[Thebiker]

I'm toying with the idea of going to a SB3, but that's an awful lot of time spent burning to the HD.  And after all that is done, HD's do still crash .

Of course, I could just get an additional 1 Tera HD, maybe external and put it all there.

[rollo]

If you were asked, what products for a PC based system you would consider state of the art at this time. Ease of use being the main feature as well as sonic merits.  If you were to design a Audiophile quality program what would you like to see as its features?
    Right now they appear very complicated to people with little computer savoy. I hear so much about quality of programs and difficulty of use it is a turn off.
      Maybe if we tell them what we are looking for we will get it. Lets design the ultimate program. What are your thoughts?

  rollo

[JohninCR]

I'm very tempted to go the pc route mainly for the EQ and crossover software that can be run.Whats holding me back is that I only have a noisy laptop and the only external hard drive I owned was quite noisy.
Can you get silent computers and external hd's? otherwise i'd have to put the pc in another room which might be too much exercise for me.
Also, how many hard drives and how much would they cost to store 800 albums?
thanks
bevan
do you guys keep backup copies on cd? i'm scared or a disk crashing and loosing half my collection

With no compression you're looking at about 500gigs, and yes you'd definitely want everything backed up to other hard drives in addition to the physical copy stored somewhere.  A lot of work goes into a useful music library (song classifications, ratings, etc.), so a backup protects your work as well as your music.

There is no such thing as a silent PC, only degrees of quiet.  I use a box-within-a-box which gets mine to almost inaudible at 3ft, and my room has a very low noise floor.  The easy answer for direct PC use is putting the computer in an adjacent room and keep your monitor, keyboard, and mouse in room.  There are limits on the length of the monitor cable before it starts to affect image quality, but extensions are easily run for the sensors for a cordless keyboard, mouse, remote control, etc.  The capacity of wireless still isn't there yet, but it's coming.

[Thebiker]

What about using wi-fi from your computer to your pre-amp?  Or do you degrade the sound quality when you do that?

I live in a 3 story townhouse, with my computer in my 3rd floor loft/office/library.  Wireless is the only way for me to try this.

[mcgsxr]

Impossible to have sound quality degredation, based on wireless vs wired - packets are packets, once reassembled, they are identical.  Period.

Now, you can have signal coverage problems, I do in the exact setup you mention - PC on 2nd floor, system in basement.  I bought a repeater, and have no issues.

Excellent audio piece, a modded SB3.  If I can have 100% the same audio as futzing with cd's, and never leave my chair, then call me Jabba the Hutt!

[JohninCR]

I don't doubt the SB's sound great, but I believe they are just an intermediate step toward the future, since it's another piece of equipment.  It can't work for me anyway because my active XO/EQ duties are performed by my computer.  I've been tied to my PC as a source for 7 years, and won't break the umbilical wire until wireless has HD video capacity.

[ricmon]

Impossible to have sound quality degredation, based on wireless vs wired - packets are packets, once reassembled, they are identical.  Period.

Now, you can have signal coverage problems, I do in the exact setup you mention - PC on 2nd floor, system in basement.  I bought a repeater, and have no issues.

Excellent audio piece, a modded SB3.  If I can have 100% the same audio as futzing with cd's, and never leave my chair, then call me Jabba the Hutt!

Packets may be packets but the way they are transmitted is the problem.  Typically streaming data is not checked for error.  The transmission mode is udp vs tcp.

[Zero]

Hang tight gents...  ACI and Affordable Audio may have something up its sleeves regarding this PC Hi-Fi stuff.  Stay tuned.

[rajacat]

Don't be so cryptic. Tell us now.

Raj

[woodsyi]

What about using wi-fi from your computer to your pre-amp?  Or do you degrade the sound quality when you do that?

I live in a 3 story townhouse, with my computer in my 3rd floor loft/office/library.  Wireless is the only way for me to try this.

Not so fast.

I just ran a network cable from my router/hub on the second floor to the basement  (out the house--down 2 floors-- back into the ceiling space in the basement) and put a hub on it.  Now my SB and dedicated PC both have wired access to my NAS upstairs.  It's not that hard.

[zybar]

What about using wi-fi from your computer to your pre-amp?  Or do you degrade the sound quality when you do that?

I live in a 3 story townhouse, with my computer in my 3rd floor loft/office/library.  Wireless is the only way for me to try this.

Not so fast.

I just ran a network cable from my router/hub on the second floor to the basement  (out the house--down 2 floors-- back into the ceiling space in the basement) and put a hub on it.  Now my SB and dedicated PC both have wired access to my NAS upstairs.  It's not that hard.

Did you hear any difference between wireless and wired?

George

[mcgsxr]

Not sure I agree that UDP is how SB3's transmit data.

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=30999&highlight=udp - this shows that only TCP is being used for transmission, but I could be interpreting incorrectly.

[woodsyi]

What about using wi-fi from your computer to your pre-amp?  Or do you degrade the sound quality when you do that?

I live in a 3 story townhouse, with my computer in my 3rd floor loft/office/library.  Wireless is the only way for me to try this.

Not so fast.

I just ran a network cable from my router/hub on the second floor to the basement  (out the house--down 2 floors-- back into the ceiling space in the basement) and put a hub on it.  Now my SB and dedicated PC both have wired access to my NAS upstairs.  It's not that hard.

Did you hear any difference between wireless and wired?

