[hagtech]

Ok, so I had to try this.  Everyone likes Foobar2000; others say ASIO (audio streaming input output?) is needed to bring out the best.  Fine.  Who am I to argue?  The statistical trend is clear.  After a lot of online research, the quality pundits have chosen this combination.  I really didn't want to become an expert on all of the software issues, so many drivers and dialog box choices.  But I have products to hawk.  So I dove in, and got my IBM laptop configured with the above.

It's not easy, and I may have forgotten something or missed a step.  I'll keep editing this post with additional comments and instructions to make it clearer.  Here's what I did to make it work:

1. Plug in your CHIME or HAGUSB to the USB port on your PC.  Make sure it is recognized.  Try out a CD using windows media player.  You might have to go into the control panel dialog boxes and make sure the USB Audio Device is selected.

2. Download FooBar2000 from www.foobar2000.org and install it.  

3. Download the ASIO dll driver component from http://otachan.com/foo_output_asio(dll).html and save to disk.  Ok, so this is not a zip file!  So go to step 3.

4. Download the 7-z file compression software from http://www.7-zip.org and install it.

5. Use the 7-zip program to uncompress the ASIO file.

6. Move the "foo_output_aios(dll).dll" file to your "C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components\" directory.  Unless you did something wierd with the Foobar2000 install.

7. Download the ASIO4ALL wrapper from www.asio4all.com and run it.  Click on Advanced.  Click on the USB Audio Device and then click Enable.  The notes should turn green.  Make sure the resampling box is unchecked.  Then exit.

8. Start up Foobar2000.  Open up the preferences.   Go to playback.  Set replaygainmode to disabled.  Set output data format to 32bit fixed-point.  Go to DSP Manager.  Move volume control out of active DSPs.  Go to Resampler, set this to 44100 (not sure if necessary).  Go to Output ASIO (dll version).  Select device ASIO4ALL.  Go back to Output, select ASIO (dll version) as output method.

Hey, nothing to it!  Worked for me.  I experimented a bit and compared the sound from Foobar with ASIO via USB with iTunes on my Mac via USB.  To me, they were very close, but the Foobar has the edge.  I'm not too happy about this, as I just bought that Mac to be the center of my digital music server universe.  Actually, I'm much more dissapointed that iTune store only sells AAC crap.  Sheesh, what's the point of a quality playback system if all you can buy is compressed rubbish?  I also did a comparison on the Max between raw CD and a stored AIFF file and found no difference.  Next up, finding ways to get uncompressed music.

jh

[Marbles]

Jim, have you burned CD's to your hard drive with Exact Audio Copy?

Play them back and it should give you a nice increase in fidelity over your CDP or previous transport.

[hagtech]

burned CD's to your hard drive with Exact Audio Copy

Ok, so why can't I use iTunes or Foobar to rip?  Does EAC do something they don't?

jh

[Marbles]

burned CD's to your hard drive with Exact Audio Copy

Ok, so why can't I use iTunes or Foobar to rip?  Does EAC do something they don't?

jh

EAC will re-read a CD until it is satisfied it got the burn right.

[hagtech]

Ok, took some advice here and signed up for www.allofmp3.com.  I made a practice run and downloaded two songs, one in WMA, the other FLAC.  Both seem to play fine in Foobar2000.  So heck, for that machine I will stick with FLAC.

Now, getting songs into iTunes is more problematic (I really wish they'd just offer hi-res download option!).  I downloaded the www.dbpoweramp.com converter.  Loaded it with FLAC and AIFF codecs (I couldn't get their apple lossless to work uncompressed).  Anyway, a great software package.  Just right click on the FLAC file and convert to AIFF.  This file I can then copy across my network to the iMac.  Actually, I add file to iTunes library.  This is then playable.  But to save space, I do the iTunes conversion to Apple lossless.  Then delete the AIFF.

Lots of work, but I really wanted the ability to buy songs I like one at a time in hi-res.  Rarely do I want the entire CD.  This system does the job for now.  I'm sure I can come up with something better later.  Ok if you have the time.  The download itself takes about ten minutes for one song.

jh