[CornellAlum]

Can either of these boxes, well any wireless solution for that matter, stream 24/96 data across the wireless connection?  I record all of my live concerts either at 24/48, and 24/96, and downconverting is a real PITA.

Daryan

[windwaves]

how is the Squeezebox different from Apple's Airport Express, apart from features, I wonder for audio quality, anyone has an idea ?

thx

[JoshK]

Can either of these boxes, well any wireless solution for that matter, stream 24/96 data across the wireless connection?  I record all of my live concerts either at 24/48, and 24/96, and downconverting is a real PITA.

Daryan

I *believe* you can but I am not 100% sure.  Check out slimdevices website and they have plenty of info.  You can also probably downconvert on the fly if it can't handle that data format.  


One note.  I just want to make it clear that I am not selling the idea that the SB is the greatest thing since sliced bread or that it is the new best thing.   I am just trying to communicate that it is a nice solution to trying out PC based audio.  It should work really nicely and all reports are that it sound is quite good.  I will soon enough know for myself whether it stands up to the big boys or whether it is just a really convenient source.  Either way it will likely be a strong hold in my system given the convenience of playback when I am not critically listening which is quite often, especially with remodeling the house.

[brj]

how is the Squeezebox different from Apple's Airport Express, apart from features, I wonder for audio quality, anyone has an idea ?

One important difference... the Apple product has a USB out and the SqueezeBox and Roku Labs products do not.

My understanding is that passing bit-perfect audio via USB eliminates all jitter normally inherant to the data transfer process.  S/PDIF and coax connections don't have this benefit.  You may still have other sources of jitter in your system, of course...

There are a few modders out there now that will convert an S/PDIF connection to a USB connection.

[Tubo]

Hi, I joined AC a few weeks ago and come late to this discussion. Apologies.

First, in answer to the original question in this thread, I have switched to PC-based audio and I am very happy. I did it in the simplest way: I bought an Apple Airport Express (and Apple delivered 2 of them, by mistake). I use my iMac to rip my CD's and store them in Apple Lossless Compression format. I play my ALC files from my hard drive, they are transmitted wirelessly to an AE in my living room and to another AE in my bedroom (unfortunately, not simultaneously).

I take the Toslink signal from the AE in the living room into a Monarchy DIP and then into my AckDack; then into my preamp, etc. (The Monarchy is necessary to convert from Toslink to coaxial.) The sound is fabulous, better than using my Marantz CD-63SE as a transport.

I take the analog signal from the AE in the bedroom and feed it directly into a pair of ASL Wave 8's. No preamp. I control the volume via iTunes in my iMac. Sound is very good, although not as good as using the digital signal.

As far as I can tell the USB connection in the AE does not provide a digital sound signal; it can only be used for wireless Internet and wireless printing. Gordon Rankin has remarked elsewhere that Apple told him it would be simple to rewrite the software so that the USB connection could provide digital sound out.

For more info, see the Stereophile review of the AE. It is in their website.

Have fun!

Al Lau

[thayerg]

Tubo,

Thanks for some sanity and the discussion of the Airport Express. I do similar things with my AEs, one sends optical to Meridian HT boxes and the other supplies analog to an ASL 1003. I like the minimalism of your AE/Wave 8 configuration.

Does anyone actually know whether the Roku D/A sucks as was implied in an earlier post? I have a Turtle Beach Audiotron which had a terrible d/a section and frankly selecting music from a big collection was truly painful but I could see uses for the Roku/Squeezebox approach.

I think the problem with wifi-g is not how many networks are in your area but the bandwidth possible on the network your hosts join. One of my AEs is right at the reception fringe but it only occasionally drops out when some body (literally) blocks the signal.  You can select something called 'interference robustness' on the AE config utility, which seems to help. I see anywhere from two to four networks on my wifi config screen in addition to my own.

If you do need to wire an AE you can also select "Audio over Ethernet' and use it as a wired solution. Apple really seems to think this stuff through.

[Brad]

The Roku has a digital out, too.

I can't speak to the analog sound quality though.

Tubo:
Thanks for the report on the Airport Express.
Are you using the Monster cable set that Apple sells with the AE?

[Tubo]

Brad,

I am using a Sonic Wave glass Toslink cable. I use a miniplug to RCA converter to hook it into the AE. The converter is just a hollow shell that allows the Sonic Wave cable to see the optical signal directly. I bought both from www.impactacoustics.com. (Sorry, I haven't mastered the art of posting a link on AC.)

[Brad]

Miniplug to RCA?
I see a miniplug to Toslink on their website

I guess I could paint it white to match the AE...

[Tubo]

Sorry, I meant optical miniplug to Toslink.

[PhilNYC]

Josh,

What is your timeframe on this project?

I am thinking about using the SB2 to feed my TacT.  

It would be great to get an audiophile opinion before jumping in.

George

George,

I took the SB2 plunge and ordered one earlier this week.  It should arrive tomorrow.  Have been ripping some CDs to .wav files to get ready to try it out.  Will be using it with the big rig via 802.11g...

[zybar]

Thanks Phil.

Keep me posted and let me know if it betters your EA transport.

