Traitor to the Mac... :(

[Codifus]

I don't think the type of connector plays as significant a role in sound quality. For example, I have a Sony blu ray player connected via co-ax to my DAC. I've also connected the blu ray via optical to my DAC. The optical output of the Sony is much better than the AE, and the co-ax output of the sony is better than its optical, but not much.

 

There was a user on here who converted his AE's optical to coax. Can't recall the user, though. He did say that there was an improvement, but not much, and, now having experienced the difference, he wouldn't have bothered to go through all the trouble.

 

CD

 

[realhifi]

Wgscot In watching this thread I see that comparisons of optical and the Halide Bridge you are making are made using the Peachtree Nova, a piece I really like and am familiar with.

One of the reasons I like that piece is it's ability to take almost any source and make it sound at least good. In fact, it's a claim that the founder has made many times in many forums and blogs. I'm not surprised that you have found the Mac optical output to be similar to the USB into Halide Bridge if it is being fed into that terrific piece. If you start to climb the slippery slope of high end dacs I think that the differences between these outputs become more apparent and it is when the differences start to become meaningful to people. On an Audio Research Dac or the equivilent, the difference is not only not subtle it is glaring. The superiority of USB over the optical out is clear and immediate. Using something simpler like a Rega Dac or say one of the Rotel peices, it is still clear as a bell but not as glaring.

 

I want to make clear that I really like the Peachtree products but one of the things they seem to do so well is to level the playing field for digital sources.

 

[wgscott]

I suspected this was the case, but one quick question: Do they level the field by making optical better or USB/coax worse?

 

[wappinghigh]

Paul. As a mac user as well for several years, I found your OP enlightening as well. I agree. Mac minis are not the be all and end all as music servers as you rightly point out. You can't put in better sound cards. They have jitter prone toslink, and now HDMI...which is a bugger to separate off stereo or 5.1 analog surround within OSX. There is no blu ray option. They really do lack flexibilty. As a far as using them as a media "player": when I was disappointed in the sound I was getting out of my mac mini, I went down a third route. I started streaming to a non computer. This completely takes away toslink, and even digital coax or usb out of the jitter equation...because you don't need any of these connections..

 

Wap

 

[realhifi]

Good question and not sure. I believe that one of the reasons for the imputs on the Nova to sound so similar is related to it's amplification which is glossing over some of the differences that you might find between optical and USB, etc. As you move up in performance of seperate dacs, preamps, etc. those differences become much more apparent. Not a bad trait for an all in one piece to have in my opinion and why they are so good and have been so successful.

 

[Codifus]

The Mac is easier to setup AND it is easier to get bit perfect audio out of it. No need for Pure Music, Amarra etc, just plain old iTunes. And it's free. The only penalty seems to be jitter out of its standard built in optical output.

 

Now look at the PC side. Lower cost components, and better quality digital outputs with lower jitter, but getting bit perfect from the Windows audio software apparently is much more of a challenge.

 

So with the Mac you get bit perfect audio out from everything built in. You can then clean up the jitter with a jitterbox or a very good DAC that will clean it up from the input.

 

HDMI sucks because of HDMI, not the Mac. DRM is a hornet's nest within the HDMI spec.

 

CD

 

 

 

[Paul R]

I understand where you are coming from Wap, but on the other hand, you don't have to twiddle as much with a Mac as with a PC to get the same quality of sound.

 

I reloaded JRMC16 (the beta) last night, and spent some time listening to it. It really sounded great. Of course, then I realized that I had somehow selected moderate "surround processing" in the DSP settings. Once I unset that, it still sounded very good, but not as much fun.

 

There is, of course, nothing wrong with processing the sound through filters like that. Just ask Misha or Peter.

 

But then, the Mac has a zillion sound processing filters too. Comparing the Windows vs. Mac filters would take - a long time.

 

Right or wrong, I believe to really evaluate the sound, one should get bit perfect - or as close as possible to bit perfect - sound out of each source, and spend at least 5 to 10 hours listening. The more time spent listening, the better.

 

I loaded a 2005 Mac Mini* last night and have it all ready to do some serious listening via the MF V-Link. Then I'll swap the V-Link to the PC and listen to the same material.

 

I am really looking forward to Saturday and Sunday!

 

-Paul

 

*By the way, I was rather intending to just use the same library and media files stored on a shared drive. This turns out to be a bit more difficult than it sounds, at least with iTunes. Sharing problems and differences in the way the shared volume map between PC's and Macs. I've got to search the forums here for other folks experiences, and if warranted, I will write up my (mis)adventures here for comment. (grin)

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi wgscott - Peachtree claims to level the input playing field by using the features of the ESS Sabre32 DAC chip to reclock and lower jitter. In Peachtree's mind optical and USB/coax are made better just not by the same degree because the inputs aren't equal.

