Seandtaylor99 - Steve has listed the main software components. Also ensure that for whatever sound output device you use, make sure you have the latest software drivers and use a dedicated computer with latest software (Windows XP SP 2). In foobar2000, use either kernal streaming or ASIO for playback.
Today's Transport War: Significant Differences?
I have been reading much these days about computer/hard-drive based transports as being a whole order of magnitude superior to traditional CD transports. In my reading, the camp who believes hard-drive based transports can render major improvements has been most notably represented by Empirical Audio. The camp which suggests that traditional CD transport techonology (or atleast the best of its sort--VRDS-NEO) is still superior has been most notably represented by APL Hi-Fi.
Each of the camps mentioned above are genuine experts who have probably forgotten more about digital than many of us will ever understand. But my reading of each of their websites and comments they have made on various discussion threads (Audiogon, Audio Circle, and their own websites) suggests that they GENUINELY disagree about whether hard-drive based transportation of a digital signal really represents a categorical improvement in digital transport technology. And I am certain others on this site know a lot about this too.
I am NOT trying to set up a forum for a negative argument or an artificial either/or poll here. I want to understand the significant differences in the positions and better understand some of the technical reasons why there is such a significant difference of opinion on this. I am sincerely wondering what the crux of this difference is...the heart of the matter if you will.
I know experts in many fields and disciplines disagree with one another, and, I am not looking for resolution (well not philosophical resolution anyway) of these issues. I just want to better understand the arguments of whether hard-drive based digital transportation is a significant technical improvement over traditional CD transportation.
Respectfully,
Each of the camps mentioned above are genuine experts who have probably forgotten more about digital than many of us will ever understand. But my reading of each of their websites and comments they have made on various discussion threads (Audiogon, Audio Circle, and their own websites) suggests that they GENUINELY disagree about whether hard-drive based transportation of a digital signal really represents a categorical improvement in digital transport technology. And I am certain others on this site know a lot about this too.
I am NOT trying to set up a forum for a negative argument or an artificial either/or poll here. I want to understand the significant differences in the positions and better understand some of the technical reasons why there is such a significant difference of opinion on this. I am sincerely wondering what the crux of this difference is...the heart of the matter if you will.
I know experts in many fields and disciplines disagree with one another, and, I am not looking for resolution (well not philosophical resolution anyway) of these issues. I just want to better understand the arguments of whether hard-drive based digital transportation is a significant technical improvement over traditional CD transportation.
Respectfully,
Showing 4 responses by cics
What is Jitter? is an interesting read and offers a good reason for why transports sound so different. I have setup a computer transport with great success. Its easy to get started but more effort/learning is needed to get best performance. After comparing my setup with some exotic (& very expensive) front-ends (Wadia 9 series, Esoteric P03/D03 & MBL Ref trans/DAC), I don't have a need to upgrade. Sound is superior to Wadia (bad dealer setup most likely here) & Esoteric (detailed but lacks musicality). MBL was excellent and couldn't be faulted but I don't need it. It seems that computers are far better at upsampling than hardware based algorithms within a transport and/or dac. Upsampling after all is a computing function and doing it correctly, needs lots of processing power. |
Nova Physics Group Memory Player is the latest buzz and is attracting rave reviews. It's essentially a computer with a tube based dac ($15k). You also get it without dac ($10k). One reviewer comments on how it outperforms the highly regarded Zanden front-end ($40k+). So, yes its an evolutionary thing with a sweet benefit of lowering costs. |
By design a computer will always output a superior digital signal. Bit-perfect data is read from harddisk to memory then upsampled with much better precision. This happens in a noiseball but critically outside of any realtime clocking mechanism and no bits are mangled/lost (essence of computing). Hence no jitter occurs during data prep stage. Last stage transfers buffered data perfectly to sound output device (connected via usb, ethernet or internal bus). This device adds a clock and generates spdif signal for dac. This task will create jitter and needs to be optimal (clean power not sourced from noiseball, very high quality clock if dac does no input buffering and/or reclocking, etc.). All transports have same challenge here. The way I see it, traditional transports suffers more jitter. In realtime, CD spins, data is upsampled (but not as good as a computer) then fed to dac this all happens under a strict clocking regime. As noted in Altmanns website (What is Jitter?): A simple CD player has multiple motors or actuators and associated control loops, in order to perform disc reading: Put another way, jitter is compounded by the spinning CD which induces various types of power supply jitter. (I can see why esoteric built the VRDS Neo mechanism.) Novas Memory Player does away with spinning CDs in realtime. Playback is driven by a computer. |