Considering a universal Blu-Ray player

[richidoo]

RME is among the best cards, along with Lynx and CardDeluxe. The opamp analog output on these is good enough for pro audio but not as good as a discreet circuit designed for audiophile use. This is where pro audio guys laugh because there is no difference on the oscilloscope, and they are extremely price and spec aware. But the sound differences are obvious in comparison. An external DAC allows a discreet output stage, which is capable of preserving the sense of space and life better than the opamp sound cards. The only thing more misleading to an audiophile than an audiophile review is a pro audio review.

[stringdriventhing]

Wow, since my first post this thread has certainly morphed - "universal" players to computer-based media servers. As a guy who has made that jump a couple of years ago I can definitely make some recommendations.

1. Make pretty darn sure what SOFTWARE you are likely to want to utilize in a computer-based system BEFORE deciding on the age-old MAC vs PC hardware issue. There is a whole lot of differing opinion being posted on audio forums with regards to what constitutes the "optimal" playback software, with pretty much universal agreement that many, or most, of the available stuff is sonically superior to "straight" iTunes playback. While PC-based software seemed to hold an early advantage in computer audio, it is now an "open field" with several Mac-centric players gaining sonic ground.

2. The Mac/PC thing tends to inflame some folks, and I have no vested interest in championing one over the other. I have used both platforms, both for professional and personal use, and am therefore somewhat more qualified to comment than some who seem to base their rather STRONG opinions entirely on hearsay and rumor. An important reality to keep in mind is that whatever computer platform is chosen, it should for the sake of "optimal" audio quality be used for NOTHING BUT audio playback. So if like a whole lot of folks you are biased towards a particular platform, do to familiarity borne of other forms of usage, throw your conceptions out the window and realize this is a very different type of application which will entail new software "learning curves" irregardless of hardware choices. You should entertain the notion of running a "clean" machine, optimized solely for audio quality and determined to be the best choice as a dedicated music server. In my particular case, after weeks of intensive online research, I chose the Mac Mini as my music server. I replaced the "spin drive" with an SSD, maxed-out the amount of RAM, optimized OS settings for audio playback, established my music "library" on an external/Firewire 800 connected/mirrored RAID drive system, and am only now preparing to begin the "audition" of Apple Core Audio compatible players. Amarra, Pure Music, and Audirvana are the top candidates with others available.   

3. Computer-based playback is not yet a "mature" solution for quality audio. All you have to do is to read the huge number of posts on sites like Computer Audiophile, Audio Asylum, and Audio Circle to understand that it is a VERY FLUID environment with little consensus yet reached in any area, either hardware or software. Computer-based playback is not an ideal strategy, yet, for those plagued by extreme symptoms of Nervosa.

This is just off the top of my head. There's LOTS MORE where this came from, I'm sorry to say. In many ways, I wish I was still spinning CD's on my trusty, old, modified-Raysonic CDP-128. Those days were simpler - String

       

[hometheaterdoc]

Doing D/A conversion in the computer itself has never been totally successful for me, no matter the price of the sound card I tried.   It can sound ok, don't get me wrong, but not as good as using an external DAC that is outside the computer itself.. plus it is easier to swap the DAC to get a new sound or make the system work in a new config.  Using a PC as the file store and means of getting digital information to a DAC (be it AES/EBU, RCA SPDIF, Firewire or USB?)...  That's what a PC based solution excels at..... and some of the USB based DACs out there are really quite good right now...  so using something like the Lynx Two sound card with a custom JPS Labs dongle to get AES/EBU digital out doesn't actually really make as much sense anymore as it once did... especially from a cost perspective... using that money on a better USB cable or using it to help fund the purchase of a better external USB based ore Firewire based DAC is a better use of the funds, imo. 

There are several "how to" threads over at audio circle and other sites where you can rip your DVD-A discs in full rez 24/192 and SACD converted to 24/88.2 or 24/176.4 with minimal effort and a few cheap devices.  Worth checking out so you could potentially rid yourself of the discs forever and play them back via the PC.  I think I only own about 10 SACDs, several of which are hybrids anyways... but I may do the ripping just to get rid of the discs all together.  I never listen to them as the only universal player I now have here is the Oppo 83SE.