George

I will check it out tonight.  I just got everything up and I only really tested the connectivity issue Saturday.  Then Sunday I had guests over who only wanted to listen to vinyl.  By the time they left I was in no shape to listen critically.  I will say the difference in connectivity is like having a cable or fios ISP for wired vs. dial up for wireless.  When you turn it on it's on right away.  I also seem to be able to navigate through the 900 GB of flac files faster.  There is no drop out or the annoying "can't find the server" business.  I don't know if intermittent transfer effects the sound quality or not, but I suspect that the buffer in SB gets a work out as wireless signals drop in and out.  I will report what I find out tonight.

[zybar]

What about using wi-fi from your computer to your pre-amp?  Or do you degrade the sound quality when you do that?

I live in a 3 story townhouse, with my computer in my 3rd floor loft/office/library.  Wireless is the only way for me to try this.

Not so fast.

I just ran a network cable from my router/hub on the second floor to the basement  (out the house--down 2 floors-- back into the ceiling space in the basement) and put a hub on it.  Now my SB and dedicated PC both have wired access to my NAS upstairs.  It's not that hard.

Did you hear any difference between wireless and wired?

George

I will check it out tonight.  I just got everything up and I only really tested the connectivity issue Saturday.  Then Sunday I had guests over who only wanted to listen to vinyl.  By the time they left I was in no shape to listen critically.  I will say the difference in connectivity is like having a cable or fios ISP for wired vs. dial up for wireless.  When you turn it on it's on right away.  I also seem to be able to navigate through the 900 GB of flac files faster.  There is no drop out or the annoying "can't find the server" business.  I don't know if intermittent transfer effects the sound quality or not, but I suspect that the buffer in SB gets a work out as wireless signals drop in and out.  I will report what I find out tonight.

Interesting...

I am running wireless mode and I don't get any drop outs or "can't find the server" messages.  I can scroll through my 2000+ cd's very quickly with no issues.

Depending on your results, I might need to run a cable and try this out as well.

George

[opaqueice]

Packets may be packets but the way they are transmitted is the problem.  Typically streaming data is not checked for error.  The transmission mode is udp vs tcp.

On any reasonably modern version of the squeezebox (for example SB2 , SB3, and the Transporter) the "streaming" is done over TCP/IP, which means there will never be any bit errors.  The server sends a packet of data to the SB3, the packet is error checked, and if there are errors the SB3 sends a request for a re-send back to the server.  If there are no errors the packet goes into the SB3's buffer for later playout. 
How often do you see errors in files you copy over a computer network or download from the internet?  This is the same, only easier.

The only problem that can occur is if the network is so noisy (because of a weak wireless signal strength, for example) that very few packets make it through without errors - when that happens the buffer empties and you get dropouts in the music.  It's not at all subtle - the thing just stops playing, or you hear a kind of stuttering.  But there are no bit errors during normal operation.  This has been verified explicitly many times by recording the digital output of a SB3 and comparing the resulting file to the original - and all 1,000,000,000 or so bits are identical.

[Double Ugly]

I will say the difference in connectivity is like having a cable or fios ISP for wired vs. dial up for wireless.  When you turn it on it's on right away.  I also seem to be able to navigate through the 900 GB of flac files faster.  There is no drop out or the annoying "can't find the server" business. 

Interesting...

I am running wireless mode and I don't get any drop outs or "can't find the server" messages.  I can scroll through my 2000+ cd's very quickly with no issues.

I had issues similar to woodsyi's with the modified SB2, but I've yet to have a single occurrence since moving to the Transporter.  The Transporter also has a lower noise floor.

-Jim

PS woodsyi - The Buffer arrived today and is in good condition; thanks.

[jakepunk]

I dropped off my 1996 Onkyo CD player at Goodwill over the weekend.  I was cleaning out some clutter around the house.   

[James Romeyn]

I'd love the convenience of a wi-fi network library; I dislike searching for discs & preferred cuts.   

My only personal experience w/ a similar system at home was a stock Olive player; many here might not be surprised a $1250 TRL-Sony 900 sounded better.  In a direct comparison the TRL seemed similar in audio performance or better than the circa $18k 2-box Meitner.

Since then the pricey SST Ambrosia analog preamp/spectrum controller was added, which may have caused a bigger improvement in overal audio performance than any other prior change. 

Brian Weitzel of TRL says they worked w/ the SB (pre-Transporter models) & it's performance could not match the modified Sony 900s.  Still, I'd love to personally audition a Transporter w/ a top-flight modification & am sure I will one day.     

             

[DSK]

...Interesting...

I am running wireless mode and I don't get any drop outs or "can't find the server" messages.  I can scroll through my 2000+ cd's very quickly with no issues...

Ditto!

...Depending on your results, I might need to run a cable and try this out as well...

I have a long CAT5E cable somewhere that I could use to test but I haven't bothered as I have had zero issues and the sound quality has been superb. Perhaps I'll dig it out and try it.

[Carlman]

I'm always entertained when people say bits are bits.  While this may be true at some point in time and space, the entire chain needs to be considered.  Playing a .flac file through a Squeezebox sounds a little different than playing the same file through Foobar on an Audio PC in my experience.  I wouldn't doubt that wired vs. wireless SB's make a difference too.

I'd rather try to figure how there 'could' be a difference and not focus on why there 'shouldn't' be one.  The latter is too easy. 

I have found the 'original' recipe of Foobar and EAC properly setup and configured on an Audio PC with all the tweaks you can find (unmapping Kmixer, etc) sounds a little better to me than a Squeezebox or Transporter.  I use the PC as a transport and use a USB Tube DAC (from Scott Nixon) at the moment.  It's a magical combo.  The sound from a hard drive provides the jitter-free near-analog foundation and the other tweaks provide extension and realism I never thought I could have....

Best of luck,
Carl