Mac G5/Lynx AES16e Set-up

[vortecjr]

I wasn't timing you, but that was quick. You know Lynx has the firewire Aurora 8 dac. You could aways buy that for about 1/2 the cost of the MH firewire 192 dac Are you going to e-mail Mike to see whats up with firewire from his end? It might shead some light or maybe he just didn't fell like putting in! Seriously, you should ask him what the deal is.

 

As for the drivers what is the big deal jumping on the band wagon with the new os? Companies don't just swap out an os over night like you did. They have to test and make sure its not going to do something strange and make sure it won't mess up actual work in progress. On the other hand I guess they could have rushed out some solution for bragging rights!

 

Regards

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

[tmfidelis]

With all due respect Jesus:

 

"As for the drivers what is the big deal jumping on the band wagon with the new os? " There are two words in the web site name, Computer Audiophile. The latter may have different meanings to individuals visiting this site. Perhaps some readers may seek a clear and consistent means to acquire consistent and accurate knowledge for good playback.

 

A new version software, driver or operating system doesn't necessarily have anything to do with improving playback sound quality. On occasions newer versions have been worse out of the gate and some have never been better. This is where the word reference may come into play.

 

Respectfully,

 

Tim Marutani

Emeryville, CA

 

 

[Econpasha]

Hi tmfidelis:

 

Yes, the quality of playback is extremely important. I am not constrained by a budget at this level at least. I am an audiophile, even though I am not yet a computeraudiophile!!! But I intend to become one; hence, my interest in a brand new computer. I own 2 PCs that are used as computers and marginally play music through iTunes and an outboard DAC (MHDt). However, the new Mac Pro will be stripped off of everything except sound and will be in the music room to compete with an Ayre CD player. The Goodwins setup (a PC-based system) did not appeal to me because of its limited capacity. I plan on copying 1000s of CDs into this new music server. Therefore, it will have several 1 TB hard drives. With help from my son, of course.

 

So, Lynx has not given me a release date. Also, what I have read on this site so far is that their cable is not good enough for hi-end sound and compromises sound. My 2-channel tube Audio Research-based sound system would not like that.

 

Many thanks to several others who have already helped.

 

Erol

 

[cfmsp]

 

"As for the drivers what is the big deal jumping on the band wagon with the new os? Companies don't just swap out an os over night like you did."

 

Just so you know, Snow Leopard offers a performance upgrade that is almost equivalent to adding an SSD, and for only $29, that's the big deal.

 

The Snow Leopard beta has been available for 'companies' such as Lynx to 'swap out' and 'test' for MONTHS. Every piece of software that I use seems to be working fine with Snow Leopard less than one week after rollout.

 

And here Lynx is - telling customers that paid $700 for a sound card (which as you probably know is on the expensive side) that they don't even have a planned release date for when they will provide new drivers.

 

I've been writing software and/or managing those that do for my entire career, so I know more than a thing or two about software releases. Lynx's performance is beyond the pale. That they don't have a planned release date probably means that they don't even have a plan.

 

Were I a customer of theirs, I would be livid. But then again, I check out the companies from which I buy products beforehand, so I probably never would be. Companies like Metric Halo, iZotope, and Audiofile Engineering (makers of Wave Editor), and more than a few others, are exemplary not only with products but with service and support. Those are the kinds of companies that I reward with my business. The only vote we have is the almighty dollar/euro/etc.

 

More than you asked for, I'm sure, but you DID ask.

 

I'll shut up now... it's nothing personal, we just have different views.

 

clay

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"This is where the word reference may come into play."

 

Tim,

Your advice/recommendations are very highly regarded. What is your reference for computer audiophile playback?

 

If I remember correctly, the PM Model Two is one of your preferred components.

 

Clay

 

 

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"Also, what I have read on this site so far is that their cable is not good enough for hi-end sound and compromises sound."

 

Erol,

 

Are you referring to the Breakout cable? If so, I have a recommendation for you - our very own Jesus R - www.sonore.us - who has modestly not yet offered his services.

