Music from hard drive better than CD?

Using WAV, you'd need about 80 gigs for 200 CD's. I've been told that some of these lossless codecs take about half as much space. If that's true, then you'd need 40 Gigs for 200 CD's.

If you are computer and tech savvy, prefer PC, and if you want to get really deep into using your computer for not only music, but an entire home entertainment hub, here is a forum that might interest you --

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=26

I have a MAC G4 that I've used for audio. There are several issues. If you have a high end system and you compress your music, you will notice and it will not sound good. If you take your signal from the computer's headphone jack, it will not sound good. Worse, when you increase volume, you'll hear a hum that is coming from the computer. However, if you use the computer as TRANSPORT and take the signal out of the computer through the USB or Firewire port, bypassing the computer's internal DAC, and play it through a high quality outboard DAC, you can get sound that will compete with CD players costing thousands of dollars AND you will get the convenience of having hundreds of CD's available at the click of a mouse. At first, I tried USB soundcards that cost a few hundred dollars, but it only offered a slight increase in quality over the headphone jack. But, when I invested $1,000 in an Apogee USB Mini-Dac, it was a home run. Amazing sound. Natural, musical, detailed, deep, wide soundstage -- everything. Will it compete with the BEST digital players? That will be a matter of opinion, but in my opinion, players like Wadia offer impressive sound and may give you a tiny bit more detail, but to my ears, the sound is a little digital for my taste. I don't want this to turn into a flame war and I am not trying to diss anyone's gear. But, to my ears, the hard drive plus Apogee sounds more natural and involving. I admire it a little less, but enjoy it more -- if you know what I mean.

Finally, to my ears, based on my taste, my Emm Labs gear is the best digital gear. My computer plus Apogee isn't in that league -- and the Emm Labs also offers SACD playback -- but, what the Apogee has in common with Emm Labs is a natural sound. The Apogee USB Mini-DAC costs $1,000 and the Emm Labs DAC costs $10,000, so I don't want to oversell the Apogee Mini-Dac -- it isn't in the same league with the Emm Labs. But, after listening to Emm Labs, I have become spoiled and find it hard to listen to other gear. But, I enjoy the Apogee Mini-Dac. If you have the budget for Emm Labs gear, IMO, nothing is going to touch it. That's my opinion, based on my taste. But, if you are looking for a system that can compete with players costing 3,000 to 5,000 while offering convenience, put this on your list of things to consider.

The Cosecant tubed USB DAC is also intriguing. Given my eye and ear opening experience with the Hard Drive plus Apogee, I am prepared to believe that it is possible to get amazing sound from a computer Hard Drive given the proper outbord DAC.

I have not heard the Cosecant, so I cannot offer any opinion on its sound versus Apogee.

I have not tried the Hard Drive with SPDiF into the Emm Labs Dac. I'm not sure the Emm Labs DAC will take an SPDiF input. I use the Emm Labs in a different room from the Hard Drive/Apogee.

Here is something I found --

From 6 Moons' review of a Hard Drive based system ---

One of the great advantages of playing music from a hard drive is that the playback is all byte-by-byte. You are not hearing music through a device that is trying to read a spinning disc in real time. The major source of jitter and distortion is simply eliminated in this hard drive-based process. As I heard it, the net effect is a terrific sense of natural musical flow.

http://6moons.com/audioreviews/vrs/vrs_3.html

.

Interesting stuff!

>>it is absolutely no surprise the today's PC hard drive configs don't compete
with EMM Labs gear.<<

Surprise? Who said this was a surprise?

>>good transports or bad, you can be pretty sure that your DAC is getting a
bit-perfect feed.<<

Okay.

>>jitter...replacing a transport with a hard drive will not remove this
problem.<<

You're not just replacing the transport with a hard drive; If you use
something like the Apogee Mini-Dac, you're also introducing a high quality
clock and DAC.

>>something other than jitter--at least as he was measuing it--was causing
an effect on his "perfect sound forever."<<

There are many things that go into making a great sounding DAC.

>>But for *really* good reproduction, it'll be years before anything beats a
CDP or TT.<<

That's vague. Depends on what you call a *really* good CDP. It has already
been established that a computer plus $1,000 DAC will not compete with
$10,000 Emm Labs gear, but neither will any other digital gear.

A computer plus $1,000 DAC absolutely sounds better to my ears than many
CD players.

I am using the Apogee USB Mini-Dac. Highly recommend it.

If you're going to be adding an external hard drive anyway, why not opt for the $499 Mac Mini? I don't think you need a keyboard, but if you connect the Mac Mini to a video monitor, a wireless mouse would be real handy. I would also opt for more RAM.

You can rip 400 CD's uncompressed into 200 GB. If you chose a lossless
codec like Apple Lossless, I'm told you can get twice that, or 400 CD's into
100 GB. Get an external hard drive and keep all of your CD's on it.

There is another way to go, too.

The Mac Mini:

http://www.apple.com/macmini/

Integrate that into your audio system; use your video display as your monitor,
take the audio signal out in digital through one of the USB ports and use a
high quality USB DAC like the Apogee Mini-Dac, and connect an external hard
drive from the FireWire port.

That would make a hell of a dedicated music storage and transport system.

Get a mouse and you could scroll through your songs and albums on your
video screen using i-tunes.

Those 12 inch G3 iBooks are a great solution if you need a screen.

I'm thinking the Mac Mini would be good if you were using it near a video screen -- you just use the video screen as your monitor.

You *will* want to scroll through your tunes on a screen.

At the price of a used G3 ibook or Mac Mini no reason to go PC.

>>if you are going to use this computer as a dedicated music transport, it
should not even be on the Internet.<<

No. You want internet connectivity -- you'll be ripping CD's to your hard drive
and you'll be downloading all of the titles and other information from an
internet site. This will all happen with a couple of clicks if you are connected
to the internet. If you are not connected to the internet, you'll have to enter
all of that information manually, that would be tedious as hell, and would
slow the ripping process to a crawl. By the tenth or eleventh CD, you'd be
ready to hurt someone.

The Apogee Mini-Dac has a Big Ben clock in it. I used an M-Audio Audiophile USB Dac before the Apogee and the Apogee Mini-Dac is many jumps in quality better than something like the M-Audio. Completely different ball-park. I also used the M-Audio just to convert the signal to SPiF so I could plug the computer into a Proceed AVP2 and use the Proceed's DAC. Again -- the Apogee USB Mini-Dac sounds way better. The computer plus Apogee just sounds great. Natural, detailed, organic, not digital sounding at all. I am extremely happy with it.

>>Rsbeck: Do you run the Apogee mini Dac into a pre-amp or straing into a set of powered monitors?<<

I run it straight into powered monitors. There is no need for a pre-amp. This is one of the things I like about this set-up. The Apogee Mini-Dac has balanced outs and my powered monitors have balanced inputs. You go from computer to Dac to powered speakers -- very short path, lots of efficiencies, you eliminate the cables between amplifier and speakers, don't have to run the signal through a pre-amp, and it sounds great.

>>Can it be run into a preamp (like any DAC)? Thanks<<

It can be run into a pre-amp or you can go straight from the Apogee to your amplifier. The Apogee has a volume control and balanced outs.