Can Mac/PC compete with High End CDT??


Dear All,

I want to believe (do you?) that the Mac or PC approach can work, at least be good enough. Being that my prime source is analog digital music is secondary but at the same time compulsory for recent and actual recordings.

Reading reviews and opinions floating around online I was curious to hear for myself in a high end system, a sort of A/B singular test was needed; away from commercial pressures and inexperienced ears.

Full of great expectation I head to a fellow audiophile's den, both of us motivated to get to the bottom of this question ourselves.

So we got ourselves organized and ended up with a promising menu: Esoteric P0, Weiss Dac 2 D/A converter, Mac with Amara/iTunes then Kondo Dac with the Esoteric P0 and then Weiss Dac 2 D/A converter using fire wire interface from Mac/Amara/itunes via the Kondo DAC.

All the “virtual music” was obviously uncompressed format.

Preamp Absolare, amp New Audio Frontiers Ref 845 and Acapella Triolon Excalibur and some very good cables.

Being used to the sound of Kondo electronics and Goto horns that furnish my listening room, fed by micro seiki SX8000, CEC TL0x Cd transport at 1st I must say that I was disappointed with the sound that the P0 was delivering via the Weiss Dac.

I will not be long-winded here: this was not good. The sound seemed broken, out of pace, lousy trebles, one-dimensional bass and very nasal voices.

The resolution of the electronics and speakers told the cruel truth in this 70m² dedicated listening room. No fine-tuning I have ever encountered could solve this even with the widest stretch of imagination.

So the Mac/Amara/iTunes? Okay no gain no pain! Here it was no pain all gain, I mean, it sounded the same including the flaws but with the added advantage of mac based music selection as opposed to cd loading. This seemed promising, made me jump to the conclusion that the culprit was the Weiss DAC, not the fire wire interface.

So in goes the Kondo DAC driven by the P0, okay! I will lack vocabulary here it is truly amazing. My host and I within the 1st seconds looked at each other, not even in the listening seats, we agreed with each other without saying a word! Then we let the CDs play on, simple as that!

We kind of played around here knowing deep down that the next step was the “juge de paix” (for those who don’t master French that is “peace judgment”).

So we wired the Weiss Firewire/spdif interface to the Kondo Dac using the Mac/Almara/iTunes.

As it stands I had spoken to Daniel Weiss (owner/designer of Weiss Audio) a few days before and he explained to me that CD transport and Mac/PC was fundamentally the same thing; delivering 0 and 1 and the interface was just passing those 0s and 1s to the DAC.

So? I may have to repeat myself here : The sound seemed broken, out of pace, lousy trebles, one dimensional bass and very nasal voices.

The Kondo DAC was telling us all about the sources. I walk way from this with knowing that Mac/PC is not ready to replace a CD transport in high end system dedicated to experiencing music and all the emotional treasures that it has in store for us to enjoy.

So what does this mean? I think that in certain preamp/amp speaker combinations the hard disk be it mac or PC may work and certain reviewers will confirm this. However, if that system resolution comes to change, that its goes up the ladder, then the flaws in this approach will become apparent.

It would be advisable to ascertain your future with music and the associated audio equipment before marching towards the immaterial virtual music world.

Well a good friend of mine who hides in the shadows of the Bavarian landscape warned that no hard disk system could compete with the better CD transports, he is perfectly correct!

