Dacs do not need to be hugely expensive. Audiosciencereview.com (ASR) has shown that there is almost no correlation between price and performance when it comes to Dacs. Use the component browser on that site and the reviews to find a dac with good performance at a price point you are comfortable with, and you’re off to the races.
Giving up on Itunes! Alternatives? I want to run my hardrive with a dedicated tablet.
After having my archives completely disorganized by itunes once again i’m throwing in the towel. I want to know everything about setting up a Tablet as a player for my digital music on a remote hard drive so i can do it right the first time.
I want a simple player (not Itunes) that can handle all file types, I have everything from mp3’s to lossless cd rips, over a thousand albums, not looking to spend alot of money, I work on my own equipment.
Lots of newbie questions! Why a dac? is there any real benefit or is this just a way to get people to spend more money. seems like this is more for av equipment? Cables? What are the benefits in terms of fidelity, should i be using usb to run my system? I’m currently running my digital through .999 silver minijack to rca and it definitely picks up noise from a computer or phone power cord and case. Seems like a lot of newer digital equipment gets signals pretty dirty, but i don’t know anything about it.
What kind of tablet, any fidelity drawbacks as far as this goes? I use Macs but don’t care if It’s an Ipad or whatever, just want the best sound, least interference. Does the material of the cables connecting the tablet to the hardrive or dac have an effect on sound?My system; It’s a pretty crazy set up of whatever I could get my hands on, predominately set up for vinyl but I have a huge collection of rare albums on digital and would like to begin archiving from vinyl. I’m running a Dynaco St70 (tube) through a dynaco pat5 (ss), JBL’s, all plugs are rca, solid silver interconnects, no shielding, ferrite beads.
The sonic qualities that are important to me are imaging and range, don’t want to sacrifice the extreme highs and lows to rule out a little emf interference, my amp is ancient anyway. You know, the vinyl sound. Please give me all the help and advice you can, brutal honesty preffered! There are just too many opinions and too much unhelpful information out there to wade through, just want to get started with something simple that sounds good. Not into expensive toys just listening to great sounding music!
I want a simple player (not Itunes) that can handle all file types, I have everything from mp3’s to lossless cd rips, over a thousand albums, not looking to spend alot of money, I work on my own equipment.
Lots of newbie questions! Why a dac? is there any real benefit or is this just a way to get people to spend more money. seems like this is more for av equipment? Cables? What are the benefits in terms of fidelity, should i be using usb to run my system? I’m currently running my digital through .999 silver minijack to rca and it definitely picks up noise from a computer or phone power cord and case. Seems like a lot of newer digital equipment gets signals pretty dirty, but i don’t know anything about it.
What kind of tablet, any fidelity drawbacks as far as this goes? I use Macs but don’t care if It’s an Ipad or whatever, just want the best sound, least interference. Does the material of the cables connecting the tablet to the hardrive or dac have an effect on sound?My system; It’s a pretty crazy set up of whatever I could get my hands on, predominately set up for vinyl but I have a huge collection of rare albums on digital and would like to begin archiving from vinyl. I’m running a Dynaco St70 (tube) through a dynaco pat5 (ss), JBL’s, all plugs are rca, solid silver interconnects, no shielding, ferrite beads.
The sonic qualities that are important to me are imaging and range, don’t want to sacrifice the extreme highs and lows to rule out a little emf interference, my amp is ancient anyway. You know, the vinyl sound. Please give me all the help and advice you can, brutal honesty preffered! There are just too many opinions and too much unhelpful information out there to wade through, just want to get started with something simple that sounds good. Not into expensive toys just listening to great sounding music!
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I have looked at the iTunes music file at the finder level many times and my files are all well organized. My album structure is not scrambled but is in alphabetical order under the artist name. If you have an album with multiple artists, than the album can be placed into a compilation folder when ripped or each individual artist in the album would have its own folder, whichever you choose. There is a separate folder for artwork and there are two .itdb files and one .itl file. These files keep track of song ratings and how many times a song has been played. These files can simply be recreated if missing. I can see where this arrangement can be a problem with Classical music, but I don't have any Classical music. |
Thanks For all the info guys! Awesome wealth of knowledge, Gettin some good advice. So a dac is what we used to call a soundcard in a computer, and presumambly an outboard dac offers better performance than those in most computers and phones. I remember when digital was just coming out guys building dedicated towers to run their digital. One thing I noticed is that most outboard dacs have pretty traditional circuits, caps and resistors, so that looks good to me. So I mostly listen to digital stored on hard drive through a macbook, old os, old itunes, definitely contributes to my problems, but i'm not the kind of person to get the latest thing and spend money on updates and whatnot that will be obsolete in a year, wish I could tell you that was gonna change, but it's not. Basically my itunes refuses to read some file names, images and metadata, puts songs in wrong albums or removes album names periodically, creates and modifies playlists and albums including their name and artist, so i spend hours manually inputting information only to have it scrambled. Yes I know its my own fault for running outdated versions. I'm sure it's great for most people and if it works for you more power to you! I'm looking for something simple that won't do things without being directed to do them. Also the interface is junk. Has anybody scoped these various players to see if there are any differences or done listening comparisons on the same system?Also anyone building dacs with boards, I'd be more interested in that than most of what I see out there. When the device producing the signal has a volume pot on it it doesn't fill me with confidence. I come from an era when hifi meant separating signal from other circuitry as much as possible, especially power! So I wont ever be using blutooth, wifi or streaming, Only direct connections to the component making the signal. It sounds like the dac's in affordable ranges are all pretty comparable, and the players are mostly archiving tools and controllers? I'd love to talk with someone who has built a few dacs to hear about their experiences and what is actually affecting the sound, and get some tips on building one from a sound card. Any thoughts on tablets? Thanks for all the info, You guys are saving my butt! |
You could put a raspberry pi with a dac HAT together for a decent price (hifiberry.com). It doesn’t have a volume pot. If you want to see scope numbers on dacs look at this site. https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?pages/Audio_DAC_Performance_Index/ |
I have been using iTunes for over 10 years and never had anything get scrambled, changed, or modified unless I did it myself. I have hundreds of CDs that I ripped 10 years ago and they are still the same as the day I ripped them. I never have to do anything with iTunes unless I rip a new CD. I can’t explain why you have this issue. Good luck in whatever direction you go. |
- 24 posts total