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First Experience w/ Airport Express to HIFI

So I finally took the plunge into PC audio with the purchase of an Airport Express. Not too big of a plunge but I'm still treading lightly here, not quite ready to drop a lot of cash on an untested (by me anyway) system.

I have a mostly Linn setup, with a Waconda Preamp, Klout amp, and Keilidh speakers. I just sold my Karik cd player and picked up a Quad 99-CDP MK2.

The Quad was not my first choice but budgetary reality made it the best choice for me at the time. The quad is unique in that it has 6 digital inputs. I figured I could hook up the satellite box, and my DVD player and have a few left over for whatever came down the pike.

So to cut to the chase here, I plugged my Airport Express into my Quad via a Glass Optical Toslink cable. (bought here on Agon from Captnstarstripe) I am connected to the Airport Express via Ethernet right now (no airport card in my Mac yet) so the digital information is hard wired rather than wireless. The test tracks were ripped in Itunes with error correction on, and in apple losses format. I ripped one CD and then popped it into my Quad, hit play on both and switched back and forth for an hour or so.

My thoughts so far after maybe 1 hour of A/B testing??? Well I really couldn't tell a difference. I thought I could at first but I asked my wife to sit in and do the switching so I didn't know where the source was coming from. Both sounded sweet, rich and full of detail.

Obviously I need to spend some more time with it, and getting it to run wirelessly seems like the next step. If the quality stays the same w/ wireless transmission (and I don't have any reason to think it won't with what I've read about the 8 second buffer in the Airport Express) I think maybe some kind of jitter reduction might be in order between the Airport Express and Quad. I mean it's cool and all that it sounds AS good as my CD player, but from what I've read, PC audio has the potential to sound BETTER than conventional CD playback. I can appreciate the convenience of having all your music at your fingertips, but if it doesn't sound BETTER then I don't think I'm interested. If I can reduce the jitter coming out of the Airport Express, (I'm not saying there is a lot of jitter, I'm just guessing) and hear an audible difference, then maybe it's good-by Quad CD player and hello 'insert name of great DAC.'

I'll add more when I get the chance to audition more music. If anyone has any suggestions for jitter reduction please let me know.
etep29
6 responses Add your response
pabelson
344 posts
 
If you are using the AE's digital out to a DAC (freestanding or part of another component, like your Quad), then jitter within the AE is irrelevant. It's just passing a digital signal through, which your DAC has to reclock. Any decent DAC will do this quite well. Jitter's only a concern with analog output from the AE--not a problem in your case.

I can't imagine why you think PC sound (made from ripping CDs) is going to sound better than a CD player. It ought to sound the same. That's the whole idea.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,477 posts
 
If you can't hear a difference then I would not worry about it too much. Jitter is much less of a problem than most people fear.
streetdaddy
349 posts
 
I ,too just recently bought an airport express. With some help from Jayson{ jayboard}, i was up and running in no time. I love the convenience factor, and i think it sounds really good. I received my Behringer eq today, and will hook it up tommorrow. I'll let you know what i think.
aida_w
308 posts
 
I second the thoughts about the quality of Apple's AirportExpress. I have it installed in my study's system running AE's OUT into Burmester 808's AUX module so I can compare easily to CD direct running into another module. The - wireless - quality is amazing (Mac G5, all files Apple Lossless).
etep29 OP
20 posts
 
I sort of got the impression from various sources here and online that PC audio has the benefit of having very low jitter coming from a hard drive, way lower than from a transport, thus better perforname. By not having to deal with data correction on the fly like a transport does the digital signal should be cleaner, if the file on the hard drive is a good one. I read a post, now can't remember where where someone added a monarchy audio DIP jitter reduction device inline after his airport and heard a major improvement. He figured that the less work the DAC had to do to fix jitter from the Airport the better. Maybe his is not sound theory???
pabelson
344 posts
 
Maybe his is not sound theory, indeed. Jitter only matters if the DAC can't reclock the digital stream properly. Most DACs can. And as Shadorne says, jitter gets more attention than it deserves. It's just another form of distortion, and if it's low enough in the mix, it won't be audible. Trying to eliminate all the jitter from a digital signal is like trying to eliminate all the harmonic distortion in an amp. It's a fine goal, but it isn't necessary to audible transparency.
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