Pssst, letting you in on a little secret: You Don't Need a CD Player!

[Feanor]

Hi Mike,
When I first read your post this morning I thought it was a wind-up, but it turned into a debate. So here are my 2cts.
My wife bought last week an i-pod Nano to use on her long car journeys and got bitten by the PC jukebox bug. So out we went and bought an offboard DAC "Perreaux Silhoutte SXD".
....

Peace

Bernd

Bernd, at what resolution is your wife's music encoded?

I'll be the first to agree that compressed formats aren't nearly as good as lossless formats: there is a "huge" loss of resolution and transparency.

[Wireworm5]

There is one exception to this that I am aware of, that is copy protected cd's. Fortunately I only have a few, but if you burn a copy to a cd-r and I assume tranfer to PC you won't get the sound quality that is on the original cd. I found this out the other day, I was playing a burned copy and it had some skips that was annoying me to the point that I pulled out the original cd. I was immediately aware of how much better this cd sounded then the cd-r. So with some copy protected cd's you have to play them in a standalone cd player.

[JohnMichael]

Computers and A/V are seperate in my home. Why somebody would watch a movie on the computer or use it as part of a home theather is by me. Guess i'm old school when it come to this.

Shokhead I guess I am very old school. Two channel stereo in the living room, TV in the bedroom and my computer will have nothing to do with either one.

[Mike Anderson]

My wife bought last week an i-pod Nano to use on her long car journeys and got bitten by the PC jukebox bug. So out we went and bought an offboard DAC "Perreaux Silhoutte SXD".

Bernd,

If this is the product:

http://www.perreaux.com/product.php?idp=52

Then yes, you are doing the encoding and digital-to-analog conversion offboard. That will sound much better than taking the audio right out of your computer's sound card.

However, I see that unit uses 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs. Those are OK, but at EUR 999, the unit is *way* overpriced for what it does. You can get the same 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs in the Squeezebox for $250 USD. You can't plug your CD player into it, but you get way more functionality with the remote control access to all your music, Internet radio etc.

See if you can return the Perreaux. For the kind of money you're spending, you'd be much better off getting a much higher quality DAC like the Benchmark.

[Feanor]

Have you listened to a computer setup with an offboard DAC?

I fully agree that if you just take the sound signal out of a laptop, it's going to suffer big time. But in my case, the analog signal is coming not from the computer, but a Benchmark DAC1. And you can make your DAC as fancy as you like.

Thus the computer is not acting as a sound signal generator, it's merely a storage and management device. My Squeezebox is acting as a "transport", and the DAC deals with any jitter problems.

You know that there are certain equipment snobs who will never admit that a lower cost solution will approach -- or maybe exceed -- a high-cost solution. Don't bother them with facts, their minds are made up.

[Mike Anderson]

^^^ That's OK, he's entitled to his opinion too.

FWIW, there are an awful lot of "equipment snobs" who are going the way of the computer. Check out the Squeezebox forums, there are some very serious audiophiles, as well as some extremely knowledgeable engineers there:

http://forums.slimdevices.com/

Look at some of the setups folks are using (including Apogees):

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...ghlight=apogee

[PHiX]

You'd have to use a pc dedicated for music, which is more expensive than a cd player. Any that is used for other purposes will become fragmented and might hurt your listening experience by skipping or fluctuations of other processes (windows!). Not only would you need a hard drive, but a good sound card as well and those add up to the price. I do believe the cd player is outdated, but I hope we'll some day get a lot of dedicated music servers on the market... like hifi audiophile iPods. I know Cambridge has one, but $1200 for a 160Gb hard disk player is a rip-off. You could buy 10 160 Gb hard drives and still have money left to buy a pc to put the components in.

