Amarra for iTunes at RMAF...

I left the BIOS argument alone, some things in audio are so far flung I just opt to stay away, but I would like to report that I have decided to purchase the Amarra software. After careful listening sessions I am convinced (well 95% convinced and that's good enough for govt work) that it does in fact offer tangible results as it relates to creating a more-real musical presentation.

Almarg, I suggest you look up Cic's Music Player and www.audioasylum.com for the discussions there. CMP, amongst other things, is a shell that automatically turns off a lot of unnecessary services in XP. It then works with cPlay to play music files. I think most people that have researched leading edge computer audio have come across it, and it has a significant following.

Yes the claims were that BIOS changes affect audio performance. And further, some claim that BIOS changes have a burn in period. Being open-minded you might be able to follow their drift. I doubt you have a monopoly in relevant tecnical expertise amongst the CMP community, so you may learn something from the interaction.

Unlike many other theories in digital audio, the CMP theory is to use an under clocked machine with as many services turned off as possible (amongst other things). Therefore turning things off in BIOS aids that. This isn't my claim, so I am not the best one to defend it against your scepticism. But the work done by many on testing configuration changes on CMP performance seems to have at least some validity given the intelligent following it has. Therefore I remain open-minded rather than dismissive of burn in of a BIOS change. No matter what we think we know about something, it is only a model in our heads, and it is an abstraction of reality - not a substitute for trying it to see.

Personally, I built a CMP/cPlay spec PC and it sounded good, but the current Mac configuration I have sounds better to me. I never played with variations of CMP, but with the Mac I got to the opposite conclusion, which is that a powerful Mac with lots of RAM sounded better than a minimally powered one. I suspect the CMP guys may just prefer less power/ram etc in order to reduce power supply size (and therefore noise) and to reduce heat (and therefore mechanical and electrical noise from cooling), but you would be better to ask them that one.

The BIOS burn in comments I was referring to have been made by guys making CMP PCs, and their claim is that to assess a BIOS change you need to make the change and then let it burn in.

What does CMP stand for? Cellular multi-processing?

When you say "assess a BIOS change," do you (they) mean verifying that the revised BIOS firmware functions reliably, as components age, temperature changes, etc.? Which makes perfect sense.

Or do you (they) mean that the effects of the BIOS update on the sound quality of audio being processed by that pc will change during that burn-in period? Which I can tell you, as an experienced digital and analog circuit designer, and also as an audiophile who considers himself to be open-minded, makes no sense whatsoever. And would probably represent failure of those people to recognize and control extraneous variables, which are innumerable when it comes to computers. For starters, just consider all of the operating system files which are constantly changing, disks that are constantly fragmenting, asynchronous background processes whose timing relative to one another is constantly changing in both hardware and software, etc., etc.

And if they meant the latter, did they verify their observations by re-flashing to the earlier BIOS, letting it burn in, then re-flashing to the later BIOS, burning in again, and seeing that their findings were consistent across multiple trials?

Regards,
-- Al

Sidssp, sometimes it is just a matter of selecting them in iTunes and telling it to convert them to Apple Lossless and you are done. I had the same problem, IIRC, with Apple Lossless files in another context, and that cured it.

I don't buy the bios burn in at all. Doesn't mean it's not true, just means I don't believe it. I know there is a lot of non-sense non-science as it relates to audio and I think the BIOS "burn in" lends itself to that camp :)

Just saw that Amarra 1.1 is out. The readme says it supports Apple Lossless but not the ones generated from Max. Well, I am bummed since most of my hi-res tracks are just that. I was going to place an order as soon as Apple Lossless support is in but now I guess I am going to wait some more.

The BIOS burn in comments I was referring to have been made by guys making CMP PCs, and their claim is that to assess a BIOS change you need to make the change and then let it burn in. This is after the hardware burn in you refer to.

Well, again I agree with your comments. I too first thought it sounded like maybe some EQ tricks were going on. I am not fully convinced yet, but I just ordered (this morning) 4GB of mem for my mac mini Core2Duo and I will be doing further tests after the mem arrives. I am beginning to think it may be more than just an EQ change taking place, further listening sessions are required.

I worked at one time for the pc board manufacturer American Megatrends on bios systems, the burn they are speaking of is a hardware burn in to make sure that there are no hardware failures within a certain period of say 24 or 48 hours of intense tests being performed on the board.

You never know. Changes to a PC's BIOS are claimed to have a burn in time. I have better things to test than that one. But when I first tried Amarra, I heard it as different, but was not convinced it was better. It seems more like an EQ difference at first. The more I tweaked the whole Mac thing, the more it became clear to me that it was indeed better at capturing the full harmonics of an instrument or voice - and without it the harmonics were slightly grayed-out and flattened. I think this was due to me improving the performance of the Mac, but hey, there may have been some burn in, maybe...

