Hi all!  Not sure where to start this thread.  Just want to discuss with more experienced computer-source audiophiles (as well as anybody else interested or with suggestions) my current source setup, and maybe get some pointers.

As you already know, I'm waiting for the Mini Torii and DM945's. Yet, I've also been fine-tunning my source setup which wil drive that gorgeous coming Decware system.

I currently run Foobar2000 in 24 bit/44.1Khz - WASAPI mode through an HRT MS II USB/DAC.  I optimized my laptop (Win 7) for music streaming and configured Foobar2000 for WASAPI and MS II.

After 'will' (from this forum) made me aware of the fact (with which I now concur, after reading articles and listening for details) that original FLAC files sound at least slightly better in uncompressed WAV format, I now exclusively stream WAV files.  I manage to convert every FLAC file on the fly using a built-in, very fast Foobar converter just before sending it to the USB/DAC.

Just ordered a 1 Tb external hard disk drive for backup and memory expansion, to eventually swap part of my music collection to WAV.  Except from some issues with buffer adjustment in Foobar (mostly, but not completely taken care of by minimizing the buffer), I manage to offer an overall good source signal to my SS Bi-amp.

Evidently, I'm in no position to absolute judge the end sound result of this sourcing treatment yet, as my existing gear is not high-end and therefore not as transparent as the future setup.  Until then, I can only compare before and after, relative sound changes, and as far as I'm concerned this new source beats the crap out of my original Hi-Fi DVD/CD player (w/Toslink).

On the USB/DAC front, I have spoken to HRT's CTO (Kevin Halverson), and they offer an upgrade path to go from the MS II to the better sounding MS II + , for just the price difference (returning the original, of course).  I'm still not convinced to follow this path though, as I have some reservations about the MS II compatibility with WASAPI:

Some people have tried with some success connecting a self-powered USB Hub between the USB Cable and the DAC to assist in the power flow and eliminate the sporadic skipping and shuttering that happens only in WASAPI mode, using Foobar2000 (I have not had this inconvenience running other lesser players, like KM Player, for example).

Anyway (this has gotten longer than anticipated), I would be very appreciative of any comments and/or observations that may help me further evolve the best possible sourcing configuration within this computer-based realm.  I'm sorry for the extension of this message.  

Happy listening to all ...

That's fine, Lon.  It's understandable.  I just feel the future is in computer music streaming, for it's intrinsic potential fidelity.   Also, it allows to go quite high in source sound quality without spending excessively.

IMHO, in the near future, some of the high-end gear manufacturers are going to design a high-end music-only computer/OS, to replace existing transports.  Something radically improved upon what's available today in, say, Apple McIntosh music servers.

All these years I've collected many CD's.  I started in NC when the first batches came out, in 1983.  Since then, I've lost a good portion of these due to initial mistakes in the manufacturing chemicals used in covering the magnetized info on the CD's (film erosion, peeling and perforations.)

Adverstised as a permanent (no mechanical friction or wear) medium, the CD's have not really fulfilled this goal.  Current manufacturing quality has improved but not that much.  Then there's the issue of having to clean each disc everytime.  When you accumulate several hundreds or even thousands of them, it's not a simple task.

Then there's the convenience of transportability.  You can change computers anytime and the basic process you have mastered remains the same.  Also, finding the right album/track you're looking for, etc., all becomes significantly easier.

In the more mediate future, better binary super formats will be developed to record and store music files.  These would be revolutionary.  I think the transport industry we are familiar with today (optical magnetic reading), is a dead-end.  Evidently, there's a lot of interest-resistance involved, but sooner than later these facts will prevail.  Just my opinion, though.

Have a nice listening session, Lon ...

ost of the damaged discs were produced 5 years befiore your first ones.  The've learned some to better their process (the worst came from Germany, mostly DG but also some London Decca).

The other factor is climate.  I've been living in secveral countries and in some cases in very year-long hot, humid climate conditions.  Some fungi tend to eat the material covering the magnetized info out of CD's.  They leave spots and holes on that surface, where you can see light getting through the plastic CD.

