Barriers to Computer Audio

[plissken]

Your idea of great sound doesn't appear to be shared by many other members!

There is now a whole cottage industry devoted to further improving the shortcomings of typically implemented USB audio.

There are now around 2,000

 

And there is at least 1 person here that believes they can hear the difference in bit identical files where one went through transcoding from wav / flac / wav / zipped up / unzipped only to have the same MD5 checksum at the end of the process that wouldn't take me up on my $1000 offer.

[plissken]

That's because your whole process was fatally flawed, and deliberately ignored my numerous previous posted reports about SQ degradation due to copying and moving of files due to inherent P.C. electrical noise. This was also discussed in TAS 220 and 221 by others.Your fatally flawed process would have resulted in a negative finding which is exactly what you were setting out to achieve.

I noticed that your clumsy attempts elsewhere, where you specifically registered as a member of that forum just to further pursue them, fell flat on their face too. Your motives are so transparent to many, and it has nothing to do with finding out the truth.

 

Yep, you heard it right from the horses mouth folks: All the files on your computer contain the PSU and other system EMI/RFI at the time they wrote the file to disk.

 

It even survives copying to another remote system and is now even cumulative even though the Hash, the file size, and word or binary data is exactly the same.

 

You shouldn't be allowed to give any advice on a computer audio focused forum much less any other.

[plissken]

This is completely OT. it would be very considerate of the OP if it stopped right here. If it doesn't, I'll ask Chris if he'd be kind enough to remove all the OT posts.

 

Can we work on helping the OP now, please?

 

Trust me I'm trying. Sandyk is so off the mark that it deserves rebuttal.

[plissken]

Keep it simple as you can. There is nothing compromising about USB/TOSLink (optical or coaxial), AES / EBU etc...

 

These interfaces and implementations are well understood and executed your ROI quickly diminishes as you go up the food chain.

 

What is your budget? How many CD's or Albums do you have?

 

I've had very good luck with the Atom and now X8500 based systems. Check this $99 system out:

Kangaroo Mobile Desktop Computer KJ2B#001-NA Intel Atom X5-Z8500 (1.44 GHz) 2 GB LPDDR3 32 GB eMMC Windows 10 Home - Newegg.com

 

It's a quadcore X8500 with Win10, wireless and USB3.0 and USB 2.0, HDMI etc...

 

The kicker? It has a battery backup built in. Good for up to 4 hours. Get a $40 wireless router/access point and $179 4TB Network Attached Storage device.

[plissken]

"I have nothing but trouble using USB with external HDD storage such as a WD Elements, which is often not recognised, or disappears completely."

 

And here I thought I was the only one! I have endless problems with USB connected HDDs and USB audio on the Toshiba Laptop (Win7) that I use for a computer music server. In my office I have a Mac with a DragonFly feeding my desktop system, and I never have any USB problems. The USB audio feed is as reliable as the morning sunrise, I can always count on it, and every external USB HDD (and I have three of them connected all the time) always mounts and dismounts instantly and reliably. Being that Macs and PCs are architecturally virtually identical (same processors and chip sets including USB controllers) I have to wonder what MS is doing wrong to make their USB implementation so "iffy".

 

It may not be MS. It may be that manufacturers approach to how they have the OS detect and treat the drive. The most consistently reliable USB storage solutions from my experience is the ones that allow the OS to treat it as generic storage. Just plug it in and open it up as a drive letter.

 

I've had issues with both WD and Seagate USB implementations. Switched up to a generic USB 2.0 or 3.0 enclosure (Fantom) and all my issues disappeared. Too often manufactures get too clever for their own good.

 

When I needed advanced implementations I switched up to a NAS. My Netgear 304 is using dual GB NICs with ISCSi. I even have a host computer running 3 VM's stored on the ISCSI LUN. With SMB 3.0 I'm getting ~170MB/s throughput with less than 1ms latency.

 

It's been rock solid. NAS and Wireless is perfect for computer audio based on all the systems I have done in the past 5 years.

[plissken]

I've considered NAS but seems like many consider these to be complicated to implement. I would likely need help to install and get it working properly.

 

Most NAS's are plug and play. Literally plug in, power up, and watch your network neighborhood in File Explorer.

[plissken]

Do you have a recommendation for a NAS that works well for you?

 

Any product I've mentioned in thread has been linked.

[plissken]

Have you ever gotten dropouts in the music using wireless?

 

Yes, occasionally

 

And data corruption. Not the best idea . I would not recommend using wireless or USB drives.