 

[Paul R]

Well, tonight I listened to one of my favorite albums, Peter, Paul & Mary's _LifeLines_. It is ripped from a redbook CD.

 

First I listened to it on the PC, using JRMC 16. It sounded grand.

 

Then I hooked up the same coaxial cable to the old PowerPC based Mac Mini (10.5.4) via the Music Fidelity V-Link, being driven from Pure Music.

 

Train Wreck.

 

The sound was horrible, with audible distortion and it would cutout every time the music got the least little bit loud.

 

Hooked it up to the PC - no problem. Sounded great, even better than the motherboard digital out I was using.

 

As Bugs Bunny would say, "Of course you know, this means war!"

 

And so it did.

 

Addressing the horrid sound first, the obvious answer turned out to be the correct answer as well - it was very short on power. Adding a USB "Y" cable, which draws power from two USB ports solved the sound quality issues immediately. This is a $2.10 cable, and something like 24guage, so I will be needing to replace it with a better cable, and soon.

 

Once that was cleared up, the drops became very noticeable. This turned out to again be a simple fix. I unplugged the DVI to HDMI cable that was feeding the Mac's video output to the television (through the NAD T747) and voila! No more dropouts. Access via VNC is more convenient in any case.

 

After all this, I did not have time to listen to the full album again, but what I did listen to had a more solid soundstage, and it was far easier to discern the different instruments. The focal point / sweet spot also moved about two feet further into the room.

 

Again, this is compared with JRMC 16 on the PC, and I need to do a lot more listening before I am comfortable I have landed just where I want, and can afford to be!

 

 

 

[Miska]

Once that was cleared up, the drops became very noticeable. This turned out to again be a simple fix. I unplugged the DVI to HDMI cable that was feeding the Mac's video output to the television (through the NAD T747) and voila!

 

I'm kind of sorry to hear this kind of story also from older Mac Mini. PSU and grounding issues... (in mine, different USB ports have varying quality of +5V power feed)

 

If you want to see some of the things, try connecting a monitor with analog VGA and observe various changes in image quality when connecting/disconnecting devices like Ethernet cable (Ethernet is really supposed to be transformer isolated)...

 

 

[Codifus]

The Mac Mini's OEM power supply was inadequate. Yeah, the original PSU may have been fine for MS word but not up to scratch for very sensitive digital audio.

 

CD

 

[Paul R]

Yikes- that is one hell of a scary experiment! Note that it does not do that with my Macbook, or with a temporarily borrowed Mac Mini, or indeed with the PC.

 

Well, I listened a lot last night and this morning, and the best combination here is

the PC running iTunes, but running through the MF V-Link. (Yet another surprise.)

 

I did a little tuning on the PC as well, removing the higher end video card, wireless card, and putting in on clean power from the UPS, along with the other equipment.

 

Miska: I downlinked a copy of HQPlayer to try out, but it crashed out on the system. Anything special needed on 64bit Windows 7 Pro? A nice vanilla install, with only iTunes and a VNC server running?

 

-Paul

 

 

[sandyk]

Paul

You could also try Creative Media Source Player 5 W7 (5.26.02)

or Foobar 2000. I preferred CMPS5 when playing Barry Diament's 24/192 .wav files of "Equinox." There was a greater depth of image and more subtlety.

 

[Paul R]

Playing around with JRMC and a couple other non-itunes players on the PC has had one bad effect, some of the files that I played, or tried to play in some cases, have been corrupted. Apparently JRMC tried to embed some information into some ALAC files, and it just didn't work.

 

Fortunately, I have backups, but I either need to spend 15 hours restoring the whole set of data files, or I need to find the bad files, or I need to quickly figure out how to setup some shared NAS storage.

 

Talk about embarrassing. And annoying.

 

Advice welcome.

 

[wappinghigh]

That's easy!

 

Stick to itunes/OSX and stop "fiddling"...

 

That'll teach ya

 

[Paul R]

You are probably right.

 

All this started when I brought out the temporary server to use until I went and bought another up to date Intel Based Mac Mini. Turned out the sound from the PC was much better than I remembered.

 

It's that Pied Piper with the elusive sound that leads me down these rabbit holes.

 

Well, that and not really wanting to shell out another $700 for Yet-Another-Computer if I can avoid it.

 

And truthfully, it is also a bit fun. I am getting to listen to a large chunk of our collection, and hear it again almost for the first time. Part of that is hardware changes here, but much more than I would have ever believed has to do with the music and the music server. I am amazed.