[Mike Anderson]

You'd have to use a pc dedicated for music, which is more expensive than a cd player. Any that is used for other purposes will become fragmented and might hurt your listening experience by skipping or fluctuations of other processes (windows!). Not only would you need a hard drive, but a good sound card as well and those add up to the price. I do believe the cd player is outdated, but I hope we'll some day get a lot of dedicated music servers on the market... like hifi audiophile iPods. I know Cambridge has one, but $1200 for a 160Gb hard disk player is a rip-off. You could buy 10 160 Gb hard drives and still have money left to buy a pc to put the components in.

I don't use a dedicated PC, I just used what I already had sitting around, which is the same computer we use to do everything else. It simply doesn't require that much memory to run the music server software.

I don't use the sound card either, all the encoding and conversion is done offboard.

I did get an external hard drive, but those aren't that expensive these days, and it isn't necessary unless your present hard drive isn't large enough to accomodate your collection.

Note: I have nearly 8,000 "songs" (many of which are really radio show segments running up to an hour), and 99% of it is in FLAC (lossless compression, about half the size of redbook CD file sizes). It's still not a problem for my PC.

[JoeE SP9]

Why do so many who come to audio through their interest in computers want to get rid of CD's and other tangible sources? It reminds me of the introduction of CD's. That was a wonderful time for me. I was not happy with “perfect sound forever” from the beginning. As an early adopter I bought a CD player when they were all in the kilobuck price range. To all those wonderful people who sold their vinyl I thank you again. If I'm lucky I'll be able to get a mountain of CD's as people start ripping them to HD (hard drives). There is a high convenience factor associated with putting one's music on a music server. There is also a very high risk factor that most ignore or forget about. Hard drives are not in any way reliable. The reason servers use RAID arrays is because we who work with them know that hard drives die with no warning. The raid array stripes data across several drives so that when a drive failure occurs, and it will, the dead drive can be swapped out and the missing data reconstructed on the fly. I have no idea how this would work with music or even if it can. Don't get me wrong. I have been working at integrating my audio and video since 1967 when I bought a Pioneer TVX-95 TV audio tuner. It allowed me to have TV audio through my stereo. This was way before stereo TV and VCR's.

When I bought an IBM PC they came with 360K floppy drives and had no sound. I have been in the vanguard of computer audio from the beginning starting with the old AdLib sound cards. Even now My main PC is connected to my stereo. I rip LP's to be burned on CD and output Pandora to my stereo when I'm feeling lazy. I agree that the idea of having a personal jukebox that plays what you want is very nice. One problem for me is spending the time ripping 1000+ CD's to hard drive. The other problem is the sheer size of the files. Any kind of audio compression other than lossless is not for me. Of course there is the remote control thing and I need the exercise I get changing the LP or CD anyway. I would guess that using an outboard DAC would remove any question of sound quality. The thing to remember is whatever you do, don't get rid of your CD's because one day that hard drive will crash taking all of your data (music) with it. The larger hard drives are the ones on the bleeding edge of technology and they are the ones most liable to crash. Unfortunately the larger hard drives are the ones folks with large music collections need to rip their CD's to.

[Mike Anderson]

Why do so many who come to audio through their interest in computers want to get rid of CD's and other tangible sources?

1) As I started out saying in this thread, the quality for the $ is much higher, if you go about it the right way;

2) You say "convenience", I say "power"! I can play any song out of my huge collection instantly, without getting out of my chair. I can build playlists for parties. I can randomly generate playlists, or play only one genre, or one year. I can search through my collection instantaneously for any song/artist/album/whatever.

And because I can play songs randomly, I often hear songs I haven't heard in a long time, and wouldn't have heard if I had to use the CD player, because it simply wouldn't have occurred to me to go find the CD and put it in the player.

It's just... COOL!

Really, at some point you have to admit that "convenience" goes far beyond the meaning of that word.

You wouldn't believe how people react to my system when they see it in operation. They're wordless -- not just at the sound quality (which also blows them away), but the sheer *power* of it. I say "name your favorite group" and about five seconds later it's playing!