I joked about that too...LOL!!!

Did anyone allow the Amarra software time to burn-in?

Thanks, Sidssp for your remarks. The phrasing that I refer to is not chestiness, it is phrasing much like a great trumpet player is able to do; sort of like Miles Davis. Their were many trumpeters with more power but I know of non that could phrase as he did. I do appreciate your' comments, I had a Rex so I am familiar with what a Bat pre will inject into the audible picture. I tend to think it may be a bit cleaner without Amarra, but I am still evaluating :)

Thanks again.

Don,

I have download and installed the Amarra Mini demo on my Mac Mini. It goes into a Benchmark DAC-1 USB. I have tried to drive the power amp directly from DAC-1 and even listen to a HD-650 headphone plugged into the DAC-1 in order to eliminate any inference from the preamp, speaker, and room. Here is what I find:

Playback of 24/96 tracks is virtually identical to iTunes. Amarra might be a little bit cleaner at the high but the difference is so small that it could be purely psychological. It definitely will not pass my blind test. So I consider them to be identical in sound quality.

Playback of 16/44 tracks is a different story. Amarra sounds decisively cleaner. In the High Life track of Jazz at the Pawnshop, cymbals and tambourines sound more delicate, drums are tighter with more "skins", instruments are in general better focused and have more presence.

In terms of female vocal, iTunes does sounds a little bloated in the mid bass and gives singers a little bit more chest and throat sound. That might be the phrasing you referred to in your post. I can hear that difference very clearly in the Danny Boy track sang by Jacintha.

Which is better is hard to say. I think it depends on what you like and your system. In my system, that little bloated mid bass often being exaggerated a bit by the BAT preamp. So I much prefer the Amarra presentation.

I don't know about better, but different maybe. Try Media Monkey. Also just in case you were unaware, the fastest way I have found to access my music in iTunes is the icon to the left on the top bar towards the right. You will see 3 iconic buttons which allow you to choose between coverflow, grid or list. I use the list and then I go into 'view' (on a windows box) and choose show browser. This way I can select via genre, artist or album. Typically I select via artist and it is so much faster as it only lists the artist once (unless they feature another artist then you will see it again), next to the right of it you can filter even further by selecting that artists' album. Hope it helps.

I have a question about the best software for ripping and organizing music files on Win XP.

I rip CD's via a Sony DVD payer, into Apple lossless, into iTunes with library storage in a NAS Netgear storage unit. I access these music files by SONOS (modded by Rick Cullen) into my Northstar 192 DAC.

My question is...I'm not that excited with iTunes software in sorting and managing the files. Does anyone have suggestions about a better, more effective software to replace iTunes on Win.

Thanks

Antipodes_audio wrote:
"The sound of a Mac without Amarra sounded like you had swapped out the Coax cable and inserted an AT&T cable - cleaner, faster, better dynamics and PRAT, but with the downside of a touch of glare. Amarra more or less removes that glare, depending on how you get the bits out of the Mac."

I agree with this almost 100% except I am not sure I am willing to agree with the "glare" portion. I am still new to Amarra, but what I hear so far is a bit of a fuller sound at the expense of a seeming loss in very minute phrasing. I am really big into capturing the phrasing of singers, especially females correctly such as Eva Cassidy (Song Birr/ Somewhere Over the rainbow) and Jane Monheit (Lovers, Dreamer & Me/ Slow Like Honey).

On the Jane Monheit piece mentioned above compare if you will the track (slow like honey) at 0:50 seconds with Amarra and without and let me know if anyone else hears a slight loss in information through the very subtle phrasing when Amarra is used. This may seem like I am being overly analytical, but come-on this is highend and I am talking about spending a grand. If it doesn't do EVERYTHING better than the native Core Audio Engine, I may have to reconsider.

Thanks,

Don

Rrsclyde,

I convert 44.1k/16 bit files to 44.1k/24 bit, then that output is sent to my upsampler which upsamples it again to DSD. Aside from the DSD upsampling, the 44.1k/24 bit seems to make the high frequencies have more air and sound generally cleaner. Just dont ask me why?

All: I've been playing around with the Sample Manager demo version this weekend and think I like the files I've upsampled. I first converted to 24 bit, then upsampled that file to 96k (I'm limited to 96k as I use the MW Transporter; Transporters won't play 192k files). My question is whether anyone has experimented with the various dither options and if so what their reactions are?

Thanks in advance,

Randy

Still very relevant though Audiofun. The interesting thing I found, apart from the Mac sounding better, was how they also sounded different. The best sound I could get out of a PC sounded a little hazy and soft, which I relate to the sound of a coaxial SPDIF cable. The sound of a Mac without Amarra sounded like you had swapped out the Coax cable and inserted an AT&T cable - cleaner, faster, better dynamics and PRAT, but with the downside of a touch of glare. Amarra more or less removes that glare, depending on how you get the bits out of the Mac.