As far as your reasons for staying away from computer sourcing, I agree from your point of view.  It's just a matter of convenience and/or practicality.  Then again, I bet you have not moved from your place, mostly.  I've had no real home or country for 30 years, up until the last two.

One thing that puts me off from all Billie Holiday's albums is the sound.  That wonderful voice is evidently not given a fair chance.  Her style is unique and you can sense about her voice, but mostly is a matter of mentally filling in what the recorded sound is not conveying.  It's like Caruso's recordings.  But I agree, the music is the whole idea.

Well, I would say that I listen to music recorded from 1918 through the forties ('Pre-tape' music) about 15 5o 20 percent of the time and have for years and years, and did before "digital media," and I can really enjoy the sound. Some of it, recorded directly to disc with one microphone, is GENIUS in its vivid sound. I confess it takes years to develop the "ear" for this type of sound, but I have and I prefer it in many ways to much of the later development in recording. In fact I think that its the listening to early recordings that has tempered my audio obsession, making me seek a "blanket fidelity" that is fair to all my recordings rather than trying to squeeze the very best sound out of any one type of recording. And the ability to enjoy a wide range of recordings is exactly what I love about my system.

I think you're selling the fidelity of Holiday's recordings short. She didn't start recording til after the worst of the early technology (acoustic horn recording) had ceased, and by the time of her Verve recordings there was certainly nothing that had to be 'mentally-filled in' about the sound of her recordings. Even her 'thirties recordings for Columbia labels can sound EXCELLENT. It may not hurt to revisit her work if you enjoy her art.

I live in a hot and humid climate as well. It's true, I haven't moved since 1998, and hadn't moved before that since 1990 (the year of my marriage to my late wife) but I moved a LOT before then. Even if I had all my music in a box of hard drives, I'd have tons of stuff to move, instruments (at present 20 stringed instruments, two drum kits, a keyboard, and five instrument amps), books (thousands), etc. I am the son of a collector of things, and I have the gene fully blown!

I do have cds from before the beginning of my collecting. I just haven't seen the rot or the fungus growing on my discs. Maybe I'm lucky. On the flipside, when I was living in Houston for Helen's cancer treatments, we had two external drives with music and other files on them for the convenience and portability of entertainment and work files. One went belly up in six months, for no apparent reason. Made me VERY wary of this technology, in fact this was the main reason for some time that I did not pursue computer audio. That and the fact that when a computer server was set up in my house by a then-roommate digital engineer, I didn't really hear any sonic benefit.

I applaud your thirst for discovery and the very future of audio. Enjoy the search and discovery. I'm set.

I certainly was not inferring that anyone here was a digital theif!

And yes, I've experienced great sound from hi-res recordings (just listened to a Muddy Waters recording that was stupendous) but it's really just a novelty for me, good for analyzing the system, etc. I live in Redbook and DVD media limitations quite happily, and really fear getting wrapped up in the "very best fidelity" and forsaking the many recordings I have. It's just a personal choice I've made, to hang with the range of fidelity that I have so much of. If I were REALLY to go crazy about high fidelity, I'd probably go back to analog, because I just love that sound so much. But I can't find the music I want in the format here. I could never feed the ever-burning fire with lps bought locally or the chanciness of buying lps over the 'net. But I can concede that that may be one of the best paths to sonic bliss.

Quote:


I know; no such inference was taken. But there is no question it is a huge activity.

Greg, one way to insure great fidelity of early music on cd is to look for the work of John R. T. Davies. Davies was a great musician who collected 78s of early jazz and jugband music etc. and transferred them with great skill to analog and digital media. There are labels which have featured his work and offered great collections, such as HEP, Frog,Timeless, Origin Jazz, King Jazz,JSP and (my favorite) Jazz Oracle. His work has also been used by the majors such as RCA and Columbia and Universal. His 'protege' Ted Kendall also does great work, carrying on the tradition so to speak.