The PS Audio piece has some perks to it in the form of the network bridge being a great player for DNLA based music repository on your network.  It connects and communicates via I2S to the DAC itself.  It's the best sounding connection I've made to the DAC so far, even more so than spinning a disc with the Perfect Wave Transport via I2S connected HDMI... the software is buggy as crap and I hate apple devices with a passion that's difficult to express in words (I use an Apple Ipod4 to install the PS Audio control software).  But when it does work, it's a neat interface and remote control option to have your music at your fingertips, see cover art, etc., control the unit much better than it's included remote control's volume buttons, and eliminate the computer from the music room all together.  It's almost the exact opposite of what the original poster is going for with the computer solution.... Not to say that you can't still use the computer with the PWD by outputting AES/EBU or spdif from a good pro sound card or using one of the USB to spdif dongles like the M2Tech and then treat the PS Audio like an ordinary DAC being fed from a disc spinning transport... I do both all the time...  The other perk of the DAC is that it has plenty of drive to power an amp directly and use it's digital remote volume control capabilities.  I only run the PWD straight to amps without a preamp.  I found that putting a preamp in front of it always hurts the transparency and overall sound quality.  So as long as you don't need analog volume inputs to integrate it with a home theater solution or to feed it analog sources like vinyl, the PS Audio PWD is a music player, DAC, and preamp all rolled into one unit.  It is a very neutral DAC though with a leaner and slightly more forward upper midrange compared to others.  So if you are looking for warm and syrupy, it has to come in the form of the cables and amplifier you use after the DAC.... cause the DAC itself won't add any of that....

back to the computer stuff...

For those people out there that like Macs and their interface, buying a Mac Mini, Pure Music (or whatever expensive software for Mac that is hot and good right now) and follow the various online web pages that detail how to config them for optimum digital output.  That is a very viable solution that will work for lots of folks.  Bigfish has done that locally here in the area and it works quite well.  There are a number of manufacturers out there that cater to the Mac world... in fact, their stuff seems to only work ideally on a Mac.  Some features are only available via Mac... for example, the 384K input resolution capability via USB of the Antelope Zodiac Gold DAC is Mac only at the moment.  Long story short, as long as you can live with the way the software works for the Mac, it's a pretty straight forward setup and config with the Mac machines as Pure Music runs on top of Itunes... so it's an interface that a lot of the mass unwashed are familiar with.  Personally, I hate paying good money for something if I can get equivalent or better performance for less or free.  So I shy away from the Mac solutions.

To playback high rez files, you need very little computer processing power.  It doesn't need a lot of memory or CPU.  In fact, the smaller or less power hungry the better as, like the Mac Mini form factor, less power usually equates to less heat which equates to less fan noise to cool the thing.  I've found that it's almost mandatory for above 24/96 files to have a hardwired connection as my wireless can be a bit flaky for that much data transfer across the network from my office machine where my media files are stored to the computer in the audio room.  I like to have a PC in the audio room with a bare bones hard drive installed.  Lately that's a 60GB solid state disk (SSD) or even smaller as that is plenty big to install operating system and program files.  The perk is that the SSD hard drive is completely silent.  My current audio PC uses a big case that is very open for airflow.  I have all case fans removed and use an oversized heatsink CPU cooler with a huge variable RPM speed fan on it.  That's the only fan in the system besides the power supply fan (which is also variable speed).  I run a low power Intel CPU chip on an Asus motherboard... cheap package deal from newegg.com that came with memory/motherboard/cpu as a package for almost nothing... so even running multiple remote desktop sessions to the other computers in the house, all the apps I can ever use, plus playing music, the PC is almost dead silent and never gets hot enough to spin up the CPU fan much at all.  I have a separate machine in my office across the network where I have tons of TB worth of data storage, including my music collection.  I've tried it a number of ways and this method works just as well for me as dedicated large SSDs in the audio PC case in the room.

