[soliver]

So I received my BDP-2 yesterday, but currently haven't moved on any cables to connect it to my DAC (only have some old SPDIF RCA's laying around), nor have I invested yet in feeding files to it.

Seeking guidance based on others experiences.

For file input:
I have a NAS currently with about 1 TB of songs on it, but I am guessing this is not the best option for highest SQ.
I am considering getting an internal SSD to use as the scratch drive and extra storage maybe 256 GB size.
And then doing a USB Flash drive of 512 GB in size, maybe even 1TB.

But which of those methods though offer the best performance?  I believe I have read Flash best, NAS worst, but looking for more insight.

Secondly, for the digital connection is the AES/EBU connection the agreed upon best output for SQ?
How about the USB output now offered, where does it fall amongst the three options? What are it's shortfalls?
What I am currently considering is a purchasing the Shunyata Anaconda Ztron AES cable and the doing the Shunyata Venom USB for future DSD stuff only.  Or should I invest more in a USB only connection, or am I missing out with BNC?  The absolute Sound review mentioned he preferred the BNC output, so that is stuck in the back of my mind. 

So again any real world experiences to offer up?
Just trying to narrow my search, and hopefully keep from going in a wrong direction.

Thanks

[werd]

What dac are you using?

[ttsto]

Hi

I tried thumb drives, USB powered disks, USB disks with external power and NAS. I could not figure change in music quality but I had my share of adventures with 2 identical USB connected HDD, one not being recognized randomly

Once I moved to NAS I never used the other methods. It is very convenient and in my case update runs faster. Also copying from PC to NAS is faster than PC to USB drive attached to BDP

Scratch drive - I never figured what is it for

As remote control for the BDP I use Android phone and Cantata on Windows PC

As output I prefer AES but I am not sure if is BDP or DAC related

Enjoy your BDP!

[Grit]

I tried the coax and AES/EBU and preferred the AES/EBU by a fair margin (into a BDA-2). I'm not sure if it was the player or the DAC though that made that difference.

I have a USB drive in the back of the player as my scratch drive. Honestly, I'm not sure how it helps, but it was relatively cheap, so I put it in.

I have a Windows Server at home, a few rooms away. My BPD-2 is hard-wired (no wireless) to the network. I also have a SSD I installed inside the player as well. I cannot tell any difference between the SSD and the network/server. It was nice to have the files on my BDP though when I had to take my server down for a few weeks. The down-side to co-locating files is that I lose track of which one I've updated.

If I had to do it all over again... I'd probably use the network as my primary storage and keep an off-site backup of my music files.

[unincognito]

Shooting your music on a NAS is best on the BDP, you have to remember the BDP's arn't your typical digital transports.  When using a BDP in the way we meant it to be used, using a NAS is one of the best ways to store your music.  A BDP will not alter data, even if it is sent over a network, it plays back the file as it sits where it is stored and in no way compresses. 

The advantages of a NAS, a BDP-2 has gigabit which on paper is roughly twice as fast as USB 2.0, now keep in mind you should subtract roughly 40% from your network bandwidth for a realistic value.  There is similair penality for USB as well.  Ultimately though your still going to get a higher throughput.  You can purchase a NAS that mirrors your data to protect against hardware failure and built in backup features to protect against software failures.  Finally and most likley most won't care, you move what little noise the spinning hard drives make out of your serious listening environment and into the garage/basement.

Cheers
Chris

[unincognito]

I tried the coax and AES/EBU and preferred the AES/EBU by a fair margin (into a BDA-2). I'm not sure if it was the player or the DAC though that made that difference.

I have a USB drive in the back of the player as my scratch drive. Honestly, I'm not sure how it helps, but it was relatively cheap, so I put it in.

I have a Windows Server at home, a few rooms away. My BPD-2 is hard-wired (no wireless) to the network. I also have a SSD I installed inside the player as well. I cannot tell any difference between the SSD and the network/server. It was nice to have the files on my BDP though when I had to take my server down for a few weeks. The down-side to co-locating files is that I lose track of which one I've updated.

