Wavelength Brick

I think you will be pleased, I know that I am. The Brick replaces a fully modded TriVista and does an admirable job of it and then some. It bests all of my modded Squeezeboxes. And of course it works directly with iTunes which is sweet.

A couple of "tips" - first, do use the Opticis USB cable for total isolation from the Mac. And secondly I did find that the unit is responsive to tube rolling - not a lot, and Gordon does send it out with a good one, but it still seemed to make a difference - I have a NOS Brimar in there now that fattened things up just a bit. Cables of course make a big difference - for grins you might try it straight into your Krell and run the volume from the desktop. Pretty transparent. I found that the case is extremelt rigid so decoupling is not a biggie though I have it up on Ceraballs just because.

BTW I use Apple Lossless, anything less would be a waste.

As for the Cosecant - I wish I could and I am sure I will but for now I am a happy guy.

OK - in order.

Yes, tube rolling means swapping out one tube for another - great phrase, not sure where it came from. Anyhow the premise is that one can vary the sound of a unit by changing the tubes - FWIW Gordon says that because of the way the tube is used in the circuit, the Brick is not a particularly good candidate - certainly not compared to a preamp or power amp.

Opticis cables are sold at

http://industrialcomponent.com/opticis/optusbext.html

The Lossless versus not Lossless has been debated about a million times so far. The consensus is that Lossless means Lossless. That said if you like to use 2x the hard drive space use WAV or AIFF. There are some issues with "tagging" those formats. Tagging refers to adding, managing and accessing metadata such as name, title, album art etc

So the moral of the story is that unless you have bat ears and an over the top system do iTunes with Apple Lossless and be very happy. If you've got the money do the Cosecant and pay someone else to manage your metadata LOL

You will be very happy with a Mac - and guess what the new ones "play" Windows too - what's not too like? LOL

As for the Opticis - main reason is to provide the highest degree of isolation possible - if you are going to be snooty about it, you will want to use a better power supply then the one they used to sell - write them, the proprietor Fast Eddie spent some time posting here and on Asylum. Gordon can fill you in as well. The secondary reason is if you want to put the Brick more then 15 feet from the computer (USB requires all kinds of fancy footwork after that)

The way I see it, you spend your money once and eliminate another variable - really does sound very, very good

The purists among us felt that the stock power supply was a bit noisier then it might be - you might never even hear it... Take a look at The Socket which is a battery power supply. No point in being too picky since there is nothing else like Opticis out there. If you don't want to bother just get the premium Belden gold USB cable.

The choice between an external and an internal drive will make no difference. You need to understand that there is a new paradigm here - this is truly digital. Computers push data in and out all day long - its what they do 24/7/365 around the world. The amount of data involved and the speed of data transfer required to make perfect audio is absolutely trivial. Consider that on my rig I can in digitze a CD (rip) at the same time as I am playing back two different songs - one via USB and one via Ethernet... and surf the web...

If you stress your computer by asking it to do a lot of other things at the same time - particularly data intensive things like process large photoshop files, you may get it to hiccup now and again. You will hear it, it will be momentary and music will resume automatically. You will then have the choice of turning off the music or stopping/reducing your other activities.

There are very few things that will impact the quality of computer served audio. First and foremost is how the data is ripped and compressed. Apple Lossless with error correction "on" and all choices under Preferences/Playback "off" is all you need to do. Second is of course how you get the audio data off the disk and back into music. The Brick is as good as they come, perhaps a bit better with Opticis particularly if you live in a RF/EMI noisy environment or have ground loops. End case.

As far as display, I run iTunes on my computer display. Take a look at the new Apple TV product - it may solve your problem.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/

First off, you are going to like this and it is going to work a whole lot better then you ever expected. Be Happy!

Be sure to read everything on Gordon's site - a few times if need be - so it all makes sense and feels comfortable. Honestly, if you are at all comfortable with computers, this is truly simple but knowledge is power and at the very least will heighten your appreciation.