On a different thread, Steve Nugent feels that computer based audio is superior to his best transport even when using one of his lower end computer based products.

George

[PhilNYC]

George,

Btw - for what its worth, the guy who convinced me to try the SB2 is using one with this Tact.  The rest of his system is a Berning OTL amp and Sonus Faber monitors.  Since getting the Tact and his SB (he has the 1, not the 2), he has stopped using his Burmester 001, which he is now selling (in case anyone is interested)...

[Carlman]

Thanks Phil.

Keep me posted and let me know if it betters your EA transport.

On a different thread, Steve Nugent feels that computer based audio is superior to his best transport even when using one of his lower end computer based products.

George

I think that all depends on what you're listening for... If you like a continuous, analog-like sound, I think the PC does that well.  However, mine has been bettered in dynamics and/or clarity by an upper end transport/player. (Bel Canto)  

You can have it all (dynamics, clarity, detail), and I don't mean to talk in absolutes... but the PC and a good cd player have different sounds or presentations.  If you're not listening for the type of quality that the PC delivers, you may not hear the value of going with a PC... However, for those of us that like that particular presentation, it sounds the best and nothing else will do... You've basically found your new platform and you can improve from there.... and 'get it all'...  But that foundation of the analog presentation doesn't exist with any cd player I've heard.

I hope this is making sense.  My suspiscion is that Steve at EA hears that special quality that the PC produces and knows that whatever it's doing, it sounds more natural, smooth, analog, whatever.. to him... and that's his preference.  It's mine as well.  

My PC bettered my vinyl rig w/ the DK Integrated stock phono input.  The PC sounded more analog and just 'better' in every way than the DK.  Unfortunately, the Minimax phono pre knocked me back into vinyl=better...  I'm saving for that one now...

[Jon L]

I hesitated to answer to this thread b/c I was "not happy" with my audio PC due to occasional dropouts.  UNTIL now.  With huge upsampling to 176.4kHz, even with max ASIO buffer, I was still getting occasional skips/dropouts, but since setting a 'hidden' priority thread for foobar under task manager window to max/realtime, I have not heard a single dropout!!  

Yes, I'm happy now.  I'm even happy with my Lynx card as my main DAC.  You do need tubes somewhere in the system, and I do, and while I've heard "better" outboard DAC solutions, especially via USB out, the sound I'm getting is good enough that I don't need to spend more money on a DAC.  

Currently, I have a couple of thousand songs (Flac) in my "Favorites" playlist, and I just lay back, push "random" and forget about it..  Can't believe how I used to open one CD at a time  

[Garyg]

Jon

I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the hidden thread bit. I've just blown the tweeters in my speakers due to my DAC losing 'lock' and emitting white noise at full volume, thankfully I wasn't in the room when it happened it was deafening!

Regards
Gary

[JoshK]

Jon

I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the hidden thread bit. I've just blown the tweeters in my speakers due to my DAC losing 'lock' and emitting white noise at full volume, thankfully I wasn't in the room when it happened it was deafening!

Regards
Gary

You should prevent this from happening again by adding a CAP in series with the Tweeter at a point much lower than the xo freq.   I am assuming you are actively amping?

[Jon L]

Jon

I would be grateful if you could elaborate on the hidden thread bit. I've just blown the tweeters in my speakers due to my DAC losing 'lock' and emitting white noise at full volume, thankfully I wasn't in the room when it happened it was deafening!

Regards
Gary

That's very strange b/c even when I got dropouts, I would just lose music without white noise.  I think you should work on or ask about automatic Mute function of your DAC first.  Hopefully it has auto mute capabilities.

Otherwise, yes you can minimize dropouts from Foobar.  Here's what I posted before:

"Hooray! I've long put up with occasional tick/pops in foobar when upsampling to 174.4kHz b/c max buffer setting for my Lynx was 1024 in ASIO. Reducing the buffer makes it much worse and unlistenable. Tried everything but there was no cure.

Paradoxically, reducing the thread priority under Foobar "Playback" menu by one notch helped a lot but not 100%. One would think highest setting for thread priority would be better, but it's not. Not for THIS thread priority anyway.

There's another "thread priority" bar in Foobar "Core" menu. This doesn't seem to make the skips better or worse.

Then there's another "thread priority," which cured my nagging problem! This one is sort of hidden. Press control/alt/delete to bring up the Task manager window. Select Foobar2K and then right click. There's a menu called "set priority." Set that to highest, and voila, all ticks and pops are now GONE!

Another little trick on this steep learning curve called Audio PC.."

[Garyg]

Thanks for the info Jon.

I'm using the USB Off-Ramp with a Big Ben into my DAC, the problem occurs when the Big Ben loses lock. On my Wadia DAC it's not so much of a problem, the white noise is at the volume that the music is playing at, on my Audio Synthesis DAC it's full volume.

The Big Ben has a setting to switch to a dummy signal when it loses lock which didn't work too well with a previous DAC and is switched off, I'll switch it back on to see if it helps. It doesn't help having amps capable of delivering more power than the speaker is rated at, maybe it's time I spent some money on attenuators or a pre-amp.

Regards
Gary