 

-Paul

 

 

 

 

[Codifus]

not really wanting to shell out another $700 for Yet-Another-Computer if I can avoid it.

 

OK, then spend $200 on a jitterbox to put between your Mac and your DAC and be done with it.

 

Of course, if you like to fiddle that's OK too. PCs are good for that:p

 

CD

 

[Paul R]

I'm not sure there would be any advantage at all. Besides, until I go buy a new one, I don't have a free Mac with an optical output. As noted above, the older PowerPC Mini's don't have an optical connection, mores the pity.

 

Also, what surprised me to no end at all was that the older Macs were very sensitive indeed to the video connection. Unbelievably so, or at least, I would not have believed it had I not seen it with me own two little eyes!

 

I'm actually just sort of playing around right now, trying the different options on the PC's that I have been snobbishly ignoring in favor of my beloved Macs.

 

Also kind of waiting to see if they refresh the Mini this year before I buy a new one.

 

They will hopefully enhance iTunes to do auto switching of the bit rate. That is really the only reason I use Pure Music instead of straight iTunes. iTunes is without a doubt, a nice piece of software - in terms of sonics, features, interface.

 

In the meantime, I am playing around with VortexBox, JRMC, and some of the other PC based players. (On a spare PC! Not the one doing master music server duty!

 

There is a lot to learn there, and it is quite fun to listen to music again and quite literally, hear it "for the first time" all over again.

 

-Paul

 

 

[Codifus]

My bad.....the Vlink is a converter and jitterbox in one. That should do the trick:)

 

CD

 

[jriver]

MC16.0.55 has native support for M4A and ALAC now.

 

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?board=22.0

 

It no longer requires Quicktunes or a DirectShow filter.

 

Playback should be set to Automatic for these filetypes.

 

[4est]

IIRC, some of the older macs used RAM for video memory too. Maybe I am mistaken.

 

[latitude94941]

"Also, what surprised me to no end at all was that the older Macs were very sensitive indeed to the video connection."

 

I'm not sure that this issue only pertains to older Macs.

 

I've been in the process of setting up a system using a new 2010 Mac Mini for the past couple of months. I started out with two USB-based DACs: first the Music Streamer II+, then the Arcam rDAC. I wasn't happy with the sound from either of them, and couldn't figure out what was wrong.

 

The sound was very detailed, the imaging was solid, but it was *not* (to my ears) musical. The sound was mechanical and I found listening to be fatiguing.

 

In desperation, I switched over to a firewire DAC--an Apogee Duet. Sound was much, much better--more musical and non-fatiguing.

 

However.

 

There was now a buzzing/hiss audible through my loudspeakers (B&W 805 Nautilus) that had *not* been there before. I blamed this on the Apogee but systematically began disconnecting cables from my system to track down the source of the noise.

 

As Paul wrote, disconnecting the monitor from the Mac Mini cured the noise. Completely. I also tried connecting the mini to the monitor via VGA, but this didn't help.

 

It seems clear that the Apogee is more sensitive to noise/grounding issues. But I've also been wondering if somehow the two other DACs were just passing the noise along in some other form/frequency that wasn't as obvious as it was with the Apogee, and that this was creating the fatigue I was experiencing.

 

In any event, the experience has convinced me that it's best to avoid connecting a monitor (or at least *my* monitor) to a mac mini while listening.

 

 

 

[Codifus]

I've had my share of them as well, what with cable TV and my stereo intermingled.

 

One thing that isn't pointed out very often about balanced DACs is that ground issues are *completely* eliminated.

 

I have a Matrix mini I now connected via balanced XLR to a Behringer EP2000 amp. Ground issues? I am no longer familiar with the term:)

 

CD

 

 

 

[Paul R]

and that would be listening to this new Beta release.

 

Thank you!

-Paul

 

 

[wdomeika]

You had a mac(s). They always worked. Never let you down.One even gave it's working life for you. But, failng to be the true believer you had to try and cross the jriver. There had to be something more on the other side.

 

I was liking the sound off the PC more...much more.

 

This is nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome applied to computer audio. Deprived of listening to your mac...the PC starts to sound better and better.

 

No you are not a Cervantes of computer audio...seeking the impossible dream. You fell victim to instant gratification and a small dose of panic when it all started to fall apart.

 

And now a public apology. You had to...what else could you do to atone?

 

Cheers,

 

Bill

 

Get back to your roots, man, and do it right. There's nothing on the other side of the jriver. Except more gadgets and incompatible software and heartache.

 

Besides, no one will really notice the little teeny PC patch on your sweater...like Hester's "A"