Thanks Dan, I will keep an eye out for that new Weiss INT202. As you say, the Vesta is hard to justify. Paying similar money you can get Weiss to throw in a DAC, it would seem.

I tried a Lynx card briefly (it was only on loan) and slightly preferred the Empirical Off-ramp 3 with Superclock, so bought the Off-ramp. But I may have been hasty there so may buy myself a Lynx card and give it some more time. Particularly as I run 3 way active speakers and may want to do the crossovers in software and use six of those output channels on the AES16.

Opps, my comment was intended for the response dated 10/19/2009 of Antipodes_audio. i failed to take note that this thread was multiple pages. My bad.

As a Windows software engineer for some 15 years now (independent consultant) I agree with Antipodes_audio. Windows has it's place, but OSX is a unix platform...read 40+ years of ongoing development. Unix in any flavor is inherently more stable and manages memory FAR FAR BETTER (and I would know) than Windows. I like Windows (heck, I make a living with it) but would I ever let it serve up my music ? AH! noway. It simply does not (fact not opinion) manage memory or the processor as well as OSX and every developer knows this. I write for both platforms .NET for Win and Objective C for iPhone apps/OSX. Bits are not just bits when you are dealing with irq's, threading stacks time-slices and the such. Again, I make a living with Windows dev, but I will tell you right now, if it came to a mission critical system...Ah Chuck I'll take the Unix based system for $200.00. I am always amazed when folks attempt to make Windows look as stable or handle memory or the processor (multi-cores) as well as OSX.

Not trying to start anything just saying that as an informed developer on how the internals of both work..., well I think you get it.

Oh, and Mark, you should be sure to visit the forums at Computer Audiophile, if you haven't already.

There are also a number of budget pro audio devices you can use as Firewire to SPDIF converters, such as the Focusrite Saffire and the TC Electronic Konnekt 8, both of which can be had for around $300. The new Weiss converter, the INT202, is expected to cost >$1000, which still makes it a lot less than their Vesta, which is a product whose price makes no sense to me at all.

If you have a computer that can accommodate a PCI card, the Lynx is supposed to be a great way to go, as Chadeffect says. You go straight from computer to DAC via AES/EBU, without an intermediate device. I'm giving that some serious thought myself, even though it will require me to get a desktop Mac I really don't need want.

Hi Antipodes_audio,

I think you have to be careful here. Remember that DCS dont have firewire as I believe you are thinking of it. The firewire on DCS devices is a DSD connection, not a computer connection. Therefor you still need an interface for your computer ( Although try your computers digital output. It may surprise you). The DCS ring DAC will make the best of it. If you cannot stand the sound of the computers built in digital output, or it doesnt have one, then a soundcard of some sort is needed.

You must remember that the Weiss is both an interface and a DAC. So if you went for a DAC2, that would be all you need. So in that light not a bad price, plus Amarra of course.

There is a version of the Weiss AFI 1 (digital output only), but aimed at a AES/EBU stereo output, as opposed to 8 AES/EBU outs or more, which will be much cheaper. I guess around $500. I am sure it will be just the ticket. Not sure when it is out though and you still need a DAC and cables.

If you want to go for Pro/semi Pro soundcards, life gets a little complicated. There are many, and all have specs that may be useless to you, like mic preamps, multiple ins and outs and so on. Also a lot of the new Rack mounted equipment uses space saving TRS balanced sockets (Large stereo headphone jack plug used as balanced mono), or D connectors with multiple outputs.

You are probably capable of making your own cables(!) so in that case RME are good. There is a PCIe card too, the HDSPeAES, but it is 16in/16out 192k with word clock in/out. Good though. I dont know of a card with just a single AES/EBU. The Lynx 2 is good too.

It is very hard to recommend you something as I dont know your set up, or exactly what you need, ie Volume control etc, but I suspect Weiss is the best simple option. Otherwise you get into a soundcard plus a DAC etc.

I am not a fan of M-audio. I have had some problems with them, but one of my friends has the cheap firewire soundcard and it is ok at less than $100. Not Highend though.

Hi Dan (Drubin). I have continued to read your posts, even though I stopped contributing here a long time ago. I guess I am back, particularly to discuss computer audio, which interests me a lot these days - and active open baffle speakers.

Chadeffect, I had a quick look at devices that would convert Firewire to AES/EBU and found the Weiss too pricey to consider. At the other end of the spectrum I can see affordable units like M-Audio. Is there a middle ground worth considering? But maybe I should keep my eye out for a DCS DAC. My assumption is that a Delius with Firewire. Is there anything I should look out when for buying one on Audiogon?

