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Recommendation for Computer/Digital

So I've been doing research into various solutions to my issue- most of my music is on my computer. I don't have a pretty low-end CD player right now and instead of spending money on a decent player I have been exploring computer based audio solutions- Squeezebox, Roku, new soundcards (M-Audio etc.). I have a laptop and its internal soundcard is all I have.

I've been getting caught up in the idea of a squeezebox right now, and with the cost of mods it's getting out of my range. I'm looking to spend up to $500 max. An M-Audio transport, which is the basis of the Red Wine Audio USB Select solution (a $500 solution) costs $99. I'm having a huge problem in figuring out how the variety of solutions compare and where the most bang for the buck lies. I've even been using my XBOX as my digital music player for awhile now.

My request- your views on the best way to get great sound in my price range from a computer with a crummy soundcard. Personal experiences are greatly appreciated. Is a stock Squeezebox a good thing? It seems that all the raving is from the modified end.

My system so far: I have a McIntosh MA500 Amp and B&W Nautilus 803D speakers (I think that's the right Nautilus model- I'm away from home for several months for work). Any suggestions to improve that would also be appreciated. I'll admit I bought without knowing too much- my wife's ears were the main reason we ended up with what we did, even though I'm more of the music lover.

Thanks for any responses.

Nick
uzelacn4bc2

Showing 4 responses by ghunter

ghunter's avatar
ghunter
164 posts
 
I think it all depends on the quality of the rest of your components. If you're spending $20k on the rest of your system and are trying to get away with spending less than $1k on a DAC, you're going to be disappointed. The Brick and Cosecant are greatly underpriced when you consider the price of the cd players that they outperform.
ghunter's avatar
ghunter
164 posts
 
I've been hard-disk based for a few years now, and last year I bought a Wavelength Cosecant USB DAC. Absolutely stellar sound quality, minimal hassle. I screwed around with audio interfaces and DAC's for my first year before just getting something that worked well in a single box.

The Cosecant is different in that there's no upsampling/oversampling, no digital filters, just the pure sound from the source. If you've read about the 47 labs Shigaraki and how pure it sounds, the Cosecant is similar in design principle.

It works - there are several of us that have replaced five-figure CD players with Cosecants. My last cdp was a Naim CDX2/XPS2 and the Cosecant betters it by a large margin.
ghunter's avatar
ghunter
164 posts
 
Atmasphere, some corrections are needed to your post:

For playback, zero latency could actually degrade performance if anything should happen to interrupt system resources. A minimal audio buffer is far preferable. Low latency systems are important when considering virtual instruments or monitoring a recording.

Jitter does not impact cd ripping as it remains in the digital domain and out of the audio domain. It is purely a file transfer, and not an audio stream where timing artifacts can come into play.

For a simple task such as ripping CD's, the Linux/Mac/Windows argument really comes down to which operating environment you're most comfortable with. There are excellent choices available for all three platforms.
ghunter's avatar
ghunter
164 posts
 
Zero latency still isn't going to fix jitter - that occurs at the DAC stage and there's nothing in the OS level that is going to fix it. If you are buffering the signal in memory whatsoever then you do not have a zero-latency system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitter

I'm not being super-picky here, these are digital audio basics that you are misunderstanding.

Here is some good reading from Wavelength Audio:

http://www.wavelengthaudio.com/usbdac.html

I've been using their Cosecant USB DAC for about a year now with great success.
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