Here are some favorites

http://www.jazzoracle.com/catalogue/BDW_8047.asp

http://www.jazzoracle.com/catalogue/BDW_8053.asp

http://www.hepjazz.com/bios/wilsont.html

http://music.barnesandnoble.com/The-Hot-Fives-Sevens/Louis-Armstrong/e/788065010...

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,1047397,00.html

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-first-of-the-singer-songwriters-key-cuts-1924-...

Also any of the Mosaic Records sets of early music have wonderful transfers. The Ellington ones blow all the previous ones out of the water!

www.mosaicrecords.com

And there are excellent sets and single cds from Columbia Records that have great sounding transfers:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/r708516

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=12424

http://www.popmarket.com/fats-waller-his-rhythm-if-you-got-to-ask-you-ain-t-got-...

http://www.popmarket.com/billie-holiday-lady-day-the-complete-billie-holiday-on-...

http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-groove-juice-special-r241184

Just a few favorites. There are so many more!

Lon, thanks for those resources. Much appreciated. Am starting with the Billie Holiday Lady Day collection. On to others after that.

Fireblade wrote on 02/05/12 at 17:21:05:


Don't personally agree that only "her prime" is worth hearing, and I totally disagree that you have to "mentally fill in bits" on these recordings. I'd urge you to listen again with less bias towards early recordings, it's surprising how much fidelity is there.

I think Billie's prime extended at least through the Decca period, which was well-recorded as well.

Over and out. Have fun.

Billie and the Prez..... . The Prez loved Billie.....but Billie did not love the Prez.  I need to play the Prez right now.......... .

1) Though Greg and Lon use the same DAC (before Greg's upgrade board) I doubt one source is particularly better than the other. As I get it, the Perfect Wave Transport and DAC combo do the memory play, error correction, async, digital lens......etc. This is why Lon has the perfect setup for himself. Expensive, but for the ultimate CD playback, pretty much state of the art technology.

Greg's setup has the same advantages of memory play, lens and so on using files he has ripped doing the error correction himself, but he has networked files and downloadable highres digital files.. Two different matters, and ideal for his setting and needs. Each has the perfect setup presumably without sacrifice of any kind for the media they use.

2) My rig begins with a Mac Mini with 4GB Ram running at 64 bit (extremely quiet computer relative to most ) fully optimized in software (minimized system and software to bare essentials for music playing... I even quit the Finder. Pure Music is the player I prefer), cabling, weight on the computer and excellent sounding feet. This is followed by the very transparent yet highly musical Tranquility DAC, a minimalist NOS design that is very effective at not being there while providing amazing inner detail, resulting in no sense of loss of any aspect of the music.

With monitor, keyboard, mouse, excellent cables (DbAudio Essential USB, PI Audio power cable optimized for the Tranquility, Reality cable ICs), a very nice 1TB Oyen external firewire mini drive for play, and another for backup (firewire is more optimal for the drives since they then leave the USB buss to the DAC) this source adds up to about 3350. Not cheap, but a complete front end that is approximately equal to a good price on just a Perfect Wave DAC MkII with one good cable.

No way to know how the sound compares to Perfect Wave without direct comparison, but I can say that my front end is extremely lifelike, and its very minimalist design/circuit path appeals to me conceptually...the idea of the least between you and the data, the better. And that those parts were chosen for "no sound" with master tapes as a reference, appeals also.

I use all error corrected uncompressed AIFF files. The Tranquility is so amazing in its smooth, liquid and uncolored presentation, yet with outrageous micro detail and micro dynamics....I never get a sense of insufficient resolution. Doesn't even occur to me. It sounds pretty flawless...no sense of bits. Ambient cues are a great indicator of the quality of detail, and this DAC excels there with a very real ambient attack through decay...clear as a bell but without hardness or etching. So though I have not listened to highres, and I am sure I would like it through a great DAC, I don't feel like not having it is an impediment to my musical experience from carefully listening to my sound.

But of course the source is part of the matrix that is the System/Room and I have done a lot to tune it all together.

3) A very important aspect of my computer setup for me is this. Though I have done a lot of room work, for whatever reason I still have low bass issues. Pure Music integrates EQ into its "hogmade" (where the software forces prioritization of most computer resources to go Pure Music) and having this EQ integrated is big for me.

