Prepairing for the BDP-1

Mag · « **on:** 1 Jun 2010, 05:56 pm »

With the anticipation of having my 3B SST/2 paid for by July. I'm preparing for the purchase of BDP-1 and BDA-1.

So yesterday I went through most of my cd collection to make sure I have a back up copy and put them in alphabetical order. That took like 11 hours, with only 500 cds. I still have another 400 or so to listen to and sort through over the next year. I will rip these to computer using a 1 or 2TB Hd, I already have a head start with 200 gigabytes on HD.

Next I'm planning to build my own computer dedicated for sound quality. However I don't know the first thing about it. How to set the Bios etc. I'll use my Samsung Imagewriter, (this cd-rom will rip anything if its set up correctly.) buy a good motherboard, chips, soundcard, etc..

Then I need to get a new rack as I've run out of space for everything.

What are you doing to prepare for the BDP-1?

Napalm · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 06:05 pm »

Quote from: Mag on 1 Jun 2010, 05:56 pm

What are you doing to prepare for the BDP-1?

Overtime.

If you want to make your own there are some good ideas and reviews here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Nap.

srb · « **Reply #2 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 06:45 pm »

If you are going to use the Bryston BDP-1 for file playback, then you would only be using the computer for ripping of files and for control of the BDP-1. The sound quality of your ripped files would be more dependent on the CDROM drive and the ripping software, but from there, sound quality will be the domain of the BDP-1.

Choice of soundcard is irrelevant as you won't be using it for playback. Likewise, the motherboard, processor and memory don't have to be fast for these tasks, but you would of course want a quality motherboard. Perhaps the most important consideration might be how to make it noiseless or super-quiet if it is going to be in the listening environment.

Steve

sfraser · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 07:47 pm »

SRB is right, once your files are ripped to FLAC format, the computer they are stored on should not have any effect on the sound quality. The computer is only responsible for transferring the music over the ethernet network in file chunks to your BDP-1 which will uncompress or decode the music file and send it out as a digital stream towards your DAC . Please keep in mind, the last i heard network file transfers won't be available day one. Therefore, buy your self a 16G thumb drive, plug it in to your computer with the music on it, copy over 30-50 CD's that you might want to listen to, onto the the thumb drive and then plug the thumb drive into your BDP. The BDP will read the content of the thumb drive and should be able to uncompress the content and stream it out to your DAC.

nikon · « **Reply #4 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 08:04 pm »

To prepare for the BDP-1, I traded my BCD-1 in on a new 3B-SST2 in April to bi-amp my PMC IB-1S with my 4B-SST2 (did not have a lot of CD to start with and system not used much)

Will be ordering BDP-1/BDA-1 when launched in black to match rest of system ...

Looking for aluminum bodied USB drives now for BDP-1 ...

Napalm · « **Reply #5 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 08:18 pm »

and guess what, they make a 2.5" HD RAID 0/1 box too.... I was just complaining the other day that there's no such thing.... well they came out with one:

Nap.

Mag · « **Reply #6 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 10:41 pm »

Quote from: Napalm on 1 Jun 2010, 06:05 pm

Overtime.

If you want to make your own there are some good ideas and reviews here:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/

Nap.

Heh, water cooled CPU! I might need that for high ripping speed.

Mag · « **Reply #7 on:** 1 Jun 2010, 10:49 pm »

Quote from: srb on 1 Jun 2010, 06:45 pm

If you are going to use the Bryston BDP-1 for file playback, then you would only be using the computer for ripping of files and for control of the BDP-1. The sound quality of your ripped files would be more dependent on the CDROM drive and the ripping software, but from there, sound quality will be the domain of the BDP-1.

Choice of soundcard is irrelevant as you won't be using it for playback. Likewise, the motherboard, processor and memory don't have to be fast for these tasks. You would of course want a quality motherboard with good USB implementation. Perhaps the most important consideration might be how to make it noiseless or super-quiet if it is going to be in the listening environment.

Steve

Okay, I should be able to use my old computer that already has a soundcard, just got to get new operating system and HD.

It is too slow for ripping though.

sfraser · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 02:29 am »

Quote from: Mag on 1 Jun 2010, 10:49 pm

Okay, I should be able to use my old computer that already has a soundcard, just got to get new operating system and HD.

It is too slow for ripping though.

If your computer is less than 5-7 years old, it should be ok for ripping. Sometimes a new cd-rom drive will help things. You mentioned that you ripped 500 CD's in 11 hours? that sounds pretty fast actually! What software are you using, and I presume you are ripping them to FLAC files?

Mag · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 02:50 am »

It's about 10 years old, has an AMD 1.2 chip. It took me two weeks straight to rip 120 gigs in wave format. I don't think I can sit there for 2 weeks again.

I have another computer with a Pentium 4 I can use, but has no soundcard. But I have an external soundcard if needed. Some how the sound stopped working, my friend the computer whiz determined it was software related but couldn't fix the problem. So I tried to overwrite Windows installed OS with and older version and it won't even boot up now. So I have to get Windows 7 and hopefully that will work.

sfraser · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 04:18 am »

Quote from: Mag on 2 Jun 2010, 02:50 am

It's about 10 years old, has an AMD 1.2 chip. It took me two weeks straight to rip 120 gigs in wave format. I don't think I can sit there for 2 weeks again.