I built a couple crazy computers where I did a linear low noise power supply with all kinds of shielding and other tweaks like EMI/RFI shielding and power conditioning... it made a minor difference, but never enough for me to justify the cost and effort differential.  Same with all the crazy operating system configuration changes you can make to make the PC sound better...  were there minor changes by going to that extreme?  Sometimes, but not really worth the extra effort.  Current WASAPI drivers in windoze 7 or ASIO or kernel streaming will work great.  My current audio PC, aside from the Lynx Two professional sound card and the windows operating system, cost under $300 total in parts.... with 70%+ of that being the case that I removed all the fancy fans from and the SSD drive (and they've gotten cheaper since I bought that one).  It works great.  I've used cheap desktops from Dell in the past to great effect.  My HTPC in the theater room is a pre-built HP desktop computer that works fine for that purpose. 

A couple hundred should get you a plenty good PC that can be used as the basis for an audio PC.  The only time you need the crazy performance is if you plan to do computer games with it.  Even then, you'd be surprised what games will run on these days.  You don't even need the network connected office machine.  Lots of places are running crazy cheap sales for external hard drives that you can attach via USB, firewire, e-SATA, etc.  Buy two, make exact copies of your music repository to them both.  Disconnect and put one of them off to the side as your backup.  Force yourself to connect it every once in a while to copy over the new music you buy so you have an updated backup.... while you can certainly get a better backup solution, it's not always completely necessary.  I always buy new hard drives in multiples of two.  Whatever I copy to one hard drive, I make a backup of it to the second hard drive and have it stored unpowered and ready to replace the active one for when the hard drive fails.  I do windows operating system backups as well... but for media disks, this system has been working well for me for years....

I love Foobar as my music player software.  I use it almost exclusively.  It's free and all the drivers and component add-on's are free.  It's not as pretty as software like Media Monkey and J River Media center.  So if you want the album art and prettier interface, those can be had for free or up to a few bucks.  there are tons of free rippers out there to take your music off disks and into a .flac saved file with tags, etc.

An audio PC feeding an external DAC has been my main setups for going on a decade.  It used to be that the PC was good, but a great external transport would still be a bit better... with the advances in the past couple years with USB or firewire based dacs (or the USB or firewire to SPDIF dongles and boxes), that gap has significantly closed.  you get the convenience of a full blown PC to do more than just music and it's easy to swap pieces and parts and future improvements without having to try to sell a crazy expensive all in one player or transport that's now worth 1/10 it's original price...  I never have to get up to change a disc again... or figure out which audio room the disc I want to play is located.... no more stacks of discs piled up everywhere.  Everything on one machine in teh office... no clutter, easy access.... 



sorry... people posting while I was typing... will edit later...

[jsaliga]

Thanks for all of the suggestions.  Some of my decisions are already made.  For instance, the platform will be a PC because that is the platform that I know and have worked with for the last 30 years.  The operating system will be Windows 7 Ultimate.  I could share further details but would prefer not to.

Understand that this isn't my first BBQ.  I come from an electrical engineering and computer science background.  I work as a professional in the IT field as a systems engineer and solution architect.  I have done fairly extensive work as a hobbyist with multimedia PCs for about the last 11 years or so.  I know my way around PC hardware and software.  I say these things not to discourage input, which I value, but to let you know that I am not a audio or computer rookie.  I have been at this for a while and am operating from a fairly strong base of knowledge and experience.  But as I said before, there is always something new to learn.

I will also say that I am an audiophile with some rather unaudiophile-like thoughts about what equipment can and cannot do, where the points of diminishing returns are, and other (usually controversial) topics.  You won't see me too often in the equipment threads because rather than engage people in debate I choose not to participate out of respect for other members.  My thing is the music, and that is really what I am all about and what brings me here to AN.

The reason things morphed is because when I started this thread I was thinking forward.  Then I had to look backwards at my rack space and decide where I was going to put this universal Blu-Ray player.  This got me thinking about equipment sprawl, and how every time I add a new feature or capability I end up buying a new box to stick in my rack.  Space is not unlimited in my man cave, so I have decided to consolidate components and functions into a single box (using a PC), and to clear the deck of unused audio hardware.  This is probably a decision whose time has come.

--Jerome