Rather than having to build another bass trap (a big one, since most of what I filter with EQ is 30Hz and down) I can fine tune with my player software. I have created a bunch of very specific notch filters pulling 1 to 3 dB narrow notches down to 23 Hz. There I have a 4 dB cut. Then there are two low shelfs. At 18 Hz, -15dB, and finally a dump shelf at 12.7 Hz of - 40dB.

This took a while to sort out by ear, but it has really improved a system that sounded truly great before, but required careful tube/wire selection to get there without bass muddle. With EQ my sound is not great, but sort of unbelievable, and I can use any tubes with no concerns for low bass density clouding the music, using only the Torii bass and treble knobs for fine tuning. The bass is unreal to me it is sooo real, deep, but impressively taught...very natural sounding. As is the rest. I love this sound!

Conceptually I might not want to use EQ this way in the mids and highs, but in the bass, I don't hear a problem imposed by software. And the beauty is that this is like mastering the entire music collection to fit my system/room and tastes since it happens in the software player, just like it does in the mastering software that was used on all our CDs.

Greg, the main attraction to Pure for me at first was excellent iTunes integration. Then it got better sounding through a few versions. But most, I like it for the integrated EQ. Otherwise I would have settled for the very good sounding Audirvana with its recent iTunes integration upgrade.

However, inadvertently, through adding a number of dithered EQ filters (5!) in Pure Music I think I caused the software to process more of the signal (about 2% processor usage), and with a little noise shaping play, it was sounding on the  Audirvana and Fidelia side of untouched Pure Music.

When I was turned on to the latest Audirvana, I wondered....it sounded a bit processed to me, but really amazing in detail differentiation with sweet musicality, but why this level of fuss? Well I tried Pure without and processing and it sounded lean and cool by comparison. I did not realize how far I had veered from the baseline sound. Now I think I like PureMusic better, to me rich and musical enough, but more transparent and neutral. But this is with the EQ that helped take my system way over the top for the "player in the room" game.

This causes me to wonder if the main difference in the sounds of the players has to do with the level of dithering built into Audirvana and Fidelia (before tweaking), and dithering being more optional in Pure Music. Who knows. I find all of these guys explanations of their programs too obscure, probably in their attempt to hold onto their secrets.

Of course these will be generalizations, but with that disclaimer in place I will try to explain the Mac Mini thing.

Mac: I think there are several reasons a lot of folks prefer Macs. One is that the quality and output of the parts are chosen for efficient synergy...no corners cut. This ensures an optimized machine without having to mess around. It also points to the value of support Apple places on its computing experience. If the quality is good and uniform, support is less needed, and simpler. Good parts synergistically integrated for the optimal computing experience is different than trying to make a computer as cheap as possible while appearing to be powerful as possible. Of course this is not always the case with stock Windows based machines, but very often it is.

Also, a lot of artists have long ago adopted the Mac platform. A foundation of the Mac that artists tend to be able to relate to is in how the computer and applications tend to be designed. With the Apple design protocol, for the system and applications, process is set up to be intuitively graspable by using our natural problem solving methods as integral priorities in software development. So traditionally there have been less frustrations in using a Mac, and this in turn makes artists like the tool, making it easier to be creative in an unimpeded natural way. So a lot of musicians and music lovers use Macs and therefore develop nice intuitive software and hardware tweaks in the platform. Also the System is easy to play with making optimization easy and user friendly.

Not that this does not happen with Windows gear and users, or that the same objectives can't be met with Windows gear. Just that it is a bit more of a given with Macs.

The most interesting thing I run into when helping friends who have shifted over to Mac is solving their deeply ingrained fear of computers. It usually takes a long while to get over the "you have performed an illegal exception causing a fatal error," or "you opened the wrong file and now your computer is way sick" psychology, and replace it with..."wow, I can figure this out and fix it myself, and this is sort of fun"...the creative interactive attitude as opposed to the oppositional/need to learn it or hire someone habit.