Chadeffect,

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying audio manufactures and vendors are all dishonest. I know it is a niche market and I have no problem paying $13,000 for a pair of Vandy 5 and $8,000 for a BAT preamp, both are in my system. Because I know there are R&D involved and they can't sell thousands and thousands of units to keep the price down. As you said, they need to make a living. But I do have problem with someone repackaging and rebranding common items and reselling them as audiophile specials for 5, 10 times the normal price.

Antipodes_audio,

good luck to you. One of my best friends lives not too far from you. A beautiful country.

I had a quick look at your cables. I would normally be up for trying a set out, but I am very happy with my cabling at the moment.

I use the Analysis Plus Golden Oval which I think is a very fine cable, especially as an IC. Everywhere else I use the difficult, but great sounding Virtual dynamics cables. They have an ultra low noise floor and the finest bass and dynamic freedom of any cable I have tried. I was toying with the idea of moving to Stealth cabling, but when I priced it up I lost the will...

I guess we are drifting off topic. Apologies. I think I can save the thread though. Amarra works great with itunes on none compressed files via firewire. You gain fine detail, air, and a sense of naturalness. Phew!

Redkiwi! That you might be one and the same crossed my mind.

There are some cynical repackaging jobs that go on, for sure, especially with cabling. Zero offence taken.

For me, I was a long time member here under the name Redkiwi, till I got to the point where my own cables were better to my ears than my favourite brand Jena Labs. So at that point I more or less stopped posting here and began producing my cables in the weekends. At that stage I bought everything in, but the cables were unique in terms of using what I call our antipodal geometry - very simple but effective. Then I researched every part of the cable and developed my own view as to what sounded best. So we now make our own wire, make the insulation and make the sleeving. The only thing we don't make from raw materials is the connector - though that will be next.

It has been maybe an obsession, but definitely based on my enthusiasm for audio and my love of music. Making it into a business was mainly a way of funding the obsession, not the other way around. As you say, I think a great many audio firms start out like this.

I didnt mean to turn this thread into a bashing of audiophile vendors or manufactures. Everyone is trying to make a living. It is a niche industry.

I guess we all here on the 'gon love this hobby, one would hope that people within it would show some respect for that. I am sure most manufactures and vendors are involved for the same reason as us. A love for music and music playback.

In my experience most people within this hobby are honest and make worth while products and are doing the best they can. The pricing policies I guess reflect the small market.

I will have to try getting BlueTack at OfficeDepot. I have found too many copies to be worthless.

Your other example is part of capitalism. If you make something and no one buys it, you go out of business.

Chadeffect,

Everything marketed as an audiophile item is going to cost more. Remember the blue tack? It sells for $2 at OfficeDepot but 5 to 7 times more at an audio store. I have also seen a pair of cart mounting screws selling for $200 and they are not made of gold.

It is pricing like this gives our hobby a bad name.

Antipodes audio, Drubin,

my point exactly...

Ps Antipodes by BS I was referring to some audiophile cable manufactures in general. Not you necessarily of course (unless you have been eying up snakes in your spare time!). I did not know you made cables. I also am aware that some metals have shot up, which must mean the bill is passed on.

I have come across some cables that have only been renamed and covered in a thick pretty outer sleeve and sold for unfair sums.

I thought that with Asynchronous USB implementations, such as from Wavelength, Ayre and dCS, the computer is no longer the master clock. Likewise for some Firewire implementations.

Hmm, have you seen the price of my cables?? We have really suffered at the hands of the gold price, and our prices for our top end cables, which have a lot of gold in them has rocketed up alarmingly.

Since the computer is the master clock then the cable isn't transferring data in block mode, as it does in most other applications, and so the delicate clock timing has to be transmitted by the Firewire cable. So it suffers exactly the same issues as good versus bad SPDIF cables, for example. So the 'quality' of the cable matters, but more or less so depending on what it is feeding.

The benefits of Firewire and USB over SPDIF or AES/EBU are that the signal does not have to be locked onto so tightly, and Firewire is usually going to get a lower jitter signal out of the computer than USB.

Antipodes_audio,

The firewire connection is worrying too. The BS is just starting there too. I am not sure if firewire 800 suffers the same issues as 400, regarding the total length of cable ( I think the longest 400 is 5m in length).

I was surprised at how Amarra worked so well over firewire, but does the quality of the cable itself cause problems? I hope we are not going to get ripped off again by snake oil cable manufacturers for firewire & USB audio cables. I have seen a few expensive ones already.

DCS use firewire as a DSD connection, and the cable quality proved to be quite important there. I dont know if this is still the case with a normal firewire connection from a computer. But if you believe Crystal cable and Siltech, they are willing to take $1000 for a firewire cable. How do they do it? What on earth have they done? Extra shielding? Solidcore silver and teflon? Let the BS begin...

