Goodbye Sonos, hello ????

Forgot to clarify - when using Audirvana without iTunes integration it plays flac files from anywhere - even NAS drives - it's only when you integrate it with iTunes that it creates the proxy files and needs them both on the computer

I think Damien may be looking at this issue.

In "stand-alone mode" (i.e. without itunes) you can create multiple playlists of your music and recall them - from there you can filter the content of the playlist to refine a search.

The nice thing with itunes is that artist, album and genre categories are created automatically
- you can the create new genre's
- e.g. I listen to a lot of classical - itunes assigns this genre to a cd when loaded or a track when downloaded
- I then change the genre for a track or album
- e.g. I assign a genre of "Classical Woodwind" to woodwind tracks

Another nice thing about itunes is that it allows you to select multiple tracks to assign a genre to - even across albums - but this freedom can lead to icorrect assignment, so be careful.

I am not an Apple/iTunes bigot - quite the opposite - I just moved all my major apps back to a windows platform after a trying an iMac, which failed me miserably, but I will concede that even with it's warts - iTunes has one of the best interfaces out there for flexibility - even the Windows version performs very well and links to my iMac/iTunes and since installing Audirvana the playback is very impressive

Winamp - i tried it early on - is the closest I've seen to iTunes in flexibility, but I don't know about it's audio performance

Audirvana (native mode) would take a lot of effort to get the flexibility of iTunes - but it could be done

Windows Media Player - I gave up on after trying to import cd's - it's just not intuitive to me

Amarra seems to have a solid following and quite a nice interface - but the cost is too high and I think Audirvana has better quality playback - but if you want to taylor the sound it is probably the most flexible in that regard.

I guess now I have discovered the iTunes/iMac warts and overcome them I will stick with it - but if something else comes along I might be persuaded to change .

my requirement was to get the audio file data to my dac without upsampling - Audirvana does that extremely well

I have tried USB and Optical outputs and they sound identical - I think [this is due to the DH Labs cables, which I have found to perform the best - even better than Van den Hul - my next prefference.

hope this helps

I use a MacBook Air and Audirvana Plus via a MF V-Link then Toslink to a Krell HTS 7.1 for D/A decoding. The results, to me ears, playing HD FLAC files are nothing short of amazing. See my previous post on this subject:

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?ddgtl&1364947210&openmine&zzMgattmch&4&5#Mgattmch

I can also use the MacBook Air to stream directly, via iTunes, to an AirPort express for slightly lower quality audio anywhere in the home.

Check out the coming Olive ONE. I think it'll hit all your points.

Jaxwired, thanks for the headsup on the Xonor. My problem is that the CAPS I am going to build (v3 Carbon) only has 1 available pcie slot which I was intending to use for a wireless card because unlike you my media is stored on a NAS so that my other Sonos devices and HTPCs can access the music and movie files. I could use a USB based wireless dongle. Hmmm...just need to make sure the SPDIF output is great quality.

If you want to do a lot of work and study to get a high-quality PC or Mac system together, this is worthwhile and will get you great SQ and hi-res.

However, if you just want your Sonos to sound great and don't want to invest a lot of time, do this:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/empirical4/1.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

I built one of the CAPS server and I added the XONOR essence STX card for SPDIF out. My DAC doesn't take USB and I didn't want an external converter either. My CAPS server also has a 500GB solid state drive so all my music is local and I don't need a separate file server. Boots up in 5 seconds. I store my music in ALAC lossless so I can fit more. Should hold 1500 CDs. I run it headless and just remote into it when I need to do something on it (rarely). Works great and sounds spectacular. Control it with JRemote for JRiver.

Tboooe_You can also get a windows computer - probably cheaper

You can download itunes for windows - its free - not sure if the windows version messes with the files like the Mac does, so you might not need something like Audirvana to deliver files that have been upsampled.

Yes - You can play flac tracks via Audirvana (playing one now) without itunes started - you nave to create playlists in Audirvana - not sure how good it is - suggest you checkout the manual on the web site

Damien (support) responds very quickly if you have questions or problems

There are other windows players out there - Aparantly the Windows Media Player works very well

The Audirvana manual tells you how to import flac to iTunes - the caveat is flac files and music files have to be on the computer and not a NAS drive
- it creates a proxy file that links to the music file - I had the proxy on the computer and the music on the NAS - once they were both on the computer all worked very well - rest of my files are on the NAS drive though

I've used several players in the past...
- hate Windows media player - getting stuff into the library is a pain
- not sure if Audirvana has the different views of tracks (see below)
_ I like the fact that itunes has seemless integration of music and radio
- I like the different ways you can look at tracks - tittle, composer, genre
- I like using Retune to control itunes

There are other remote control programs out there that might work with other players - ask Damien if he knows of one for Audirvana

Checkout other windows players - see
windows players review

Hope this helps

thanks williewonka, I have considered the mac mini though to be honest I dont have much experience with macs. The solution you propose is definitely attractive. I just hate the idea of getting tied to itunes. Does Audirvana allow you to play FLAC? Most of library is in FLAC which is one of the main reasons why I dont use itunes.

I agree with williewonka. I go Mac mini (out via usb) to Berkeley USB SPDIF converter (out via AES-EBU) to Berkeley DAC to preamp. I use iTunes with Audiovarna on the mini. Very very good.

One last thing - Audirvana loads the entire track into memory before playing,so there tends to be a slight delay on the HD tracks, but then you can use wireless without any dropouts while playing

:-)

Forgot to mention that I use the USB port on the imac

Alternately you can use the optical output, but you need the 3.5mm optical adapter - apple puts the optical output in the headphone socket - I am NOT joking! Took me a couple of months to determine this

With both the optical and USB I found the DH Labs cables performed the best.

Back to the music :-)

You could go the mac mini route + itunes + audirvana

I use my imac + itunes + audirvana and have 24/192 capability with remote from my droid tablet using a free app called Retune

Retune reads all of the itunes playlists, albums, genres etc... - so it functions the same as itunes

If I changed my dac to something of higher resolution then the associated driver would take care of linking at that resolution

It really is future proof since everything is software controlled

Audirvana streams the actual music file and I have it configured not to upsample, because the Schiit Bifrost dac I have sounds better that way

Hope this helps

Tbooe,

That does not surprise me at all, though I have never tried SPDIF direct from a general purpose computer. Better to keep noisy computer physically and electronically isolated from music making components as much as possible for best results. Network players especially using wireless network connections make this easy to accomplish.

Mapman, I have heard that the SPDIF available on motherboards or pc cards have questionable quality. I am not sure about the implementation in devices such as players and DACs.

I've gotten very good results consistently using SPDIF from various <$1000 network players and pCD players/transports to DAC. Have not used Sonos but have read where others have indicated it is not as good in regards to jitter, etc. compared to Squeezebox Touch, which is what I use currently, for example. I've used digital out also from Denon and Marantz CD and DVD players and older Roku Soundbridge devices to same DACs and gotten similarly good results.

Thanks Mapman. The more I think about this the more I am leaning towards building a CAPS streamer. I just wish there was a way to get high quality SPDIF output so I can avoid the added cost and clutter of getting a high quality USB/SPDIF converter.

I have not tested or heard yet, but when my Squeezebox units go their way someday, Android based general media players (with digital out to external DAC) is where I will likely look first.