From a hardware perspective, the paradigm I have offered in previous posts is imagine you know have a perfect source for your system. So that part of the battle. and that set of excuses is over. Everything downstream of the Brick is all about analog audio as you know it. Cables, isolation, power, speaker placement and most certainly room tuning will all come into play and are required to optimize the potential of the new source. Take your time, its the fun part for most. Just know that whatever you hear Day One can only get better.

From a software perspective, there are a few things you can do to make life simpler - and IMHO ultimately better. First, I would buy a dedicated hard drive just for my music library (assuming you are going to have more then a few hundred CDs). Under iTunes Preferences/Advanced/General you will set that hard drive to be the iTunes Music folder location. (Dead easy just hit change and select the HD when it is connected) I named mine Bird.

EVERYTHING GOES IN THERE!!!!

Check (turn on) Keep iTunes Music Folder organized and Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library.

The net result of all this is that everything you ever rip will always be exactly where it is supposed to be. Also, back-up, for which you must get another hard drive for is vastly simplified. Back up one drive and you know you have backed up all your music. BTW iTunes will also put all the album cover art on that drive too.

BTW I am sure like everyone else you are lazy about back-up. So don't go an buy that drive till you rip your first couple of hundred disks. If you are like most people you will decide that back-up however onerous is preferable to doing that again. Backing up once a month or even once a quarter, or after you add another 100 titles (assuming you are starting with a brand new high quality drive) is plenty.

Check out a Mac application called ChronoSync which will handle the mechanics for you admirably and ensure a better backup then you can get by just dragging files from one drive to another.

http://www.econtechnologies.com/site/Pages/ChronoSync/chrono_overview.html

BTW a real back-up, ohhhh that I practice what I preach, is one that is located in a physically different location - you are as much concerned about fire and water damage, theft etc as you are about drive failure.

Once you've set this dedicated drive up, you never have to think about it again. And of course you can access all this with an iPod too. Also, if you ever decide to add a Squeezebox once again you can point it at this single library. And if you want to go over to your buddies or wherever, just grab the one drive and you are on your way.

Enjoy the music!

Hi - suggest you call Gordon in the morning and share your findings - see what he suggests. There is no doubt in my mind that your satisfaction is paramount to him. Meanwhile it sounds as though a few aspirin are in order. Sorry to hear this,

All's well that ends well - forget my recommendation for a few aspirin, yeah, dump the PC and live a little =) Shoot, I could have told you that. As an added benefit you will find that iTunes works a whole lot better too!

As for tubes, I swapped out for a Brimar which mellowed everything right out - I hesitated to recommend it since Gordon has said that because of the circuit design it shouldn't have much effect (placebo or what)...

So new Mac, new Brick, new VTL - whatever is the Easter Bunny going to leave?

Boy do I love a happy camper!

IMHO the Opticis does provide complete isolation from the Mac, and a USB cable does not - I proved this to my satisfaction pre-Brick and owning the Opticis never considered using anything else. I do have a Sprocket battery pack on it.

All that said, Gordon is a very smart guy and one of the few who will not say you don't need something to make his product seem complete.

FWIW he did tell me that he prefers the RCA Cleartops to the Telefunkens in the Brick - that will save you a buck or two if you are undecided about where to start.

Lossless has some significant advantages from a file management point of view since it provides a robust tagging environment which WAV and AIFF do not. Also a lot more reasonable to load on an iPod should you wish to etc. All but the most golden-eared EAC/FLAC/Foobaristas seem to be happy with the choice - but then they are dealing with PCs...

Steve at Empirical Audio did a comparison of some of the formats you might want to take a look at. Apple Lossless is like 2nd or 3rd.

IMHO Opticis is well worth it simply because it provides absolute isolation between computer and DAC - otherwise you have a metal cable connecting the two.

As for the Sprocket, I just leave the darn thing plugged in to the wall wart all the time - end case charging problems... or should I say, memory problems LOL