If I had to do it all over again... I'd probably use the network as my primary storage and keep an off-site backup of my music files.

Have you tried synctoys? It's a Microsoft tool, I use to use it to backup user profiles between computers.  It's pretty powerful and should allow you to only syncronize changes made to your music library on your windows server with the hard drive attached to the BDP.  It's a command line tool, so some batch scripting knowledge is required.

Cheers
Chris

[Grit]

I thought synctoys was pulled when they went to OneDrive? Is it still out there?

[ttsto]

Yes, is available for download
I use it also for syncing my PC with the NAS in case of new rips or re-tagging.
Also, I have GUI version...

[amblin]

I still can not belive a digital signal transfer can be 'tuned', let alone 'improved' by altering the transfer method or cables.. . As far as I know It's a buch of 1 and 0's sent and received in digital packets, there's a set error tolerance and the system would simply 're-send' a bad data packet BEFORE it's processed any further. It's just like the DVI-D cable we use on a UHD computer display, if the cable is good and with standard shielding, there's the image, nothing more nothing less.   If it's bad or not the 'D' spec, or you live in a nuclear reactor core, everything will be distorted and un-useable . There shall be nothing in between.

I use a NAS setup that's synced with my MacBook Air then to my DAC via a very old Siemens /Foxconn OEM USB printer cable . I tried using different methods such as external SSD and 15k rpm HDD and internal SSD, plus a $1k+ USB cable borrowed from a friend.  I can not hear any difference whatsoever .

Btw , why not give bryston's factory cables a try? You can buy pretty much any interconnects directly from them.  Guess the Hi-end dealers won't sell them because the cables are.... Well, too simple, and not wider than those on an arc wielding machine.

[Speedskater]

As the audio consultant Dick Pierce discovered more than 15 years ago, the digital input and output stages of some very expensive top shelf hi-fi gear can be so poorly designed that it is sensitive to some cables.  So if I had a component that sounded different with different digital cables, I would quietly sell it on E-bay and get something that works correctly

[unincognito]

I thought synctoys was pulled when they went to OneDrive? Is it still out there?

Could be, that would be a shame if they had.  I havn't worked in an IT environment since starting at Bryston over four years ago so I very well could be.

Guess I should have read the entire thread, that's nice they have finally added a GUI, one of the few Microsoft programs a liked.

Cheers
Chris

[unincognito]

I still can not belive a digital signal transfer can be 'tuned', let alone 'improved' by altering the transfer method or cables.. . As far as I know It's a buch of 1 and 0's sent and received in digital packets, there's a set error tolerance and the system would simply 're-send' a bad data packet BEFORE it's processed any further. It's just like the DVI-D cable we use on a UHD computer display, if the cable is good and with standard shielding, there's the image, nothing more nothing less.   If it's bad or not the 'D' spec, or you live in a nuclear reactor core, everything will be distorted and un-useable . There shall be nothing in between.

I use a NAS setup that's synced with my MacBook Air then to my DAC via a very old Siemens /Foxconn OEM USB printer cable . I tried using different methods such as external SSD and 15k rpm HDD and internal SSD, plus a $1k+ USB cable borrowed from a friend.  I can not hear any difference whatsoever .

Btw , why not give bryston's factory cables a try? You can buy pretty much any interconnects directly from them.  Guess the Hi-end dealers won't sell them because the cables are.... Well, too simple, and not wider than those on an arc wielding machine.

Yah there will alway be a few that disagree with you, I'm not one of those people.  I like the cable we make, not because I think they sound any better, but because they are well built cables that I will never have to replace. 

On another thread, likley on page 3 or 4 by now I mentioned that we compared a cable bought from monoprice for a few dollars (just like to add for cheap Chinese made cables they seem to have some quality behind them) vs a "audiophile" marketed USB cable testing for thd+n at 1khz using a audio precision analyzer the monoprice cable outperformed the audiophile cable.  Now granted it only outperformed by a small amount that the average human would be able to tell of less then 0.001% difference.

Cheers
Chris