 

clay

 

 

[Happy]

Erol

 

I have 3 setups in the house - one 5.1 audio studio for music mastering; one set of studio monitors spdif hooked up to my workhorse Intel Mac Pro computer via a Lavry DA10 and a no holes barred dedicated engineered listening room outlined below.

 

Couple of thoughts - having tried several DACs the listening room ended up with the Alpha DAC. My experience is that the better the DAC the less important the feed (which makes sense - the last thing that you want to do is to 'effectively' stream audio). With the Alpha DAC I am struggling to hear any difference between the SPDIF output and the Lynx AES output. In fact I can find no difference in Amarra and a direct output from itunes. (or Songbird) (It is fun to take the output from itunes internally and pass it through some of the professional 'mastering' plugins - tube amps, stereo imagers, phase convolvers etc..)

 

If you invest in a MAC Pro use Leopard until the drivers are updated - not a big deal. Snow Leopard is an exceptional upgrade really positioning apple for the future (it does little for users its a big upgrade for developers) - Unlike Windows it throws out device drivers that are not up to spec. (For those of us who remember PC DOS 1.0 Microsoft would have saved themselves a world of pain if they had adopted a similar strategy).

 

If you wanted to go to Snow Leopard then use the SPDIF until Lynx release their drivers; you will have plenty of other tweaks to be getting on with.

 

As an aside - put in 2 or 3 Tbyte drives in your MAC Pro (the OS can sit on a 4th smaller drive or even as a external Firewire drive giving you 4 internal bays for disks) - then Soft Raid the drives with the built in utility. This increases the effective B/W to the drives - more importantly the drives will appear as 1 large (2.7Tbyte) volume - "Music" then you can rip your CD's to it and keep the file system flattish (itunes likes that). The downside is that if any (when) one of the discs fail (SATA discs have an average error sector rate of 3% and a MTBF of around 2.5 years) you lose all of your data - be sure to keep a backup.

 

Regards

 

/Paul

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tmfidelis]

Dear Clay:

 

Without getting into specifics of equipment, I can openly say I have used directly and indirectly just about every currently manufactured product mentioned in this site, short of the most recently introduced products.

 

I take time comparing proven configurations with new configurations and test them with other individuals. I also have the honor to make comparisons in several other locations.

 

Getting back to a reference:

 

1. I recall capturing a performance with Bill Evans in a small San Jose night club using 2 B&K 4133 mics, custom Mark Levinson mic preamp, a Studer A80 with Mark Levinson electronics and playing the 1/4", 1/2 track, 30ips tape. In fact, I believe the individuals that heard the tape playback still remember this to date as still being a reference. (Attack, release, sustain, and decay.)

2. I remember comparing a custom made mic. pre with most of the current contenders at the time. The individual that invited me to the session was seeking my opinion. Seeing the piano strings even using a modest monitoring system was simply outstanding. The other mic. preamps were a blur.

3. I recall when I auditioned the Spectral Audio MS1 series 2 preamplifier and experienced system resolve unobtainable at that time.

4. I clearly recall recently attending a performance with Hillary Hahn playing a Tchaikovsky concerto. The previous night I had auditioned a set of new loudspeakers and was reminded the similarities of the low frequency propagation.

5. I clearly recall when a formidable, and new for the time intoduced a new DAC. It sounded lovely. What came to my attnetion that it was not accuate. They sent new EPROMs with a different filer and the music came alive. #1-3. The DAC company displayed many years of success.

6. Listening to some recordings from Peter McGrath.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is the gear are simply tools to accomplish a goal. The goal is to achieve a formidable playback system. One of the tools I use are Pacific Microsonics Model Twos. This being said, there are many others that individuals use with great success. It is important that one really understands sonically the merits and drawbacks of each tool. A feeling for music helps. By the way, it doesn't necessary take a trained ear after listening to well recorded 1/2 track analogue tapes to identify what's missing using compromised computer configurations.

 

It is very difficult in the digital audio computer age to make valid comments without a steadfast reference. How many readers stop and listen to different versions of software I/O and questioning the programmer that fixing a computer bug or adding a feature may have reduced the sound quality?