Interesting point about optical. Optical has a bad rap based partly on early poor implementations and partly on ignorance. The main issue is reflections and so there are many small issues to deal with when constructing a good optical cable.

Just as people come to something new like computer audio and assume one implementation will be as good as another, the same applies to something like an optical cable and ignorance leads them to believe they will all sound the same, so they only try a cheapie. The terminations and connections really have to be done with high precision to avoid reflections, and the outer layer of the cable must not reflect light, and you should try to avoid the cable going through tight turns. But done right they are, as you say, superior to using wire. Cleaner and faster.

You have got me thinking about Firewire now.

Hi Antipodes_audio,
there seem to be many deals in place regarding online libraries. The frightening part of it is the people who created the music see very little in return. It really is bad, but that is another topic.

For my work I use many different types of music production software. They are not much use for a library playback system, as they are mainly geared towards recording/mixing and manipulating audio.

Professionally I use a wide range of software and hardware, but the software of choice for me is Steinberg's Nuendo 4 which is 64 bit on PC. Although I also use Cubase (a baby brother of Nuendo) on PC, Protools on Mac, Wavelab on PC, Digital performer on Mac, and the various plugins associated with them too.

The hardware I use differs depending on the software in use, but I have RME fireface 800, which is a firewire 800, 24 bit 192k preamp/ converter, Apogee Rosetta converters, Digidesign HD 192k, MOTU 896mk3 firewire which is also 192k.

I have found the DCS Scarlatti converters the finest hifi playback I have heard. Every time I am taken with their resolution and lack of character.

You say you have been eying up DCS. If you can get one and try it. But I must say that for sometime I passed by DCS, until I had one at home. I was shocked at how much better they were, and have had them ever since. I am sure there are others coming out now which are capable and hopefully cheaper, but DCS set the bar IMHO no matter which input.

I am also a firm believer in the optical input ( I am not mad). Everyone trashed it, but when I had the old Ref ML Transport/DAC, the dealer at the time told me to try it. I had always used AES/EBU with an expensive cable. I popped in a glass cable and was shocked. It was a 10th of the price and sounded as good if not better, especially for midband speed. Ok so it is limited to 24/96, but if you find yourself around that resolution, give it a go. Not dissimilar to Amarra's effect over firewire. Like a lightness or freedom to the sound.

I have upsampled to DSD from glass on the DCS upsampler for 16/44.1k and 48k. It works well and means the source can be a long way from your hifi without any problems.

Tbg, I loved how Foobar was so customisable so that you could pretty much make it work however you wanted. It is certainly not friendly till you familiarise yourself with the myriad of options to customise, and that takes time. I have never had a problem with stability, so that is a new one.

As I have said above, I have a 24/96 DAC too and find that converting the files to 24/96 AIFF, so that my DAC doesn't do anything more than straight D to A conversion, is a good thing. DAC chips are not perfectly accurate in their conversion and they get less accurate, the more work they have to do, so while there can be a benefit in upsampled files, there is a dis-benefit of asking your DAC chip, or DAC, to do it at the same time. This is one of the reasons , for example, why say DCS do the upsampling in a separate box.

Antipodes, I have always used Foobar thus far and don't at all share your satisfaction with it. It has no user friendliness and fails often needing a new control file. This happens so often that I have the file on a stick. Were Amarra and its use of Itunes not so superior, I would not be giving up on a Windows system.

I find synchronous USB just awful and have little experience with asynchronous USB. I have not tried Firewire, but everyone that I know says it is the best way to go, although its transmitter and receiver are much more expensive and capable than USB.

I have been focused on just putting cds on a hard drive as my existing dac is capable only up to 24/96. But HiDef is in my future.

Absolutely agree re online HD libraries. The problem is there are so many firms that need to change their models for this to happen. It ought to be here now given the capabilities of the technologies. But I know from first hand experience those that have dominated the existing value chains that are converging are more frightened than excited by the possibilities.

In one of your earlier posts, and I may have misinterpreted it, you made a reference to pro audio software interfaces. I am aware of a lot of the hardware. For example, I am aware of the Lynx card, but not so much aware of the software you might put on the computer to take full advantage of it. For example, digital crossover software to make use of the computing power and all those output channels - I am a real convert to active speakers.

I usually rip music to FLAC, as my preferred storage standard. I then convert to AIFF 24/96, and play those, keeping two copies of the FLACs as a backup. This is probably a sign that I still haven't converted my thinking over to the Mac world. I inherently don't like proprietary models when an open model of equivalent quality is available, but it is not entirely rational - ALAC files can be readily turned into an open format without loss at any time.