I've also had people thank me very heartily after I convinced them to buy a Squeezebox.

As far as hard drive failure: after I rip a dozen or so CDs in FLAC and have them all properly tagged (another feature you don't get with CDs), I back them up on an archive-quality DVD that will last a lot longer than any hard drive I'll ever own.

[Woochifer]

Very interesting thread with a lot to think about. With the growth in distributed music servers, I never really thought much of it simply because those devices have only been feasible by converting and compressing the music files due to their comparatively limited storage space.

Now that 500 GB SATA drives are going for less than $200, you're probably right that the time has arrived to start thinking of the computer as a viable music storage and management system, because with that amount of storage, it's now possible to store a large music collection using lossless encoding. I'd be curious as to how this would work with a wireless network because my desktop computer is nowhere near my audio system, and if I have to run CAT5 cabling then I'd rather stick with loading up my CD changer. For one thing, I already own a CD player and keep my CD collection in the same room with my audio system.

I know that the market is headed towards greater convergence between the PC and home entertainment worlds, but the thing that I like about having a standalone audio system is the simplicity and reliability. A CD player or a receiver will simply power up and you're ready to go -- no operating system to go through, no network security patches, no blue screens, etc. And as Joe already mentioned, if a hard drive goes kaput, there goes the music collection (and RAID or other backup configurations add cost). If you have the CDs in your collection, you don't have to worry about losing your music if the CD player breaks, or re-encoding everything if the hard drive fails.

The other factor that would keep me from getting rid of my CD player altogether is that I play SACDs, which have copy protection. Someone else already mentioned the copy protection schemes built into some CDs that prevent them from playing on CD-ROM drives.

Still though, you're bringing up some good points and a lot of ideas that I hadn't thought about yet. The weak link with sound cards has always been the analog circuitry, and using an external DAC gets around this issue.

[superpanavision70mm]

Well, I don't have much to add to this particular thread other than this...

At least CD players don't get viruses like a PC....Apple for me all the way, but never for serious music playback.

[Bernd]

Bernd,

If this is the product:

http://www.perreaux.com/product.php?idp=52

Then yes, you are doing the encoding and digital-to-analog conversion offboard. That will sound much better than taking the audio right out of your computer's sound card.

However, I see that unit uses 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs. Those are OK, but at EUR 999, the unit is *way* overpriced for what it does. You can get the same 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs in the Squeezebox for $250 USD. You can't plug your CD player into it, but you get way more functionality with the remote control access to all your music, Internet radio etc.

See if you can return the Perreaux. For the kind of money you're spending, you'd be much better off getting a much higher quality DAC like the Benchmark.

Jep, that's the one. And I have no doubt that there are better units out there, but as my wife bought this (because it looks nice) I doubt that it will be returned.
As for me if it keeps her happy I am good with that. As I have no desire to put a PC into my listening chain.
Thanks for the tips though and glad the tubes are doing stern service. Good aren't they?

Peace

Bernd

[Bernd]

You know that there are certain equipment snobs who will never admit that a lower cost solution will approach -- or maybe exceed -- a high-cost solution. Don't bother them with facts, their minds are made up.

My dear friend Feanor,

I hope this wasn't a cheap shot directed at me. I am far from an equipment snob. I am all for it to spent less for better performance. Just haven't come across to many units that fit that.
Hope you are well.

Peace

Bernd

[Florian]

My dear friend Feanor,

I hope this wasn't a cheap shot directed at me. I am far from an equipment snob. I am all for it to spent less for better performance. Just haven't come across to many units that fit that.
Hope you are well.

Peace

Bernd

You know how it is Bernd. Those that cant hear the difference, will point a finger and call you a snob. Its normal! And once they hear a system that blows their mind, they are too stuck in their routine bashing of quality equipment that they cant admit that they are wrong.