 

Other in house tools are Firewire hardwire I/Os and DACs. A few more AES DACs, various power amplifiers, various speakers and an array of interconnecting wires. Oh yes, and way too many computers.....never in my life did I imagine I would end of with the array and configurations presently in house.

 

All this said, I do enjoy seeing how people enter into the world of computer playback. There is much for all to lean and the manufacturers are getting very sharp.

 

Sorry to have rambled on.

 

Regards,

 

Tim Marutani

Emeryville, CA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[tmfidelis]

Good evening Erol:

 

Now I'm beginning to understand the decision making process. Perhaps you may wish to consider taking you CD collection to a professional ripping company that uses dbpoweramp or EAC to rip the "master library" to FLAC. From FLAC you can convert to either .wav or aiff.

 

I share my experiences with you knowing it's not fun ripping CDs more than once, especially with a library as extensive as yours. You will always have a gold standard library that will allow you to change playback directions as the technology become available.

 

In addition, you may wish to have your son set you up a enterprise grade NAS to back up your music.

 

BTW, I purchased a 4-station CD ripped that rips 40-50 CDs/hr. with accuracy and very precise metadata. What a pleasure to use. Now there is more time listening to music.

 

Just how much storage to you require?

 

Regards,

 

Tim Marutani

Emeryville, CA

 

 

 

 

[Audio_ELF]

Has anyone actually tried the Lynx Drivers with Snow Leopard?

 

It was my understanding that the reason for Apple choosing to stick with the 32bit Kernel as standard on Snow Leopard for the moment is that it allows all the existing Leopard drivers to work, whereas if you run the 64bit Kernel then ALL of the drivers you use need to be re-written for 64bit. I might be wrong here so don't take this as fact - obviously if you install SnowLeopard and your Lynx DOESN'T work then you're going to be annoyed :-)

 

Eloise

 

[vortecjr]

"A new version software, driver or operating system doesn't necessarily have anything to do with improving playback sound quality. On occasions newer versions have been worse out of the gate and some have never been better. "

 

I agree!

 

Regards

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

[vortecjr]

regarding your post #705. Your point of them not servicing Mac is well taken. Going into attack mode on some product, because its doesn't have some feature you like is.... Well look if its a bad plan then the product will fail right?

 

Anyway, my VP is looking at the Aurora 8. I will forward your comments and he can ask about future updates.

 

Now your comment, "That they don't have a planned release date probably means that they don't even have a plan." I think this premature unless they are closing shop some time soon. For me what is gained from the drives they have is more than what is lost by not having the current mac os driver. Really, I speak for me as a person with one at home and yes as a business to the lesser extent.

 

"But then again, I check out the companies from which I buy products beforehand, so I probably never would be. Companies like Metric Halo, iZotope, and Audiofile Engineering (makers of Wave Editor), and more than a few others, are exemplary not only with products but with service and support. Those are the kinds of companies that I reward with my business." Your taking this way to far. Your in attack mode again. They have a product, some new software came out, they dont have a driver yet. That is the only point here. Did anyone go into attack mode when mh released a firewire 24/96 product. Why buy that and wait for the 24/192 product and then buy that? It may seems like they wanted your loyalty more than once. However, I choose to think they needed time for the second product and the 24/192 has some value like the great sound. You know 1/2 empty....1/2 full.

 

Regards

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

ps thanks for word on the wire...peace.

 

[vortecjr]

you said, "Couple of thoughts - having tried several DACs the listening room ended up with the Alpha DAC. My experience is that the better the DAC the less important the feed (which makes sense - the last thing that you want to do is to 'effectively' stream audio)." could you expand and inform us as to what source you are using. I don't think I would feed an expensive dac with a poor source.

 

"With the Alpha DAC I am struggling to hear any difference between the SPDIF output and the Lynx AES output." Did you mean input?

 

"In fact I can find no difference in Amarra and a direct output from itunes. (or Songbird) (It is fun to take the output from itunes internally and pass it through some of the professional 'mastering' plugins - tube amps, stereo imagers, phase convolvers etc..)" This is where the hole support issue should come into play! It doen't seem like you had proper support, because all these things don't add up! Drop some setup details here in the post.