I keep looking at the DCS stuff but have never taken the plunge. Right now the top USB stuff sounds better to me than the ethernet stuff, but I can't help feeling ethernet will become the dominant transmission standard for anything. It is a steamroller with a lot of momentum and has all the attributes one would want. The reason why USB is dominating is that the R&D to get it to perform is so much less and audio firms are small. In the end, the standard that wins is the one that attracts the R&D, not the 'better' technology, so maybe the start USB is getting will be unassailable in the audio world. Both Firewire and ethernet are harder for small audio firms to develop for.

I was originally very resistant to Amarra. I didn't like spending that much on software, there was little info on how it worked and getting support seemed to be a bit of a lottery. But with all the tweaks I now accept as being part of the recipe for great computer audio today, Amarra does something that none of the others quite do, and so I now consider it to be essential - for how long, though, is the big question - as you say.

Hi Antipodes_audio,

for the time being as long as your files in your library are universal, ie WAV or AIFF etc. I personally feel it is just a waiting game. It is all fine and better than it was. It will get better and probably cheaper too.

I use itunes on a mac and have got used to itunes. I have Amarra, but I am not using firewire interface for my hifi. I just tried a few out to see what did what. I have a DCS set up and DCS are working on the Amarra/itunes input situation. They have gone with USB input, but the Asynchronous flavor.

I suspect your own HD library will be bypassed by the time all this comes of age. Sites like Spotify will make all this obsolete, as you will rent your library and have access to insane amounts of music, including really rare albums at very high quality sample rates.

Regarding Pro audio interfaces, do you mean software or hardware?

Sorry Chadeffect, we must have posted at the same time and then I got distracted. I agree that it is hard to see the current state of the art of computer audio being at all mature, and that is one of my concerns about Amarra. Right now it is worth the price, for what it does, but who knows whether something might hit the market for under $100 or even free that can do most of what it does. The good news is that being immature computer audio will only get better.

I agree big-time with one of your other points too that close to the best with an interface that fits your needs is better than accepting a poor interface. One of the things most people that use computer audio talk about is how they get more out of a large collection when they have a computer audio interface then when they have to find, handle, catalog etc physical CDs.

The interface I prefer is Foobar, and I don't like iTunes at all. And interfaces like J River make me really angry, especially since its sound is so good. But I am getting so much better sound with iTunes/Amarra that I am putting up with it for now.

My feeling is that ethernet will dominate in time, and that its implementation will get to a point where the precise setup or flavour of the computer will become unimportant. This will mean DACs will be more like the Sonos and Squeezebox but with much better interfaces, or perhaps the player interface could still reside on the computer because of its interface superiority, and it will signal the DAC what to play. For now the ethernet interfaces aren't that flash given their theoretical advantage. Perhaps the PS DAC with ethernet bridge will be the first of the new breed.

Can I ask what pro audio music interfaces are worth having a look at?

Incredible.

You're very special indeed. I thought as much. Probably just a child too.

You're right on one point, all of your commentary as it pertained to me, was irelevant BS... or you would have substantiated it with facts as anyone would. I dispatched each one of your statements in turn.

you had your opportunity to stand up for yourself and you chose to ignore it. it should be quite clear now you are the one full of BS and not worth another moment of my time.

Good luck.. and IMO, BTW... I'd not bandy about that English vs. American business around here very much, or keep using it as a crutch. Relations, good manners, and all that. Do try to show a better face down the road. Right! Carry on mate.

Oh my goodness. There is just too much irrelevant BS there to respond to mate. Let's get back to topic.

In my experience I have gotten better sound from MACs than PCs, despite being prejudiced against MACs. Particularly when Amarra is brought into the equation - provided you use an appropriate device for getting the bits off the computer. And I have found the MAC is better to be fairly powerful and have 8GB of RAM. All of this is IMHO of course.

Now its your turn. This time, instead of wondering about my biases and motives, and my insistence on spelling using English rather than an American version of it, how about you let us know what you think sounds best.

ntipodes_audio
Blindjim, you have accused me of a few things, and with no justification.

Me>> Accused? Do tell.
Please do tell me exactly what I have acused you of and where I made such an accusation in my posts here? You’ll have my most profound and sincere apology for it/them. Truly. I’ve looked over it/them a few times and only see where I asked a question, and indicated a feeling you might be biased towards Macs as my worst comment…. So? I’m biased towards tubes. Life moves on. No harm no foul. Sheesh..

Nothing else did I see which could possibly have been intended or considered to be untoward.

You>> What is it you have to hide?

Me>> Chief, I’m an open book. Ask anything of me and you’ll get the truth as I know it to be.

On my personal page I list where I live. That I’m a private member… not a dealer. Did you?

Nope. You didn’t.