-Flo

[Mike Anderson]

Still though, you're bringing up some good points and a lot of ideas that I hadn't thought about yet. The weak link with sound cards has always been the analog circuitry, and using an external DAC gets around this issue.

Wooch, you (and for that matter, anyone else nearby) are welcomed to come check out my setup.

As far as wireless, the Squeezebox works wirelessly. (And if you have an Apple setup, so does the Airport Extreme, but you have to control the music from your computer, whereas the SB has a remote control.)

I will say that because the SB is cutting edge technology, it helps to be computer savvy to get the most out of it and have it working 100% smoothly. A small but non-negligible minority of people do experience problems getting it to work wirelessly. (There's a review of it on this site that details such problems.)

What's very cool is the whole community of fanatics, engineers and computer geeks that have sprung up around the thing. The code for the server is open-source, so people create all these crazy plugins that let you do dozens of different things with the SB:

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?SlimServerPlugins

[Feanor]

My dear friend Feanor,

I hope this wasn't a cheap shot directed at me. I am far from an equipment snob. I am all for it to spent less for better performance. Just haven't come across to many units that fit that.
Hope you are well.

Peace

Bernd

Bernd, it was a bit of shot, but not necessarily aimed at you. Incidentally, you are always gentlemanly and tactful, other people occassional forget themselve, (maybe I'm one: sorry).

There are diminishing returns in home audio. I don't acknowledge any huge gulf, as Flo implied, between really high-end systems like yours, Florian's, E-Stat's, et al.. Differences from more modest systems like mine, and Mike's maybe, are real enough in general, but incremental. Admittedly if I'd had more cash I'd spend more on hi-fi, but I try to keep diminishing returns in perspective.

Speaking of "huge gulfs", I proposed that such a difference exists between stereo and multichannel when the latter is properly done. I guess we disagree on that too.

[Florian]

Bernd, it was a bit of shot, but not necessarily aimed at you. Incidentally, you are always gentlemanly and tactful, other people occassional forget themselve, (maybe I'm one: sorry).

There are diminishing returns in home audio. I don't acknowledge any huge gulf, as Flo implied, between really high-end systems like yours, Florian's, E-Stat's, et al.. Differences from more modest systems like mine, and Mike's maybe, are real enough in general, but incremental. Admittedly if I'd had more cash I'd spend more on hi-fi, but I try to keep diminishing returns in perspective.

Speaking of "huge gulfs", I proposed that such a difference exists between stereo and multichannel when the latter is properly done. I guess we disagree on that too.

You know guys, Multi Channel, Vinyl or Squeeze boxes all have their fans. MC systems can kick ass, Vinyl can kick ass and so can a Squeeze box and a laptop over some CD players. But never in "absolut" terms.

I think its cool that you guys try out MC and Squeeze boxes and if that works for you and you like then more power to you. I have build some crazy things in the past, and can see the fascination.

Keep on Rockin!

But please accept that E-Stat, Bernd, Joe and myself are two channel, vinyl and freaks who simply will keep their music in a different way and do not care about diminishing returns first.....if we can...we go the next level.. By the way, how many are there?

:-)

[GMichael]

You know guys, Multi Channel, Vinyl or Squeeze boxes all have their fans. MC systems can kick ass, Vinyl can kick ass and so can a Squeeze box and a laptop over some CD players. But never in "absolut" terms.

I think its cool that you guys try out MC and Squeeze boxes and if that works for you and you like then more power to you. I have build some crazy things in the past, and can see the fascination.

Keep on Rockin!

But please accept that E-Stat, Bernd, Joe and myself are two channel, vinyl and freaks who simply will keep their music in a different way and do not care about diminishing returns first.....if we can...we go the next level.. By the way, how many are there?

:-)

42. The answer is 42.

OK, I'll go first.

My name is Michael, and I love music. It's been almost 23 seconds sinse my last CD.

