[musicapristina]

We're about to roll out the A Cappella II and I thought it might be time to actually do something with my Audio Circle account.

A couple of years ago, I sold a copyright and had a few extra bucks. After being completely put off by the local hi-fi dealer, I stumbled on a shop in town run by a guy who fixed broken gear. He was a tube aficionado, and also a Quad dealer (back when they didn't have a US distributor.) One listen to those ESLs and I fell in love.

But then I needed a top notch front end. I picked up a WEISS DAC-202 and my mind was blown. I spent several weeks measuring and tweaking my room with all the DIY acoustical treatments I could find. Some made things better, some worse. I'm a hands-on kind of guy, what can I say.

Then I decided to tackle the source unit. I had read all about linear PSUs in digital audio, and was convinced it was more snake oil. So I set out to prove everyone wrong. I started making phone calls to digital component engineers at various firms, large and small. Anyone who would talk to me, really.

Then one fateful day, I ended up on a call with a guy who lives no more than 2 miles away. David Davenport, of Raleigh Audio. Dave had been making a DAC, and perfecting linear supplies, for the past 6 years or so at the time. He said the best thing I could do was to listen for myself.

So I did. I bought supplies from all over the world. (Well, 3 from California, one from Israel, and a few from Digikey.) And they sounded different.

What? How could this be?

Without meaning to, I started (another) business venture. Word got out that I was making music players and servers and I sold a few here and there.

In the early days they were based on taming the beast known around the globe as Microsoft Windows. Auditioning dozens of motherboards. Tweaking RAM configurations and BIOS settings. Turning off services. Adjusting registry settings.

But I eventually hit the brick wall. I couldn't make Windows sound any better. Oddly, most DACs started to sound the same. Extremely open, natural, delicate yet detailed... but the same. I wanted something better.

So, I set off to explore the dark-side. (First I tried out Windows Embedded, but found it to be too murky)

I assembled a real-time version of Linux on my best hardware setup, and even it sounded the same. (By the same, I mean very difficult to tell whether the differences were real or placebo. I know I fall victim to placebo. I don't know when or by how much)

In a last ditch effort, after a serious contemplation of throwing in my soldering iron, I tried something novel. Pulling audio from a non-PC motherboard. After all, what's it take to interface with Ethernet data, clock it, and spit out an I2S signal? (Admittedly, a lot. A whole darn lot.)

A year or so later, and here we are, rolling out the A Cappella II. A PC-less, Windows-less, Fan-less, Driver-less network player that I truly hope leaves everyone who hears it breathless.

Oxygen mask not included.

--

Please say hi, and feel free to show me around. I'm new here.

Kevin

[Tyson]

Interesting!  Does it have it's own player software, or can you run 3rd party players like Jriver, Foobar, Audirvana, etc....?  Also, I have a ton of music on external USB hard drives - can I just plug those in to the A Capella?  Or do I need to build a NAS?  Or hook them to ethernet?

[musicapristina]

Hi Tyson.

We wrote a front end to control the player. It sounds like overkill with so many great ones out there. However, many of our customers felt a bit overwhelmed with JRiver. So we wanted something that was simple and approachable for anyone. I still use JRiver to manage my library, which in my case, lives on a NAS. But even as a developer, I feel like our UI is simple and fun and let's me keep my focus on listening to music, not running a software application. It feels more like a smart multi-function remote.

Also, the way we built it, the interface is entirely out of the signal chain. Your web browser, on whatever device you choose to use to control the A Cappella, does all the heavy lifting to create the interface. It requests the current queue, which is sent as a list of tracks. So the player doesn't have to dedicate any horsepower to creating the UI. It merely sends info to the remote, and accepts commands from it.

USB drives work... but... The Ethernet spec requires transformers on the data lines, so galvanic isolation between your drives and the A Cappella is guaranteed. With USB drives, the (potentially? likely?) dirty electrical environment they live in bleeds over into the A Cappella. Couple that with a USB DAC, and that noise likely becomes ever so slightly audible. Every device doing USB has this limitation, though, and I don't want to say "the sky is falling" when it comes to USB drives. But, given the option, I'd go with NAS (with RAID for redundancy because all drives eventually die) as the first choice.

[JoshK]

So its a network streamer then? 

