Need Your Advice and Expertise On Whether A Computer Should Be My Next Music Source

[crisnee]

Save yourself much headaches, literally and figuratively, skip the Oppo.

 

What makes you say that?

 

I have an older Oppo and not only do I like it but I've had no trouble with it and for the money it was a fantastic bargain.

 

Chris

[DigiPete]

Save yourself much headaches, literally and figuratively, skip the Oppo. It is a very smart marketing company....

 

 

What makes you say that?

Oppo has sofa had many positive reviews and users - many on CA.

Value for money is a often used phrase about Oppo.

Perhaps you mixed Oppo up with another company?

[tranz]

What makes you say that?

Oppo has sofa had many positive reviews and users - many on CA.

Value for money is a often used phrase about Oppo.

Perhaps you mixed Oppo up with another company?

 

It was the worst $1200 I ever spent on an A/V product: the 105. In fact the worst A/V product I have ever bought, so NO I did not mix it with another company and NO it is not value for money. I will rather take a much cheaper Denon any day.

 

I was sucked in by the all hype, and on paper they look amazing. After a few months of essentially being their firmware beta tester and bricking a few of them I ended up chucking it. Painfully sharp sound, lipsynch issues you would not believe, badly shielded power, irreversible firmware updates that break things and the worst bit, high frequency, very high volume white noise blasts that would have your ears ringing and your pets hating you.

 

Hence a caveat to the OP.

 

What makes you say that?

 

I have an older Oppo and not only do I like it but I've had no trouble with it and for the money it was a fantastic bargain.

 

Chris

 

 

Crisnee - perhaps the older ones were better as they were likely less complicated without the firmware issues of the 105. My unfortunate experience was only with the 105.

[Moosbrugger]

More than anything I would hope SQ with a dedicated, fanless player, hopefully with decent bus and PS

Less fussing - No chasing down players, cables, software add-ons, and settings in a multitude of OS areas..or having a mini to control you other mini that actually plays music (some of us like this fussing, but not hard to imagine a segement that wants no part of this)

Aesthetics - WAF goes up with a piece that looks like audio gear, fits in with other audio gear and doesn't have cables running everywhere and enough LEDs to signal the mothership

 

Thanks. Am I correct that the Oppo doesn't actually store music files? One would still need a drive to store them and a connection to the Oppo?

[crisnee]

Thanks. Am I correct that the Oppo doesn't actually store music files? One would still need a drive to store them and a connection to the Oppo?

 

Yes you are correct. With the older ones one could connect a usb stick or drive; I'm guessing it's the same with the new ones.

 

Chris

[Skeptic]

However, I now find myself pondering what my best option, in terms of flexibility and especially sound quality, might really be. Would I be better off going to a Mac Mini system, tied to good DAC also capable of DSD, or is that too unreliable and difficult, overall? Should I consider something like the Auraliti, or the new Sony HAP-Z1 all in one DSD unit?

Keep in mind that devices like the Auraliti and HAP-Z1 are not one-box solutions - they require a computer to rip your discs and transfer them over.

 

The HAP-Z1 has a limit of 20,000 files, and only a 1TB drive - which would not hold all of your 3000+ CDs.

Apparently you can just swap out the drive, and fit a 2TB disk (I would assume it's using 2.5" drives rather than 3.5") but I would be concerned of hitting the 20,000 file limit, and this also means that you need a PC with the same amount of storage to keep a backup of your files.

 

For certain people, I can see why the HAP-Z1 would be the best option, but I've a number of posts on why I don't think it's a good device if you are not computer-phobic.

 

The Mac Mini seems an oft chosen solution, and its certainly affordable, until you hear about power supplies needing to be replaced, etc. etc, and the cost is suddenly $2k or more.

This is certainly not required.

 

I'm also very close to leaving making the decision to leave the Windows world that I have been in since the beginning, so a Windows pc doesn't seem applicable here. I am simply sick and tired of viruses, malware, hardware failures, (no matter how high the quality of the component, and Windows issues in general.