[Mike Anderson]

But please accept that E-Stat, Bernd, Joe and myself are two channel, vinyl and freaks who simply will keep their music in a different way and do not care about diminishing returns first.....if we can...we go the next level.

And I accept that fully.

My thread is really aimed at the countless number of people who post in these forums, asking "What's the best CD player I can get for $800?" without knowing that they have a whole other alternative for playing their CDs.

These folks aren't going to drop $20k on a set of refurbished Apogees and a high-end amp to power them. For them, the quality of sound they can get out of a computer for $800 surpasses what they will get out of the CD player they will otherwise buy -- and the power of music management they'll get from the computer is a whole other world.

I will say that going the computer route requires a little more effort. For one, you have to rip your CDs (a time-consuming task if you have a large collection, although you can also ship them out to someone else if you want to pay for it.) You also have to have a little bit of computer savvy. It isn't quite plug'n'play yet.

But for those who make the effort, it's extremely rewarding.

(And Florian, I still maintain that you could do as well or better than your CD player if you ran your computer into a high-end DAC, but I won't push the point.)

[Florian]

Yes, i agree and we should make a new Thread with a description of how to use this and make it a sticky and lock it!

My suggestion, but i only have that power in the planar section. Maybe JM or Ericl, E-Stat etc..can help?

-Flo

(And Florian, I still maintain that you could do as well or better than your CD player if you ran your computer into a high-end DAC, but I won't push the point.)

I tried that with a Tag McLaren Processor and a Apple Ibook....never underestimate my choices ;-)

[Florian]

To Mike:

Not to be a snob, but i had 16000$ Krell DACS in here, your little Benchmark too and i kept the wadia for a reason ;-) I am saving for the dcs dacs or big Wadia 861SE

[Mike Anderson]

Not to be a snob, but i had 16000$ Krell DACS in here, your little Benchmark too and i kept the wadia for a reason ;-) I am saving for the dcs dacs or big Wadia 861SE

Well OK, but it simply isn't fair to compare a piece of gear costing $10k-16k with something costing $950.

Please remember that most people simply don't have that kind of money to drop on a CD player or DAC. People have families, mortgages, kids who want to go to college, retirement funds, etc, and vew few of us can afford to indulge our hobbies to that degree. It's hard enough for me to justify a Benchmark, the Pathos Logos and Maggies.

The Squeezebox, on the other hand, is $250 ($300 for the wireless option). Just about anybody can afford that!

[Florian]

Well then you should have phrased it differently. This was directed at me, and so you got a response with me ;-)

(And Florian, I still maintain that you could do as well or better than your CD player if you ran your computer into a high-end DAC, but I won't push the point.)

If we are comparing squeeze boxes to 1K players then ok, but you cant argue FOR the SB and when i bring up something that will run circles around it, lift up the flag and say noone can afford it.

;-)

[Mike Anderson]

If we are comparing squeeze boxes to 1K players then ok, but you cant argue FOR the SB and when i bring up something that will run circles around it, lift up the flag and say noone can afford it.

;-)

Sorry, this exchange got a little confused -- I was talking about your reference to the Benchmark in comparison to the Wadia and the $16k Krell DACS.

And just for anyone else who's confused by this:

1) The Squeezebox has both analog and digital outs. The analog outs use the 24-bit Burr-Brown DACs. Those are pretty good, and probably compete with a $1k CD Player from a couple years ago.

2) But you can also take the digital out of the Squeezebox, and run it into a high-end DAC if you like, including the $16k Krells, or whatever you like.

I'm not an engineer, but I'm not sure why any CD player should be able to best this kind of a setup. As long as you're getting error-free rips, and you're decoding with an inaudible level of jitter -- both of which aren't hard -- I can't imagine why you couldn't use the exact same DAC technology (and other hardware) that comes with the best CD Player money can buy.

What, then, would account for any differences? I don't know enough about the technology to answer that question, but maybe somebody else here does.

Perhaps I'll post something on the Squeezebox forums.