[audioengr]

You are 100% correct.
All codecs are decoded and converted to PCM within the player. The buffer in the media player that contains the PCM data has no idea what went on before. It just gets the PCM data, which is identical from all lossless codecs, and outputs to the DAC. Dynamic playback makes no difference.

This is easily verified by internally routing the input of a multi-channel DAC back to an output and passing on to program for recording.

To go along with Tommy's analogy, it is like me receiving 3 identical Word documents compressed with .zip, .rar, and .7z.  I decompress and save all three documents. I later view the three documents. I no longer know which compression method was used and all documents are identical.

People do this all the time with video files and nobody ever notices a difference - and with video you have both sight and sound to help discern things. You can rip a DVD and keep the original ISO, extract to TS folders, or convert to MKV. ISO and MKV are just containers like zip, flac, or any other lossless container.

If you believe this, then why does every player software sound different?  Why do different lossless compression formats sound different (FLAC, uncompressed FLAC, ALAC, AIFF)?

Steve N.

[AmpDesigner333]

If you believe this, then why does every player software sound different?  Why do different lossless compression formats sound different (FLAC, uncompressed FLAC, ALAC, AIFF)?

Steve N.

Throwing me a softball?

[audioengr]

Throwing me a softball?

If you have not experienced these differences, that is one thing.  I have and so has at least a hundred others that have reported this.  If you have, then take the challenge of determining why.

There is enough anecdotal evidence for me.  I even demonstrate this at shows and everyone in the room hears the difference.  Some that spent a lot of time ripping to FLAC are not very happy...

Another datapoint is that with certain players and OS, these format SQ differences are less and may even disappear.  A case in point is the Antipodes server, which is Linux based and stripped-down and carefully crafted, both software and hardware.  Highly recommended if you can afford it.

Steve N.

[mojave]

If you believe this, then why does every player software sound different?  Why do different lossless compression formats sound different (FLAC, uncompressed FLAC, ALAC, AIFF)?

Steve N.

To quote Mitcho in his FLAC vs WAV article, "if you are hearing an audible difference, then the waveform must have changed. If the waveform has changed then we can measure the difference."

There are things that can change a waveform in a media player but a good test should eliminate these factors. Several things are often overlooked in comparisons:
Output method:  ASIO, WASAPI Push Style, WASAPI Event Style, Core Audio, Kernel streaming, Direct Sound.
Bit-Depth of final output
Dithering or truncation
Dithering method (note: not all dithering is bit-perfect)
Internal sample-rate conversion (done all the time by Direct Sound)
Handling of inter-sample Peaks as measured per ITU BS.1770

Two DAC's playing the same thing at the same time will never be in sync unless their clocks are synced together. So, even by using the same media player and same format, the song could possibly sound different and leads to anecdotal evidence. I and others have used multiple two-channel DAC's at the same time to try them out as a multi-channel system or multi-zone system. It never works. There is always drift. This is why the Audio Video Bridging (AVB) standard requires a single device to be the master clock.

[audioengr]

To quote Mitcho in his FLAC vs WAV article, "if you are hearing an audible difference, then the waveform must have changed. If the waveform has changed then we can measure the difference."

Probably you can measure it, but maybe not with the current measurement technology IME.

There are lots of measurements made by JA using AP systems and they miss some things that are audible to JA, both digital and analog.  Recently a digital cable comparison showed an obvious audible difference, but nothing was measurable with his current setup.

I know there are audible differences, but I have discovered no smoking gun as to why.

I do on the other hand have a pretty good idea why most async USB interfaces are not immune to jitter, as the theory would suggest.  It's primarily common-mode noise affecting the USB receiver.  These receivers have some common-mode rejection, but they are not perfect, like most electronics.  New interfaces with well-executed galvanic isolation seem to be closer to being jitter-proof (affecting by incoming jitter).

Steve N.

[mojave]

I currently have DACs with the following digital output or input:

• Firewire
• Asynchronous USB
• Adaptive USB
• S/PDIF Optical
• S/PDIF Coax
• ADAT Lightpipe
• AES3
• Thunderbolt
• Ethernet (AVB)

About the only thing I don't have currently is MADI and I2S although I2S is often used internally.

I think I can make a signal chain that looks like this:
Media Player > Firewire > DAC > S/SPIF > DAC > Media Player > USB > DAC > Ethernet > DAC > Media Player

The signal passes through 4 DACs and the Media player handles it 3 times. All interfaces have an opportunity to affect the signal and jitter can be accumulated. Furthermore, the cables, the PC itself, and the media player can change the data. Will the final recorded file be identical to the original? In other words, has anything in the signal chain been able to affect the data at all? As a bonus I can run a stress test program(s) on the PC to max out the CPU and GPU.

If I post 19 original files and 1 file that has been through the long, arduous, precarious, fraught with peril, digital pathway, will anyone even be able to pick out which file isn't the original?

Most, myself included  , think that the squares marked A and B are different shades of grey, but that doesn't make them right. The two squares are identical. Perceiving something as different doesn't make it different.