[musicapristina]

Do we have a naming convention on devices??? I'm not being flip. I just find that the names change based on who is in the conversation.

When I think "network streamer," I envision a UPnP device (potentially a complex infrastructure to set up for the typical person) and I do not envision USB outputs to a USB DAC. I also don't think of the device as being in charge of the playback. In my mind, a network streamer is a UPnP Renderer.

It is not a server. To me, a server (should) have some type of protected storage and backup strategy. RAID is always nice.

The A Cappella II is a "network player"? The playback commands are processed by it. It has the clocks. It can get it's data via:

• Ethernet (standard file sharing protocols)
• Ethernet (streaming services)
• Internal SSD SATA Drive
• USB Drive

What does anyone else thin about the classification of digital gear in general, and the classification of the A Cappella II in specific?

[JoshK]

I am not concerned with naming conventions.  I was just trying to understand (as I would assume others are) what it doing and how it is used and relating it to what I know.    Basically it is a device that gets data via an ethernet, usb, internal drive and outputs SPDIF? 

 Just my $.02, when marketing your product, you might have a FAQ like introduction where you say in very simple terms what your product is and what it does before going into more technical details about it.

[musicapristina]

Great point about the FAQ.

One correction.... We output USB & I2S. An AES/EBU output is in development.

[musicapristina]

I'm curious what people think about chasing the highest bitrates and sample rates.

[musicapristina]

If you had to limit your Roon Ready player to just 2 outputs, which 2 would you pick?

• I2S over HDMI
• I2S over RJ45
• USB
• S/PDIF over RCA
• S/PDIF over BNC
• AES/EBU over XLR
• Something Else?

[WC]

Assuming the player has no DAC.

1. No. No Standard so no guarantee it will work between different vendors.
2. No. No Standard so no guarantee it will work between different vendors.
3. No. Don't like USB for audio.
4. No. Trying to avoid RCA connectors.
5. Yes.
6. Yes.

[ketcham]

having access to this level of oversampling, 32 bit processing, ability to covert to and from DSD, etc inherent to the dac itself.

Meh, I have come to believe the circuit architecture, with attention to quality, detail and clean signal in a non-oversampling dac that either only does PCM (preferred) or DSD produces the sound that resonates with me best - natural, clarity.   

-j

[audioengr]

Even the difference between 44.1 and 192 is small in my system.  Most people that can afford high-end resolving systems listen to music from the 70's and 80's or even older classical.  Almost none of this is available in DSD, not that I like DSD either. I have had no motivation when it sounds so good at 44.1.  System tweaks, like Jitter reduction, USB or Ethernet optimization have bigger payoffs IMO.

Steve N.

[musicapristina]

>> 3. No. Don't like USB for audio.

If it weren't for that dreaded "U", we could just kill it as an audio interface. Ohh well.

[JohnR]

Personally I think 3 and 4 are the only practical answer despite the shortcomings, any others require relatively uncommon hardware at the other end i.e. you need the other end first to decide what outputs you "need" on the player.

Also, no analog? 

[JohnR]

Hm, is this related to a product you are developing? Please use your introductory thread, as this is a non-commercial circle. https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=134692.0

[mresseguie]

I agree with both ketcham and Steve. My new NOS DAC will arrive in about ten days. No more DAC merry-go-round for me.

Michael

[Elizabeth]

My Marantz SA-10 does DSD. (and converts all CD data to DSD. Pretty much my final DAC for the forseeable future.

[MttBsh]

The ideal sound I want from my home system is what I hear at a live performance in a hall with good acoustics and I think reproducing that sound has less to do with bitrates than with capturing the sense of space and ambience of the music and the tone of the instruments. Of course this has a lot to do with the recording equipment, mike placement, etc. I've listened to some live recordings that come eerily close to how the concert sounded in person. I think the same argument could be made for photography; high resolution (megapixels) is important but the quality of the photo has more to do with faithfully reproducing the light, shade and color present to the eye when the photo was taken.

[OzarkTom]

My Sony Hap-z1es music server converted everything to DSD, but my Bluesound 2i has more detail and a bigger soundstage than the Sony did. 

[musicapristina]

Hm, is this related to a product you are developing? Please use your introductory thread, as this is a non-commercial circle. https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=134692.0

I was going to, and will, avoid any mention of "products".