 

 

Bob

 

It's killing me to know what everyone is doing that has wireless so unreliable. I don't remember a single drop out due to wireless in the last 5-6 years ever. One weekends I easily stream 20GB of audio over the wireless.

 

Wireless is brain dead simple to setup and be reliable and I'm doing it with vanilla hardware. The most expensive piece is a Dlink POE AP that cost me $80 and is N300.

 

Also what is this with data corruption? You rip your music to the NAS once. You read many times. It's just a read operation. DATA CANNOT be corrupted by a failed read operation.

[plissken]

Here is a WD 4TB NAS for $140:

 

http://dealnews.com/lw/artclick.html?2,1529887,12353455

 

Here is a Zyxel $40 Wireless Router. BTW Zyxel is considered higher end and they also have a lot of business and even enterprise offereings.

 

ZyXEL VFG6005N 4-Port Wireless N Gigabit Firewall Gateway - Newegg.com

 

Just use it in WAP (wireless access point) mode and give it it's own SSID and Channel just for your music computer.

 

So: $140 for NAS, $40 for dedicated Music wireless, $99 Ultra Low Power Computer, $120 for a computer monitor or go big and get a 40" TV for ~$300.

 

That's anywhere from $400-580 for a solid setup. If you want to get a dedicated DAC look at the Emotiva Stealth DC-1. Has a remote and comes with a 30 day warranty. Thats $400 and it's not USB bus powered so no USB doohickey needed. I know DSD as a format will get mentioned. Unfortunately DSD is not widely available as a format and the DC-1 doesn't support it.

[plissken]

I say any DAC above the $1000 should have a GB of RAM that it stores everything in locally and plays back out of.

[plissken]

Could be done that way and raise the price of DACs, plus requiring redesign of current DACs, possible changes in current form factors, circuitry, etc. Or you could accomplish the same thing a lot more simply by using the RAM already in the computer, which is what player software already available does.

 

But what does this have to do with what the OP is asking?

 

It brings us back around to what buffering is and that all these interfaces aren't real time. They are buffered. If it's really of a concern ask manufactures how much data buffer they have implemented.

 

Then all the gnashing of teeth about non-realtime data interfaces would get tossed in the trash can where they belong. At that point the OP will have a much more helpful thread. I find it easier to make a point by letting others do it for me. It's why I asked the question I asked and posed it the way I posed it.

[plissken]

The problem with that thought is that with any standard interface you would need to wait for the buffer to at least partially fill ...

 

Chord do this (well not 1GB but enough for several seconds) with their DAC64 and QBD76 (not sure if they still do it with the DAVE). Theoretically it removes any jitter issues.

 

You have another thread pontificating on SSD NAND technologies. How long do you think 48M/Byte a second will take to fill a 1GB buffer. Never mind playback can start as soon as the buffer starts filling.

[plissken]

The problem with that thought is that with any standard interface you would need to wait for the buffer to at least partially fill ...

 

Chord do this (well not 1GB but enough for several seconds) with their DAC64 and QBD76 (not sure if they still do it with the DAVE). Theoretically it removes any jitter issues.

 

Duplicate post

[plissken]

I presume that you are talking about your own DAC that you designed ?

 

I'm spitballing here but I think his first sentence mentions something about some low cost, now out of production DAC with a plug in enabling it to do 192 vs the 96Khz it was designed to play over USB very reliably and sounding great.

 

Buy hey, that just might be me....

[plissken]

Any suggestion to which signal is the best from a pc to a dac? And which kind of card is suggested? Some say spdif, some say aes-ebu, some say usb. I dont have the option to test all kinds of connections and cards, so if anyone can suggest a affordable solution to get the sound-data from my win7 pc to my dac(still havent been bought but looking into several 1500$ dacs atm) i would appreciate it. I know there is not 1 single perfect solution, but USB as I read it in this and other threads, is the worst option, and spdif the best? And does it matter how I output the signal, does it matter which kind of soundcard or other dedicated card I buy? Dont have the optical out on my MB unfortunately.

 

Find the DAC with the features you want. Call the manufacturer and see what they suggest. This 'could' vary from manufacturer to manufacturer.

 

Some how I think they are all going to say USB if using a computer.

 

BTW I don't think you need to spend that much. The TEAC UD 501 @ $849 will give just about anything in the $3K and under club a run for it's money.

 

Use the rest to get some room treatments. THAT will have a bigger factor on SQ than any $1700-$2000 DAC you could purchase.