 

Regards

 

Jesus

www.sonore.us

 

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

Tim says:

"A new version software, driver or operating system doesn't necessarily have anything to do with improving playback sound quality. On occasions newer versions have been worse out of the gate and some have never been better. "

 

JR says:

"I agree!"

 

Clay says:

I won't disagree with Tim's points in general, except to say - this particular release of Snow Leopard has arguably the most likely opportunity for ANY OS release to support improvements in digital audio playback quality in a very long time.

 

It's understood that as a Windows/PC user you might not understand that, nor are you likely to benefit from it, but THAT is the significance of audio firms getting their act together with respect to Snow Leopard.

 

From my point of view, there is NOT a chance that this release of SN will be 'worse out of the gate' with respect to computer audio playback. It does require companies building software that utilizes SL to also have their act together. Fortunately for those of us with Macs, some of the highest quality computer audio companies (Sonic/Amarra, Metric Halo, Audiofile Engineering) FOCUS their efforts ONLY on the Mac OS.

 

I will say this, it's quite disappointing that we have to wait for an iTunes upgrade to 64bit, and it remains to be seen whether Amarra will improve as a 64-bit app.

 

Clay

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"Your taking this way to far. Your in attack mode again."

 

Opinion respectfully noted.

 

I was sharing my opinion of the types of companies that I reward with my business.

although I disagree with your characterization of 'attack mode', I certainly understand where you're coming from, due to the financial interest you might have.

 

BTW, were'nt you the guy who once started a thread with the headline 'Mac Mini Busted', when you didn't even HAVE a Mac Mini? As I recall, it was simply because you were tired of all the good press the Mini was getting?

 

 

"Did anyone go into attack mode when mh released a firewire 24/96 product."

 

JR, Metric Halo released the ULN-2 some 6 or 7 years ago. They've updated it's performance over the years such that original purchasers can have the same high quality performance as the most recent models offer, which is exceptionally high. This includes a higher quality 'clock' for the DAC in the most recent board upgrade.

 

I didn't check this, but I'm quite confident that high quality chips for 192 kHz did not even exist when the ULN-2 came out. Indeed, the world of computer audiophile was non-existent (or nascent at best) back then.

 

As always, we seem to see things differently. That's not a problem in my view, it's an opportunity.

 

Clay

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Eloise - Yes, I've tried Snow Leopard with my Lynx card. In 64-bit mode the card is not even seen by the OS. In 32-bit mode the card is seen, but there is no sound output.

 

[vortecjr]

Yes an opportunity for sure! I am actually learning lots about macs and I hope you can take something from me. I actually know more then I let on about macs as I have the SDK package for the i-phone/i-touch and have worked on some apps. Not bragging it's a curiosity of mine only. I don't want you to take what I am saying the wrong way. For example your recent post on Snow L and Amarra was like I said, "attack mode". However, it was very constructive and well spent energy. Heck I wish we had amarra or somthing like it for the pc (some software envy here)! Your a powerful member of this forum and we (i'll join in if not as powerful) need to inform and help and be constructive not destructive.

 

Regards

 

Jesus R

 

[cfmsp]

 

 

"we need to inform and help and be constructive not destructive"

 

agreed on this, however I should point out that we are likely to be on the opposite side of the issue with regards to Lynx cards for quite some time.

 

One man's constructive comment is another man's destructive criticism - oftentimes, it will depend on which side of the argument one is on.

 

 

clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

[cfmsp]

 

Thank you for the 'rambling' reply.

 

Just wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

clay

 

 

[Econpasha]

Hi Paul:

When I recently posted the response I got from the Lynx people, I did not expect to get so much help from obviously computer knowledgeable people; that is to say, people like you. I appreciate your thoughtful reply. Your suggestions/observations are very helpful.