I have another computer with a Pentium 4 I can use, but has no soundcard. But I have an external soundcard if needed. Some how the sound stopped working, my friend the computer whiz determined it was software related but couldn't fix the problem. So I tried to overwrite Windows installed OS with and older version and it won't even boot up now. So I have to get Windows 7 and hopefully that will work.

Don't need a soundcard to rip CD's, just the proper software, and a decent CD-ROM drive. Might want to google FLAC, it is a "lossless" file compression format , that will sound exactly the same as a wav file and save you about 50% disk space over WAV. Instead of ripping your music files to WAV format you rip them to FLAC format.

If you don't mind me suggesting, At this point I would do some online reading and ask some more questions on forums like this. As you discovered ripping can be very time consuming......you don't want to do have to it twice.

Also give your file tagging (naming) format some thought as well.

P.S all your ripped wav files can be easily converted over FLAC format if you decide to go that way. I would suggest looking at EAC (Exact Audio Copy) which is free or Media Monkey and dbPoweramp as commercial ripping/tagging software as well.

Cheers,

Scott

StigO · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 02:23 pm »

What file-format do the BDP-1 support? MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg, FLAC, Apple lossless, WMA lossless and WAV music files?

James Tanner · « **Reply #12 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 04:11 pm »

Quote from: StigO on 2 Jun 2010, 02:23 pm

What file-format do the BDP-1 support? MP3, AAC, WMA, Ogg, FLAC, Apple lossless, WMA lossless and WAV music files?

AIFF, WAVE, FLAC, MP3

james

Mag · « **Reply #13 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 05:43 pm »

Quote from: sfraser on 2 Jun 2010, 04:18 am

Don't need a soundcard to rip CD's, just the proper software, and a decent CD-ROM drive. Might want to google FLAC, it is a "lossless" file compression format , that will sound exactly the same as a wav file and save you about 50% disk space over WAV. Instead of ripping your music files to WAV format you rip them to FLAC format.

If you don't mind me suggesting, At this point I would do some online reading and ask some more questions on forums like this. As you discovered ripping can be very time consuming......you don't want to do have to it twice. Also give your file tagging (naming) format some thought as well.

P.S all your ripped wav files can be easily converted over FLAC format if you decide to go that way. I would suggest looking at EAC (Exact Audio Copy) which is free or Media Monkey and dbPoweramp as commercial ripping/tagging software as well.

Cheers,

Scott

I was a pioneer in the early years. First I decided on WMA which didn't take off and lacked platform support. Then converted everything back to wav then MP3, then back to wav. FLAC is a good option in that it'll have the platform support, and tagging.

That is the problem with wave is you can't tag it and most of the time is spent naming the files. Which can be very slow and tedious if you're disorganized like myself.

The benefit of wave is not having to convert anything. If you need a disc for the car or whatever then just rip one disc or convert. With large inexpensive HD you don't have to worry about memory. Just buy a HD that's big enough.

Also in the past using various conversion software. I found that it tended to put random glitches on playback. This may have been a result of viruses or the conversion software. Perhaps the software has been improved and glitches are no longer an issue. I don't know I haven't been active in a number of years.

Most important I don't want the computer online where it may be vulnerable to viruses and hackers. I've had my computer crash, plagued with viruses and HD fail. That is why I'll make or purchase another computer just for audio duty.

StigO · « **Reply #14 on:** 2 Jun 2010, 08:12 pm »

James;

Why not .ape files (Monkey's Audio)?

Is BDP going to be like Linn DS? (just without the DAC)

Stig

Mag · « **Reply #15 on:** 28 Jul 2010, 05:30 pm »

Okay, I made some progress in moving towards a BDP & BDA. Purchased a laptop with 320 gig HD. And also got one of those 2.5" HD with 500 gigs. I can't believe they can pack that much memory into a cigar sized box for only $120.

If I transfer cds that I own to this device, just connect without the laptop, and hit random play button, it'll work?

VOLKS · « **Reply #16 on:** 28 Jul 2010, 05:40 pm »

What are you doing to prepare for the BDP-1?

[/quote]

Nothing,because i still believe its overpriced(at launch time-if you also buy the Dac) and if i do buy one .....it will be a year or so after launch to make sure it actually is and will be a viable product and hopefully most of the "Bugs" will be worked out a year or 2 after launch.........wait and see 4 me

Mag · « **Reply #17 on:** 28 Jul 2010, 05:49 pm »

I'm reluctant at the expenditure as well, being that I already have the BCD-1. I see it as paying for the technology, not so much for the equipment.

I'll be able to put my cd binders away, having less clutter in my room. I can't decide what to play half the time so I'll just let the random play decide. And being that the HD is so compact it's not going to take up any more space than I using now.

KeithA · « **Reply #18 on:** 28 Jul 2010, 09:01 pm »

That's alright James...I'll be the forum Guinea Pig as I'll be getting one

Maybe a set of 7B SST2 to go along with it

Keith

Napalm · « **Reply #19 on:** 29 Jul 2010, 02:54 am »

Quote from: KeithA on 28 Jul 2010, 09:01 pm

That's alright James...I'll be the forum Guinea Pig as I'll be getting one

Maybe a set of 7B SST2 to go along with it

Keith

Thanks Keith. You the man.

Nap.