[audioengr]

I currently have DACs with the following digital output or input:

• Firewire
• Asynchronous USB
• Adaptive USB
• S/PDIF Optical
• S/PDIF Coax
• ADAT Lightpipe
• AES3
• Thunderbolt
• Ethernet (AVB)

About the only thing I don't have currently is MADI and I2S although I2S is often used internally.

I think I can make a signal chain that looks like this:
Media Player > Firewire > DAC > S/SPIF > DAC > Media Player > USB > DAC > Ethernet > DAC > Media Player

The signal passes through 4 DACs and the Media player handles it 3 times. All interfaces have an opportunity to affect the signal and jitter can be accumulated. Furthermore, the cables, the PC itself, and the media player can change the data. Will the final recorded file be identical to the original? In other words, has anything in the signal chain been able to affect the data at all? As a bonus I can run a stress test program(s) on the PC to max out the CPU and GPU.

If I post 19 original files and 1 file that has been through the long, arduous, precarious, fraught with peril, digital pathway, will anyone even be able to pick out which file isn't the original?

Most, myself included  , think that the squares marked A and B are different shades of grey, but that doesn't make them right. The two squares are identical. Perceiving something as different doesn't make it different.

The fallacy is in believing that the recorded signals are the same thing as the played signals.  Lots of folks have compared the files and they are identical, and yet when played they sound different. This is going digital to a software that reads and records the digital.

Your experiment in theory should show differences in FLAC and WAV files and different player software.  The problem is that when the music goes from D/A and then A/D, all bets are off.  Tiny differences in the playback due to voltage, temperature etc, will yield different data every time in the A/D conversion, even if you only use one DAC and D/A in the media player.  As soon as you try to sample an analog signal, things get dicey.  Others have tried to compare different playbacks of an analog signal to find differences.  Just getting the timing exactly the same is very difficult.  If you can do that, then you have to worry about differences in the A/D conversion.  There is one company that has claimed to achieving this, but I have no idea if they have and whether it can detect such small differences as we are talking about between ALAC and AIFF for instance.

Steve N.

[AmpDesigner333]

Back to minimalist high performance.  One reason for minimalism is NOT related to cost. We are attempting to cut the analog path down to almost nothing. Balanced connection to the amp with known characteristics is much more forgiving than single ended.

It's all designed to be as direct as possible, and as a bonus, it's easy to set up and sonically optimized.

I'm interested in Raspberry Pi 2 as well as Chromebook.  If someone else out there has a SB Touch type device with coax SPDIF out, I'd like to know.  Anyone familiar with NUC?

Thanks.

-Tommy O

[audioengr]

Back to minimalist high performance.  One reason for minimalism is NOT related to cost. We are attempting to cut the analog path down to almost nothing. Balanced connection to the amp with known characteristics is much more forgiving than single ended.

Connection through a transformer is even better. Breaks the ground-loop whether it is Bal to Bal or SE to Bal.

If someone else out there has a SB Touch type device with coax SPDIF out, I'd like to know.

Sure, the Rendu does that.

http://www.rendu.sonore.us/rendu.html

So does the Sonos

http://www.sonos.com/shop/connect

Soon, my own Interchange product will do that.

Steve N.

[mfsoa]

Tommy, check out the Bluesound Node 2 as a new Touch-like device w spdif out.

[jseipp]

Tommy, check out the Bluesound Node 2 as a new Touch-like device w spdif out.

Good call -- not a super-cheap solution, but it's very nicely packaged, self-contained and simple, offers additional connections, services, multi-room sync functionality, and comes from a well-supported line -- a lot for the money.  The only real issue I've heard people mention is the functionality of the app, usually in connection with large ripped collections, but I've used it and been pleased.  I have no head-to-head comparisons to offer on quality, but I didn't sense anything at all amiss with the generation 1 Bluesound Vault.

The Auralic Aries Mini often comes up in the same realm, but price increases and roll-out issues seem to have pushed it a bit further from the cheap and simple criteria.  I know that the Aries family has a strong following.  I have no direct experience, only a bit of interest awhile ago.

I, too, am interested in the Raspberry Pi setup -- thank you, Frank, for the all the details you've provided.  I'm playing with the Pi 2 and some other boards in an educational setting; I think you've inspired me to explore their use in the music realm .     

[jarcher]

Bluesound Node 2 (and Vault) sound quite good as DACs as well. 32 bit Burr Browns with a warm smooth and meaty overall presentation - particularly good for Lo-fi sources like Internet radio, Spotify, Pandora, etc.

Auralic Aries Mini sound is not quite as fleshed out as the BSN2 but still quite good. But considering that after the free 1 yr tidal the net cost is just over $300, it's hard to argue the value, particularly as it will play anything.

Sonos to me doesn't sound nearly as good as the above two straight out of the box (or even out of its digital outputs). But the user interface to me is still the best and the technical support is amazing, but usually unneeded as you rarely run into problems with them to begin with.

[AmpDesigner333]

Tommy, check out the Bluesound Node 2 as a new Touch-like device w spdif out.

Seems pretty cool, but no touch screen.   

