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Music Server vs. PC vs. Transport vs. ?

I don;t really want to add another rack in my living room. If I do, I may end up sleeping on one of the couches. Ideally, I would like to do the following:

1. Either use a pc or a server to store discs and have them accessable.
2. Have a way for the kids/wife to hook up their ipods
3. Have a way to get digital radio (xm, sirius or even computer streaming, doesn;t matter)
4. Do all of this WITHOUT degrading the sound quality ( i know, the ipod, by definition will do this)

My understanding of most high end DACs is that they do not have USB ports, but that is the ideal port to use to negate jitter. As I was researching this, I got the latest issue of the absolute sound, and they address some of this a bit. My feeling seems to be that one pays a HUGE premium for a server, that both their DACs and PCs DACs suck, and one has to get a USB to AES or other adapter, and still use an external DAC. It also seems that if one is willing to use a lossless system, that the universal opinion is that a hard drive rivals or beats any transports.

So my initial thought would be to get a pc with an ipod dock, run lossless, get an additional adapter say from Wavelength, and use the current dac. That adds at least two pieces, maybe three.

Help?????
Thanks,
Chris

Help??????

Thanks,
Chris
128x128mount_rose_music
deshapiro
177 posts
 
Hi Chris,
Since we have similar systems, let me share my experiences. I sold my Esoteric X-01 Limited to switch to a Wavelength Audio crimson DAC. I used i-tunes off of a Mac-mini. Everything pretty much set up itself. The results are mixed, actually very similar to one of the above posters. Great separation and imaging, but very bass shy. Not boomy bass, but bass dynamics, such as drums. I switched out preamps to an MBL 6010 from an ARC REF3, as you know, and the dynamics improved. I then auditioned an AMR CD player with a USB DAC, and while imaging and soundstaging were not as good, the bass reappeared. i then auditioned a purpose -built PC with all the nno-essential software stripped and with only one moving part, a very quiet fan. This uses solid state memory running S/PDIF to a mid-level MSB DAC. This was far superior in my system, and the crimson is now sold. The other bonus to this approach, besides the sound, is that since the bass is back, I am going to check out digital room correction to see if that can help.
just my $.02

David Shapiro
boofarn
3 posts
 
Check out the Apple TV. I rip all my Cd's into Itunes apple lossless, then Itunes Syncs with the apple Tv which has an Internal 160 GB Hard Drive, then use the optical out on the Apple tv into my DAC. Then from the apple tv into television (home theater setup as well) and then you can scroll through your cd collection with all the artwork etc.. on your tv with the remote. Also of mention the Apple TV has no Volume control, so it's just a digital feed. This Setup has worked EXTREMELY well for me. Compared to my Arcam FMJ cd-23T with the famed Ring Dac it of course is not quite as good, but that is probably due to the dac i'm using in my pre/pro vs. the quality coming off the Apple Tv. Anyways, it's much easier to me than setting up an actual computer as a music server. Also of mention, it's completely Silent, which was of great concern for me. I can't even describe how great it has been not to have to dig through hundreds of Cd's!!
mount_rose_music's avatar
mount_rose_music OP
116 posts
 
Folks thank you all for your time and efforts. One thing that has come through, once you go mac, you never go back..(sorry too good to pass up) but it strikes me that not a single person on this post said "screw it, I;m going back to a transport". Once set up, you all seem to like the harddrive option much better, or are willing to deal with potentially slight sonic losses for ease of music.

If I have the notebook as a controller at my seat, then I can work while I listen, and write it off! So I think for me, that is the way to go. I am going to hear Tommy's system soon, with the Sonos, and his new Ayre amps, that should be fun. Wondering at this point whether I should wait for CES and go see what's there before I make a final decision. Seems like the SD transporter gets very very good reviews, though.

Thanks to all, will post to my system when I finally get off my a$$ and do something.

Merry Christmas,
Chris
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Chris - dont be surprised if the Sonos does not blow you away. It has a great user interface, but the jitter fromt he digital out is atrocious. It needs to be reclocked. The Squeezebox is a lot better stock, but not as much fun as the Sonos to use. I have all of them.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
mount_rose_music's avatar
mount_rose_music OP
116 posts
 
thanks steve, I have browsed your website at length... great out of box thinking. The cool thing is, seeing as I rent both Agilent and Anritsu BER testers, as well as having oscilloscopes in inventory with jitter analysis, I intend to look at that at length. All the the different gazuntas and gazoutas. I have already done that with the two Meitner pieces, and even compared the graphs with and without clock synching, and even compared different optical cables for both loss and jitter. I saved all that on a disk somewhere. So once I set something up, I will measure it and see what is to be seen, and then see what kind of audible difference there is. How boring is my life?
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