Tim
soundlistening
a few month ago, one of the review in TAS tested the benchmark dac with different transport and yet they sound quite different.( the unit is supposely immune to jitter).
there was a big discussion on why. i am not a computer person, but it seems there are still issues that hasn't been fully resolve yet. i am sitting on the fence about ripping my 1000+ cds in server
computeraudiophile DOT com is the place to go for lots of this discussion. The whole process is extremely frustrating for sure. I think convenience is where it's at with computer audio, not necessarily to get the best sound. I think the sound is a wash now, with better DACs and server options, which makes it worth doing for the convenience of having all your music loaded in one place in high res files. I have set up a squeezebox upstairs in my 2 ch system and one downstairs on my HT system and run a coax digital cable right into the DAC in each system (into my Pio pre/pro downstairs and my Bel Canto DAC3 up. Plus you get streaming internet radio from all over the world, very awesome. My wife loves getting her hometown Philly stations in Texas which makes me a happy guy because she indulges my hobby.....
wow, I have a mac book pro and was contemplating moving forward but got caught up in all the forum discussions and quite frankly got a little frustrated. Probably due to my lack of computer knowledge. Im caught between upgrading my systems source (CD, Pre) or the new weiss dac. Used tubed AR equipment and the Weiss are in the same monitory ballpark. You keep writing and ill keep reading. Still on the fence here. The convenience of a computer music server is not my objective, the best sound is. great forum you guys....
Agreed. I am now running a Squeezebox using FLAC files into a Bel Canto DAC via coax 75 ohm digital cable into Pass X1 Pre into Bel Canto Ref1000Mk ii amps and I cannot tell the difference vs. my Bel Canto CD1 used as a transport via AES/EBU connection into the DAC3. Cannot tell the difference. Either way, it sounds great. Much depends on the DAC.
You might want to try using the networked music player (Roku, Squeezebox, etc.) approach before drawing any final conclusions about viability of a computer/hard disk as a source of music. With this configuration, your audio system is isolated from any nastiness that might be associated with a computer that is not necessarily designed for high end audio. In this configuration, a device designed for good digital audio source delivery (the networked player) and an external dac perhaps does all the work associated with making music out of bits and bytes. The computer truly just delivers the bits to the player using a standard network connection. There is nothing in a network connection that affects sound quality in any way. That all occurs when the player sends the bits to the DAC. I will vouch that this approach can deliver sound that competes with the big boys.

Given your short lived exp with trial and error, CDP vs HDD/DAC and the whatever interface, I would amend your friends statement somewhat…

Better said, “…. I would agree, so far.”

Blanket statements such as this or that setup blows away this or that setup could very well be accurate, subjectively or imperically, yet it/they do not cover all the setups available.

This could be a matter of simple settings being amiss with the software, or the file type & formats… and not the error or fault of the setup. IOW, ‘operator malfunction’ and even an overlooked configuration issue…. Or and I don’t mean this in a derogatory manner, but it could be user bias too.

My audio world is quite myopic, but my experiences with HDD vs CDP as sources has grown at some length over these past years and there are numerous factors which will surely affect playback and hence, sound quality using PC or Macs as source units.

Just ‘cause everything being used is ‘spensive, don’t mean it was setup exactly right or truly optimized. Sounds to me as though it was not. Or it’s software installation is in error… as both ways used the same DAC, right?

If so it’s obvious the personal confuser has something amiss. Somewhere. Somehow.

At very least though and once again, your shoot out isn’t THE final word, as you’ve so indicated…. It’s merely YOUR final word given what you have on hand with which to experiment…. ‘so far’.

Of course if this exchange is all you will do for investigative purposes for PC vs CDP performance ratios, and you’re satisfied, then it’s all good for you, and that’s great!

It does come off demonstrative and short sighted to remark that A vs. B gave you the impetus to discount ALL other such variations and thus their own challenges. To your findings. There’s a bunch more ‘B’ setups out there you haven’t heard yet, I’d bet. I’d not go all in on one vs another, just yet.

I’d like very much to get about my area and interchange components with other like minded sorts but so far I’ve not found too very many quite as forthcoming as myself nor as open to this interaction either… despite the potentially enormous mutual benefit the end result would be. Consequently I’ve my own perception and ears with which to ascertain gains & losses. Better and best.

Thanks for the comparisons of those two particular agendas though. Please, don’t stop there though, if using pc or Mac as source remains alluring to you.