Sometimes, I use the touch for a background music source, playing tunes loudly in another room while I cook (food), for example.  It's good to have the touchscreen so my kids can change the volume or track themselves.  I control the music from my iPhone with the free Logitech application.

Otherwise, looks like a great source device, and costs less than most PC based solutions.  Plus, it's a good size, easy to place near the DAC DAC so you can use a short SPDIF cable.

Thanks for your post.

[SteveMiller]

Just to touch on the output end of the Minamilist system for a moment....

I had the opportunity to sample a pair of Klipsch RB61 bookshelf speakers today.  Now, this pair aren't quite broken in yet to my ears, but I've heard them 1/2 dozen times on other vintage receivers.  Just last night they were driven by an all tubed SonicFrontiers integrated, and a very nice vintage Pioneer receiver that was much better than I expected. 

However, compared to my Maraschino's playing a $10k pair of speakers, I thought the Klipsh/integrated combo sounded grey, thin, and uninvolving.  The treble was always too forward and harsh.

We tried one more pairing..... DAC DAC -> MARASCHINO'S -> Klipsch.   

Holy Shift!   Suddenly the previously forward treble sounded more refined, and the speaker made better bass. The lower registers of familiar music stopped and started quicker.  The midrange began to show promise. And imaging, oh my god!  These little $500 bookshelf speakers sold at BestBuy never sounded like this before.  I think a few more hours of good loud tunes to loosen up the firmly hung woofers and these little guys will be a great little system.  It was as if the amps were able to see past the crossover and just made the drivers work better.

Point here is, a good simple system was sitting here waiting to be found, and it came to life with the Maraschino's doing the heavy lifting.  Plenty of gain and ample volume in a 13x16x9h room.  Think of all the bargain speakers waiting to be woken up by the Maraschino amps.  This is going to be FUN!

[AmpDesigner333]

Just to touch on the output end of the Minamilist system for a moment....

I had the opportunity to sample a pair of Klipsch bookshelf speakers today.  Now, this pair aren't quite broken in yet to my ears, but I've heard them 1/2 dozen times on other vintage receivers.  Just last night they were driven by an all tubed SonicFrontiers integrated, and a very nice vintage Pioneer receiver that was much better than I expected. 

However, compared to my Maraschino's playing a $10k pair of speakers, I thought the Klipsh/integrated combo sounded grey, thin, and uninvolving.  The treble was always too forward and harsh.

We tried one more pairing..... DAC DAC -> MARASCHINO'S -> Klipsch.   

Holy Shift!   Suddenly the previously forward treble sounded more refined, and the speaker made better bass. The lower registers of familiar music stopped and started quicker.  The midrange began to show promise. And imaging, oh my god!  These little $500 bookshelf speakers sold at BestBuy never sounded like this before.  I think a few more hours of good loud tunes to loosen up the firmly hung woofers and these little guys will be a great little system.  It was as if the amps were able to see past the crossover and just made the drivers work better.

Point here is, a good simple system was sitting here waiting to be found, and it came to life with the Maraschino's doing the heavy lifting.  Plenty of gain and ample volume in a 13x16x9h room.  Think of all the bargain speakers waiting to be woken up by the Maraschino amps.  This is going to be FUN!

Which Klipsch speakers?  Thanks for your post, and would you mind placing a post on the Maraschno Reviews thread about this experience?

[SteveMiller]

Tommy,

They were RB61.    I edited above.

Discontinued now, but these have good sound, bi-wire capable, and solid build on top of that great sound.  Might be good candidate for hanging Maraschino too once I come up with stands. 

[AmpDesigner333]

Tommy,

They were RB61.    I edited above.

Discontinued now, but these have good sound, bi-wire capable, and solid build on top of that great sound.  Might be good candidate for hanging Maraschino too once I come up with stands.

Thanks again.  Check out this bi-wire In-Line Maraschino hook-up:

[audioengr]

Thanks again.  Check out this bi-wire In-Line Maraschino hook-up:

Try twisting the +/- wires together tightly.  It will sound even better.  Then you have inductive coupling to reduce the inductance in the jumpers and the HF's will see less resistance.

Steve N.

[jseipp]

Seems pretty cool, but no touch screen.   

Sometimes, I use the touch for a background music source, playing tunes loudly in another room while I cook (food), for example.  It's good to have the touchscreen so my kids can change the volume or track themselves.  I control the music from my iPhone with the free Logitech application.

Otherwise, looks like a great source device, and costs less than most PC based solutions.  Plus, it's a good size, easy to place near the DAC DAC so you can use a short SPDIF cable.

Thanks for your post.

If you were to run something from the Bluesound  family, multiple iOS or android devices could run the app and serve as your touch screen/remotes.  Not pushing them -- I missed the Sonos era, so I don't have a direct reference in mind, only reports of extreme reliability and convenience that no one seems to have quite matched as yet.   

[Fredly]

Just wanted to mention.... there is a Touch Screen, for the Raspberry Pi, its just that you have to build it.

http://www.instructables.com/id/High-End-Sound-with-7-Inch-Touchscreen-Control-Bas/?ALLSTEPS

Cheers, Fred in Canada