Mini: I doubt it was designed as a great music server, though this may have been considered. More likely, it was designed to be very small, quiet, powerful, and cool looking. In this small/powerful equation, efficiency is very important for small powerful parts. Using them throughout produces less heat, while tending to be inherently quieter.

Also, for the pleasurable use experience, the distraction of fan noise is not good. So the unit needs to cool passively for the most part and if there is a fan, it needs to be subtle, and therefore quiet. The solid aluminum body is the passive cooler that takes care of things for the most part, but this mass also makes it a very stable vibration-wise, and as we all know, vibration and sensitive electronic gear designed for great music are not compatible. Also there is the electronic noise shielding from this solid aluminum body. And finally, differentiating it from a well made laptop, it has no monitor or keyboard on board, further simplifying the unit and reducing electronic noise.

Long story, but I think the Mini just happened to turn out to be a great server based upon all of the above! Interestingly, they wouldn't have done much better had they designed it with this in mind.

But the Windows music guys are out there as you have found with Foobar. Have you looked around over at computeraudiophile.com lately for the latest Windows user input. I have no idea how Foobar and Pure Music compare, but all the good player software sounds different on the Mini, so it is possible that there is a player that you would prefer over Foobar, or that there are recent optimization discoveries.

Feet an Weight: We have found that computer output is clearly not all 1's and 0's, that analog information/noise comes across the wires too. And the 1 and 0 information can be truncated inside the computer in various ways if not given the correct processing of clean, uncompressed files. And vibration effects sensitive electronics making it just as likely to have an effect on a computer as another piece of audio gear.

I have tried several different vibration damping feet under the Mini and can definitely hear the difference. This proves to me that vibration is solvable with the Mini, and that vibration control is a way to refine the sound to tastes. Weight on top made a difference too, I suppose by drawing off heat and vibration, but also by how it causes the feet to function. At any rate, the weight makes the sound more solid and focused in my setting.

RAM: I can't answer your question on RAM except to say that even with an optimized computer, the system burns a lot of RAM, and the more free RAM there is the better the music. One would think that 500MB would be plenty of allocated RAM being nearly a CD in 44.1K/16 bit data. Do you have a program that can log how much virtual memory is used while playing music, virtual memory being the computer using hard disk for memory needs? This is what we want to avoid. Eric at dBaudiolbs (Tranquility) has done loads of double blind testing with optimized Mac Minis, and he says 4GB RAM is the least we want on a Mini and that you can hear subtle changes with 8GB. I am assuming that greater RAM takes care of all processing that is going on more efficiently, minimizing Hard Drive activity.

64 bit seems logical if your computer utilizes it. Eric Hider recommended it as a Mini optimization. He does the blind thing, and everything he has told me that I have tested I could hear too. And since it is easy to turn on in the Mini, I just did it without testing. If you can turn it on during startup, why not test it yourself and see if it helps.


EQ Conceptually, I think quality digital EQ, cleanly implemented in the software player is entirely different than having it mid signal once in the analog realm. The work is done before the analog conversion as an integral part of the digital file just like when mastering. But it can be done in the analog realm very well, it just costs loads to do it. I get the purist aversion, but like usual, the test is in how the music effects the listener! I listen hard, and for my setting, surgical EQ has assisted in a more easily achieved world class sound. Not to have used it for conceptual reasons would have been foolish. I suspect this could be the case for many computer audio heads, even some with perfect rooms, allowing fine tuning of gear synergy and tastes.

External Drive: I don't know how memory play in Foobar is configured. Unless it can pull in a whole playlist or album at once, you will be accessing the tunes from the hard drive, and this activity will be interactive with the system and player software action increasing hard drive work. Also remember that the fuller the drive is, the more it has to work to hunt the files and relay them to the player/RAM. So a drive that is very simple due to bare essential data makes sense toward our optimized goal. The really serious guys use Solid State drives for the system and software and external drives for music files.

Moving the music files to an external drive for me was an audible improvement. But i also am able to use the firewire buss, so it is not interactive with the USB buss, which has good theoretical internal noise consequences. I think a lot of these things get pretty subtle though if your computer is powerful and quiet.