I list my system and keep it updated. I get involved. I learn, listen, and share what experiences I have had, and have done this for some time now. I participate regularly to those ends.

When one reads between the lines they then, become the author. As you have done here.

If there is indeed a rant herein, it is your own… and quite an invalid and persistent one. In fact you make me out as accusatory, and then escalate your errant perspective of my commentary to be a personal attack!

You do understand the meaning of the words you choose don’t you? That’s kind of important.

Take a few deep breaths Anti… and only put those words back into my mouth which I’ve spit out…. Not your ill conceived inferences of my statements. Just copy and paste them below if you wish. That way it’s undeniable.

Need another ex of how you try to bend my words?

You>> This is a forum Blindjim - a place where people state their opinions without the need to state their scientific evidence, or have to repeatedly say IMO ad nauseum. Your attack of me for stating my opinion says a lot about you buddy.

Me>> My attack. Of you. That’s rich. The English language obviously poses some challenges for you, huh buddy?. You might want to get used to that IMO too… it’s very prevalent around here, among other web shorthand phrases.. SOTA, FWIW, RMV, RWV, lol, etc.

You>> Your accusations of bias and some percuniary motive show you up for what you are. No I don't sell Macs. Do you accuse everyone that has an opinion that is different to yours of being a vendor of what they like?.


Me>> OK. At the risk of further slander and as my curiosity now has the better of me, just what am I, given it sure seems as you do know?

Asking a question is not an accusation.

Good we know, or better still I know you are not a dealer of anything other than cables. Super.

In this thread I’ve noticed your stance for computer based audio has an emphatic nod towards use of Apple computers with a noticeable disdain for pcs used to the same ends. To wit your orig intimation that only a Mac is designed/able/configured, in fact you chose the word ‘optimized” for music streams. I believe you said optimized. I wasn’t sure as it was misspelled but it fit spelled right or not. That’s no biggie really… I got the drift of it..

**I’ve included further proof of this noticed condescension using your own words below. Eg., copying and pasting.

You>> …so I feel I should be allowed to post my opinions without personal attacks.

Me>> You so like that word, ‘attack’. Grow some thicker skin or take the measures necessary to diminish your paranoia. I’ve not yet attacked you. And probably won’t. It’s not my bag dude.

If anything I’ve found forum posts quite resemble emails… neither venue conveys tone, or intent nearly as well as spoken communications. But there we are… entirely open to being misread and therefore misunderstood. One can also fall prey to another whose ego seems to have been injured, be it truly the case or not.

you >> Lets just take one last point from your rant. You state you disagree with me that we should attempt to create a sound system in its own right.

Me>> Disagree? Yep. Ya got me there. It’s OK to do that right? Disagree, I mean. I disagree that ONLY one road leads to Rome. Simple, huh?

You>> I believe that deciding an USB device should perform well on anyone's PC is counter to just about anything else audiophiles seem to agree on, therefore I use a Mac for music (only) and PCs for everything else.

Me>> Well, there it is… USB SUCKS ON just about anyone’s PC. Where exactly did you come to divine this golden nugget from? I suppose there has been some published concensus which says that somewhere. You should forward this info to Gordon Rankin, John Stroncher, and all those other designers which are pretty well vested into audio via USB, ASAP

Whenever someone contends that one particular methodology is ‘best’ they profess their own prejudices and intolerance for some other.

In this hobby/forum the word best is both chocolate and vanilla, for it is in the ear of the beholder what truly is best. If those ears aren't full of ice cream, they'll know!

You>>. Your position is that that is unreasonable. Do you, Blidjim, insist that your speakers should be good plant stands too, use your DVD player as a CD transport because they jolly well should be able to do both jobs, insist on a teflon coating on your amps so that the fried eggs don't stick? So why insist that computer audio should be dumbed down to run on your workhorse, general purpose PC?

Me>> bingo! We have a winner in the condescending predisposition of computer based audio hierarchy AS YOU SAID, AND I’LL QUOTE
“… Computer audio should be dumbed down to run on your workhorse, general purpose PC?”

Me>> Nope. And if that ain’t attitude I don’t know what is. How's it feel to have just slighted any number of pc USB audio users and designers all in one fell swoop?

Now that you mention it I do have two open ports on my main speaker, but they are in the rear of them, so I’ll nix the notion of placing plants in them… but thanks. I’d never have thought of that before. Good Idea… well for front ported speakers maybe.

Eggs on amps? I do applaud the novelty but I see only poached as being viable and I’m not keen on Eggs Benedict anymore.

I’ve also almost completely stopped using the cup holder on my disc player for beverages. Well, almost. Now and then I'll use it as a TV dinner tray for like a Hot Pocket or something. Do remember, I use a pc for music and it has no cup holder, anymore.

