMega or the DacMagic 100 from Cambridge to name a couple. End bias warning.

Ian

[tchanson]

Originally Posted by 89911

Anyone try this:

AudioQuest DragonFly Plug-in asynchronous USB digital-to-analog converter at Crutchfield.com

I saw it in my latest Crutchfield catalog and they generally don't sell junk.

Yes. The AQ DragonFly DAC is quite good on my pc.




Tim

[Cajundaddy]

I have never used the Dragonfly but reading their design sheet it looks like they addressed many of the problems with USB outboard D/A conversion. Certainly worth a listen. I work a lot with headphones and a small high quality grab-and-go converter would be useful. This is another portable D/A with merit: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/505-meridian-explorer-usb-dac-review/

I am no golden ears audiophile but do original music recording and production with Protools in a project studio and have several outboard D/A converters for my Mac. I must agree that wave files through a quality converter sound measurably better the than a playback CD. Sample rates are simply music tools for me and most original tracks are done in 88.2k to capture the highest detail and final master in standard 44.1 CD format for cross platform compatibility. I still do have uses for high bit rate 256k MP3 format when smaller file sizes are needed and get good results. A quality D/A converter is the key.

[LeeH]

Was listening to Pandora through my PC yesterday when I needed to print something. I could hear the sound of the printer coming through the speakers! Very odd. I know it was electrical interference varying in frequency and intensity as the printer worked, but it sounded like someone was holding a cheap microphone up to the printer!

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by imcarthur

Streaming is also another method to transfer digital signals to your audio system. This can be a solution using Apple’s very basic AirPort Express & their new Air Play or other software/hardware solutions like Bluetooth, Kleer, AirFoil etc. Streaming is huge & many manufactures are rushing to give you streaming capabilities. Bear in mind that streaming is only as good as the transmitter & the receiver & often the hardware is good for little but Mp3 quality. Convenient – yes. Compromised – probably.

For the last couple of months, I have been using Apple's AppleTV which is connected via HDMI & TOSlink to my Onkyo home theature system (7.1 mid-line system). I listen to Pandora on my home theature system my "airplaying" my iPhone/iPad/MAC to Apple TV. In my car, I connect my iPhone to my car's stock stereo using mini-stereo connectors and either listen to songs in my iTunes library, or I stream music through the Pandora App.

I am curious about a couple things Ian:

1. Streaming music -- has it improved over the years? I currently use the free version of Pandora vs. the paid for Pandora One service. Pandora claims they stream better quality music with the subscription service -- but is the bitrate increase significant? Is Spotify, iHeartRadio & iTunes radio any better? (At least with iTunes radio, they show the alleged max bitrate per radio station)

2. What produces better quality music - a setup like mine (wireless to Apple TV), or connecting an iPad to my home theature system using a mini-stereo to RCA connector, which I've used in the past prior to getting Apple TV?

3. What is the future of compressed digitized music? It seems to me in the past that storage on personal devices (iPods, mp3 players...etc) was the reason to compress music to oblivion. (Store more songs on a player to convenience and portability) Now that streaming music is taking hold (Pandora, iTunes radio, Spotify, iHeartRadio..etc), the reason to compress music is to minimize bandwidth usage. But does one need to compress music as much for streaming vs. local storage?

-Z-man.

[imcarthur]

I must preface this with an admission that I am certainly no expert on streaming technology. I sell devices & have sales knowledge vs tech knowledge but I am an interested consumer as well . . .

1. 320kbs seems to be the max for the popular services & this is nothing new. They have no real financial incentive to improve this.

2. A hard-wired digital output from your iPad into an external dac & analogue out of it to your receiver would give you the best quality. That said, I have heard a 24/96 iPad wireless output via a custom app to a custom wifi receiver (with Air Play guts) that sounded pretty darn good. Still not equivalent though.

3. “the reason to compress music is to minimize bandwidth usage” And it remains so & it will in the future as well. Bandwidth is a limiting factor that will have to be solved as EVERYTHING becomes wireless. This keeps advancement in compression technologies in the forefront. But consumers want streaming & they want wireless. Manufacturers want it too (so you have to keep replacing everything on an X year cycle as the technology improves). Local storage will only matter for an OS & for archiving your antique software formats (CD, DVD, Blu-ray etc).

I do totally admit that I am feeling more & more like a dinosaur everyday.

Ian

[greglepore]

Dino? Try being on the outside looking in...

Streaming now is sort of a joke...in 5 yrs or so, it'll be amazing, but , as an example, my local carrier has a 250/gb/mth limit, which sounds ok...for now, but I'm bumping it, and no one here streams video. I download the occasional show, but if everyone in the household had an interest, it'd be goodnight Irene.

Music isn't the issue, though, video is...it seems to me that 5% of the base cares about musical fidelity, and we don't register except to the niche market-like HD tracks. The rest of the consumer world is ok with 256k mp3s, which admittedly sound pretty good on average earbuds on a low level amp/dac. There really isn't a market for streamed hifidelity.