None of these are anything to do with Windows.

If you run on a regular user account (rather than an Administrator account) you have now mitigated 99% of the malware/viruses out there.

Don't open .exe files emailed to you from random people you don't know. Don't pirate computer software.

Windows' built-in antivirus should cover everything else.

 

A Mac is just as likely to have a hardware failure as a Windows PC - they're all just Intel PCs inside the case now.

If anything I have had more trouble with Apple hardware because it's proprietary, whereas I can just go to a local shop to get the part I need and replace a failed PC component within the hour.

 

I've also been repeatedly told at audio shows that Mac's are the only option for serious quality sound, as evidenced by all of the people using their Mac laptops in their rooms. Lastly, to my knowledge, every major music player is Mac only (Almarra, Audirvana,Pure Music, etc.).

I would say that there are two things there;

1. Most PC laptops are junk. Apple laptops are premium hardware, when most PC laptops are seen as the cheap alternative, and built as such. If you're running audio straight out of a laptop into an amplifier, yes, I would want a Mac.

If you're playing to an external DAC, it shouldn't matter. They probably just already own a MacBook and happen to be using it in the demos.

 

2. Bit-perfect sound is... bit perfect from any machine.

Windows has actually proven to be more robust and flexible than OS X for audio playback in my experience, and I have spent quite a bit of time with both.

All my laptops have been Macs since the aluminum Powerbook G4. (right up to the retina MacBook Pro I own today)

All my desktop machines - apart from a brief experiment with an iMac G5 - have been Windows PCs that I built myself.

 

JRiver is my software of choice, and it's only recently been brought to the Mac.

The PC version handles audio and video, when the Mac version is audio-only right now, and while they are almost at feature parity, it's not quite there yet.

 

All of the "players" that you listed are hacks that hijack iTunes' interface to manage playback, lacking any kind of library management themselves.

I'd much rather use a self-contained player that is not dependent on third-party software.

As far as I'm aware, the only player like that for Macs with an audiophile-quality playback engine would be JRiver.

 

 

 

Other things to consider: the Mac Mini only accepts 2.5" drives, and if you're buying it from Apple, the maximum capacity is 2x1TB drives or approximately 4000 CDs.

 

A Mac Mini relies on an external USB drive for ripping, and it is a notebook drive - which means that ripping each disc is likely to take 10-20 minutes, rather than 5 or so with a full-size PC optical drive.

 

I'm curious what benefit the $2000 Sony or the $1200 Oppo have over the $600 Mac Mini? (Serious question. I'm not being snarky. Maybe I don't understand what functions the different units perform.)

They're "not a computer".

 

Aesthetics - WAF goes up with a piece that looks like audio gear, fits in with other audio gear and doesn't have cables running everywhere and enough LEDs to signal the mothership

Ironically, you just described most of the stand-alone devices compared to a system like the Mac Mini.

The Mac Mini is the component which is small enough to have a high "WAF" with far better aesthetics than any chunky audio box.

[KDinsmore]

A big yes to a computer source. Years back my Proceed/Madrigal player DAC died and I moved on to a USB DAC and a computer. I use Windows and J River. It's all been a great experience. Years ago there were a few glitches but now it is all so much easier and once you are set up you will dig the playback options. By that I mean just moving through your collection on a whim. I'd never go back to a CD playback system again. Plus you can rip vinyl for playback as well.

[TubeLover]

Skeptic,

 

Thanks for your extremely informative reply. I greatly appreciate both the information and the perspective.

 

 

JC

[crisnee]

I agree with most if not all of what skeptic said. I've also had plenty of experience with both Macs and Pc's and had both for awhile. Eventually I decided to go solely pc.

 

Also I agree with Kdinsmore as to the convenience not to mention that the SQ is great. Although I still have cd playback, I only use it for SACDs, and that I use rarely.

 

Chris