If nothing else, you need a good drive to back up all you files, so why not configure Foobar to use the backup drive as the library and listen. Might be good to wait until you have your new gear all broken in though as it is likely to be very revealing and a better ultimate indicator.

NOS DACs are another area I have a limited story on. They have been popular from the start and interestingly, the favored NOS chips are ancient technology (in digital time) and I think there may just be a few of them. But they have a sound that a lot of people love to work with sort of like tubes....may be that there are musical harmonics that they bring out? Then of course, it is how it is implemented that makes or breaks a DAC, the chip being only one part in the stream. So I can't say I am a NOS DAC advocate, but I love my Tranquility DAC.

However, this got me thinking about the Apple Audio Out setting. I had always set it to 44.1/16 to stay with original file and DAC integration, and liked this best. I have had several upgrades in Pure since then and wondered if anything had changed in terms of Pure controlling the Apple Audio out settings.

Well I think it may have. PureMusic has a thing called a PAD that you can install to enable running other computer sound through Pure. Then you can use it for cool little things besides EQ, like multichannel with 4 stereo busses with crossovers, volume, delay to tune a sub or a surround system. I had installed this some time ago to play Apple DVD movies on the Mac through PureMusic, and forgot about it.

Today I looked at the Apple Audio Output, and Pure is causing the audio out to default to the installed PAD which is set at 32 bit! So I unknowingly have been using 32 bit out, probably for the last few updates of PureMusic and Mac OS!

I just tested it repeatedly, removing the plugin and defaulting back to native 16 bit mode for the DAC, and I was surprised to think I might prefer the 32 bit out, converted presumably by the OS software. But before I did not like it! I guess Mac OS has improved the internal conversion to something I might like. Guess I should check out the latest iTunes!

I still prefer to leave the internal Pure Music settings on 44.1/16 bit, but I think I like this last 32 bit touch the OS is doing via the Pure Music PAD. This requires further investigation.

I guess the bottom line is that it doesn't necessarily matter if you can figure out what is going on, or what the conventions are, it is worth exploring options the most for tuning to the most pleasurable playback.

Fireblade, Sounds to me like you are right on track and you will very likely love your sound with the upgraded DAC, and the laptop you have. Decware gear is revealing to be sure, but it is also very musical. And you can tune it with wire and tubes too! It will allow you to hear your experimentation at a refined level, AND, it will make the gear you use sound good!

So after it is all broken in, when you find ways to further explore Foobar, you laptop, tubes, cables or whatever, like you say, the ride is as important as the destination. Which BTW for me is likely always out there! Learn/perceive more and then there is more to explore. The wonders of creativity!

If you can upgrade your RAM easily, 4 GB should cover you if you ever feel deficient, and if my experience is translatable to yours. I feel fine with 4 GB....but I haven't tried 8 yet!

Thanks, will.  I just ordered the chip to increase my RAM to 4 Gb, which is the maximum allowed for a 32 bit Win 7 configuration.  It turns out you have to re-install a 64 bit Win 7 OS version if you want more RAM than that (up to 16 Gbs), so I'm sticking to the 32 bits version  for now, as I cannot warranty the compatibilities in all the stuff I have put together so far.  I don't want to risk starting over again, with non-clear advantages stemming from the 64 bit configuration, at least from what I've been able to read.

Thanks for that interesting thread, Brett.  I went over the whole story there, and I could tell how those ideas were evolving in the direction of where we are today.  It's amazing how many things change in a short time span in this field.  What I read from it, corroborates what I've researched in the past 3 months or so.

I'm very encouraged to see some real tangible progress being achieved finally, and the curiosity and anticipation to listen to all this sound structure in practice, is killing me!  One thing I can say is I've never heard my existing SS setup sound as good as it is today.  This is a testament to the huge leverage the computer sourcing concept brings to the playing table, along with the USB/DAC.