 

My son's experience with his Mac Pro had led him to recommend that we buy 4 hard drives, as you also recommend. I will definitely do that because 1TB drives are so inexpensive these days. I have been very slowly digitazing my huge reel-to-reel and LP collection, too. That is another reason for me to do this right the first time out. I do not like the sound of my USB-based iTunes systems so far. My PC has a lot of music in my iTunes library. However, I plan to start from scratch with the new Mac Pro (Snow Lepard). That is why we had been waiting for the new operating system to come out before starting this massive project.

 

I don't want to be seriously disappointed when I play my music through this new computer feeding my Audio Research LS22 preamp and my VT130 power amp that drives my Dunlavy IVs. Right now Ayre and Accuphase CD players do that.

 

Like Tim Marutani, I have two other serious systems. One is Krell based, another is Forte based. Then like Tim, I have other more modest systems throughout like my B&O and so on. I learned a lot from Tim, too. Anyone who listens to Hillary Hahn playing Tchaikovsky, I will heed. Thanks, Tim.

 

Again, the advice on this website is appreciated, including Chris's brief note about his experience with the interface between the Snow Lepard and his Lynx card.

 

Regards,

 

Erol

 

 

[Econpasha]

Hi Tim:

 

Many thanks. You are helping a lot. Question: 4-station CD ripper. Is there a brand recommendation? Also, any recommendations regarding the DVD/CD burner for the new Mac Pro. What is in my 2 HP PCs are so cheap that I cannot imagine they transfer the digits accurately into my iTunes library. Is there a solid, audio-quality CD burner? Some people on Amazon have liked a Sony internal DVD/CD burner. Do you agree?

 

Regards,

 

Erol

 

[vortecjr]

take a look at this post:

 

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/dbpoweramp-pro-and-Teac-drive-ripping

 

it has lots of info on ripping and the units that are good. Not sure if they are pc or apple, but it looks like you have both anyway.

 

hope it helps

 

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

[Econpasha]

Many thanks, Jesus. It helps. I need to study some more!

 

Regards,

 

Erol

 

[vortecjr]

The dbpoweramp site has a section on mass rippers. One of the units is a sony cd/dvd 200 disk changer with a usb connection. I have not used it, but have been tempted!

 

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/batch-ripper.htm

 

Regards

Jesus R

www.sonore.us

 

[Happy]

Sorry ... to elaborate:

 

If the "Source" is just a source of bits i.e. a bit store then with a proper DAC design - large enough input buffers and proper clocking then technically the source is irrelevant - this is demonstrable and provable - if it wasn't the case then the CD distribution industry (who ship bits on CD's with large latencies) would not exist. A big however is that you can get a DAC design wrong -I've done it; then the source can overwrite the buffers (due to either bandwidth or serialisation problems) etc... data is lost then problems.

 

If the Source manipulates the bits e.g. equlisation then clearly the algorithms in the source matter. There is an industry (VST,AU and Audio mastering) which attempt to manipulate the bits before they ship the bits to allow the players to be simple i.e. bit shifters.

 

To answer your question directly; my Source is:

 

6Gbyte Intel 2009 MAC Pro - Leopard.

 

Disks: 3*1Tbyte Soft RAID disc B/W to disk 130MBytes/sec measured continuous Read

 

Tested Lynx PCIe Card current AES output Standard cable drivers and SPDIF output

 

Data arranged on disk to prevent (seeks) and seek times and to allow efficient read caching for music

 

Output from Computer to Alpha DAC

 

All equipment have Isolation transformers and a Balanced PSU Feed - all have seperate conections to the GRID star point which itself is isolated (I have so much digital equipment in my house that Power Distribution and Grid load and digital crosstalk was a big design issue in my listening room - this is another post).

 

Music to compare - Sterophile and Reference Recordings Test/Setup disks.

 

I tested Amarra and Itunes. I tested SPDIF and Lynx AES and I tested RAM disk vs my RAID setup and in all cases cannot determine any differences - and I don't expect to hear any differences.

 

Clearly I cannot output 24/192 using SPDIF. There is a big difference if I upsample the 16/44.1 into the Alpha DAC.

 

I may have missed something I continue to test - my next tests are to put in poorer and poorer sources e.g. 1 Hard Drive with data spread randomly thereby increasing seek times.

 

/Paul