I’ve no idea what has gotten your goat so profoundly here…. However I’ll not stand for anyone who twists words or pulls them out of thin air to make something poor out of something that is not…. As you obviously have attempted to do here…. To me. You are simply dead wrong completely. Infatically off the beam, as it were.

I’m no pc advocate and have no true allegiance to them at all. I’ve said as much in this very thread. Were circumstances different, I’d likely have a Mac in addition to the few pcs I already have. I’ve spent some length of time and energy to devise what I feel is my own personal SOTA hard drive based audio solution and it’s far more than merely pluggin and playing different devices into them.

I’ve arrived at my solution as compared to other one box CDP s previously and now available as it is to me to do. There’s more to it than plug and play. Period. If one takes the time to shut down services Bill Gates thinks are needed which aren’t actually, not for audio playback anyhow. So streamlining the OS is important and I’ve done that completely with my main audio source pc… My “workhorse” pc doesn’t receive those levels of attention. Nor is it needed or necessary.

Memory, front bus speeds, CPUs, drivers, etc. and which media player works best with all that... it's all important. It's all been addressed in my dumb ol' PC.

My take on anything is that it should be made available for everyone at least on some level and at some point. That was my main reason for posting here … to ask ‘when’ for pcs, in this Mac oriented thread. Mainly because no one else had asked yet.

Anti your veiled apology is not accepted. The only injury you’ve endured herein is by your own hand. By misconstruing the Audiogon membership and me personally, that anyone would think of promoting an attack on another posters comments. No one does that sort of thing here and sticks around too long.

You’ve not been a member long enough to see this as a reality yet. In fact you don’t even post what country you consider home. You don’t post your system, any reviews, etc. you’re as anonymous as they come. You’ve only served up input on a few instances.

Additionally as a self proclaimed cable dealer you failed to list even that info on your page here.

Why? What do you have to hide? No declaration of country, none of being in truth a proclaimed dealer. Well compared to me you have apparently something to hide, so you must feel everyone else does too.

I wish no one here any harm, injustice, or libel of any kind. Ever. I feel you should seriously rethink all of this and try to be less paranoid… So keep your shirt on, buddy. This is a pretty safe place and the people here are informed, informative, and friendly most all of the time. Get a grip. Dig some tunes and try to not read to much into what is posted as being personally invasive, it seldom is. It wasn’t here. That’s for sure… well, not on my behalf anyhow.

I apologize to the other posters here for having to take up your thread to vindicate myself from innocuous unfounded, and arbitrary comments made to me by another poster. Sorry.

Good luck Anti Pod

To answer your first para Tbg - familiarity and control are the main reasons - but also the wealth of free applications for the PC. Now I am learning more about Unix I can see that you can get a lot of control with Macs too. But I can't help myself, I prefer to build my own Mac than buy a Mac - I, of course, use the retail software. In particular, having zero moving parts (the music is stored externally) and a fair amount of power and 8GB of RAM is beneficial to sound and no Mac quite meets that spec.

On the software availability side, for example, I use a DSP board I have heavily modified out of a Rane RPM 26z in a system where I am designing an open baffle speaker. The Rane can do a lot of DSP stuff, but I really just use it for the digital cross-overs. The Rane software is just brilliant for real time design changes from the listening chair via wifi and a mouse. It is great for hearing immediately the change from 12dB/octave slopes to 24dB, for example. But it only runs on a PC.

Similarly I use TrueRTA for in-room measurements - free on a PC. Were I to use onboard crossover software on the Mac and output through a Lynx card, again, there is readily available software for the PC. Maybe I am looking in the wrong places for Mac software, maybe its there and it is just expensive, or maybe I should look at Parallels.

But the more I use Unix, the more I like it, I have to admit. I was put off initially by Macs because Apple wants to make all your decisions for you, but I am learning how to get under the hood now.

Hi Antipodes_audio,

I have had the same experience. I have found that sending cds ripped as AIFFs on the mac in itunes without Amarra, with the digital output settings set to 24bit 44.1, and sent to my upsampler causes quite a change in "air" to the presentation when compared to 16/44.1. That is just one setting change! Obviously some recordings can suffer, but most well recorded tracks sound much better.

On the PC, which is custom built and running Vista, I have music production software which uses its own ASIO, and depending on which software is running, the same computer with the same interface etc sounds very different. So hardware changes are a whole other story!

To be honest I have given up for the time being with my source. The flexibility I have now far out weighs any slight changes in presentation. At the moment my system sounds great and I cannot really complain. I stay interested and listen to what new equipment I can, and keep my software up to date. I think this computer source quality situation will run for quite some time. I guess Amarra with a firewire interface is the best compromise at the moment.

The non pro music playback software on the PC still seems a little under developed to me. Sonics aside.