It takes a while to get the juices flowing, the inertia of overcoming the initial threshold of the learning curve, but once you're on the go, things just start clicking in place and are either processed, digested and adapted, or simply discarded, with relative ease.  In the beginning, the task was seemingly unsurmountable, at least for me, with all the jargon and technical wrap making me dizzy.  That doesn't mean I feel comfortable or satisfied, but mainly encouraged to continue this quest and get to the bottom of it, at least up to my own level of complacency.

Have a great listening, guys ...   good job!











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Proprietary hard drive USB cable? Odd.

I have to reset the handshake from within Pure Music on very rare occasion, but it is an easy menu command. Other than that, I have had flawless interaction between the Mac Mini and Tranquility. This is a NOS (no async) DAC, and there are notable difference in cable sounds in this setup, enough to make it worth exploring good cables, both USB and Power. The thing is that the USB cables carry digital data, but they have analog attributes too, so noise management is as important as with any cable.

My other front end (Music FidelityV-Link/ZDAC/Zstage) works fine connecting with sources too when it is working correctly (my ZDAC had some degenerating problem internally...it works great for a long time, then all the sudden, just won't connect to any source. A new board and all is fine). But even with the async, it too is effected by cables. For it I prefer the Wireworld Starlight USB and for the Tranquility, I prefer the DbAudioLabs Essential USB.

I have no knowledge of the workings of the Oppo, so can't comment on it and how it interacts with the hard drive. I did hear improvements from moving music files off my Mini internal hard drive, and onto to an external firewire drive though, something you are already doing.

So, using an external hard drive connected directly to a source unit such as my Oppo can be detrimental to sound quality in the from of jitter maybe? I'm not understanding the impact of using the root USB hub of the Oppo and the effect it may have on SQ. You seem to have some serious knowledge about this, way beyond me

I have my Oppo wired (not wireless) to my home network and have a D-Link storage array of 4ea 1.5 TB hard drives. The actual process of accessing my music files (FLAC ripped through EAC and DBPoweramp) is often painfully slow. Thus my brilliant (or not so brilliant) idea of procuring a 3 TB "My Touch or book" drive just for direct connecting my library to the Oppo. First mistake was that I needed to reformat to 2TB to get a MBR that the Oppo can see! Second mistake was that this external hard drive has a different style of connection at the hard drive, perhaps due to it's 3.0 USB specification. I screwed up bad on that purchase...

Lately I've been reading about how even FLAC files are somewhat compromised compared to a WAV file. The whole idea started out as "getting a bit perfect file compressed in a FLAC wrapper". Now I want to revisit and compare files on my system, or NOT!

Then I read about all types of audiophile software that one should use to play files through the computer. It all gets a little unnerving.

I simply have a hard drive connected to the back of the Oppo. That's it. Fast access, and a simple Oppo interface. The BDP95 will get modded pretty soon, getting some finer clocks, some power supply work, and a new output stage.

Can one rebuild a FLAC file back into a WAV file without actually damaging the file?

I hope I'm still on topic.

MichaelHiFi:  

I'm glad will has replied before I could, as he's even more familiar with this topic than myself.  The way I understand this, is exactly as he explained.  

Let me stress that the issue is only the overburdening of the USB root at the host (computer), when having to satisfy high-level competing demands at the same time.  This creates a situation where neither party can be fully satisfied.

The described event can affect the SQ significantly, when one of the USB-Root demanding parties is, in effect, a USB/DAC like the MS II+, which for example requires 80% of the total possible current allocation from any USB 2.0 computer port.  This is 60% higher current demands than my current MS II (simpler version).

Although current may not be directly linked to the mentioned overloading problem, it correlates with the level of translation and internal conversion demands and processes generated at USB Root levels from the MS II+.  

For the described scenario, some people even recommend using a self-powered USB hub to assist the USB-Root at the host computer by providing load relief from the HS to FS translations, for example.

If something I've learned so far, is the simpler and more redundant the components are, the better sound, ceterius paribus.  So, don't worry with the Oppo setup (BTW, great reviews all over), as this is not the problem I was refering to in my previous message.  

Salute!





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