[Nels Ferre]

Hi All,

I've asked a few questions over the past few months about moving from a CD player to a PC based digital front end.  I finally bit the bullet.  Here's what I did:

I'm using my laptop as the interface...Dell Inspiron 2200.  1.4 GB Celeron, 1.2 GB RAM, 120 GB Internal Hard Drive.   I'm using FLAC lossless for compression and Foobar 2000 for playback.  I've installed the ASIO4ALL  drivers.

I bought a 500GB Western Digital External USB hard drive that will be used solely for music storage.  I will see if I like the drive, and if I do, I will buy an identical drive for backup purposes.

The rest of the front end will look like this:

Dell> Trends Audio USB to SPDIF Converter> Entech Number Cruncher 20 Bit DAC> Preamp.

Nothing is here yet. I'm copying discs down to the hard drive on the Dell, using Exact Audio Copy.  I'll move all the files to the new hard drive when it arrives.

What do you think?

[Double Ugly]

Looks like you've put together a nice HDD-based system, Nels.  I prefer the Slim Devices route (SB or Transporter) because it allows me to remove a cable (digital) and a component (external DAC) from the chain, but a awful lot of folks are more than satisfied with set-ups similar to yours.

You may want to consider giving Easy CD-DA Extractor a try some day.  I cut my teeth on EAC, but took Easy CD for a spin at Mike Galusha's suggestion.  I found it (1) much faster than EAC, (2) infinitely more intuitive than EAC, and most importantly (3) produced rips just as accurately as EAC.  It isn't free ($28 EUR, or about $40 USD), but I figured if I intended to rip all my current CDs and all those to come, it was worth it.  The only downside I've found is no OSX support. 

Regardless, it appears you're set to me! 

-Jim

[lcrim]

Nels, I went down a similar path some time back and now use SB's in two locations.  I had a laptop in an adjoining room with a pair of 300 gig drives in their own enclosures.  The laptop had a USB connection to a device that was only used to convert the signal to SPDIF.  It was a Creative Audigy 2 NX which was an asynchronous transfer device and the laptop was dedicated to PC sound only so it was totally optimized.  The SPDIF output was to a SN TubeDac+ and the reason I switched to SB's was that there was an occasional pop or crackle that no manner of optimization could cure.  Used Foobar as a player and while it worked flawlessly there was always that little pop or crackle that nearly drove me crazy.  All devices were unmapped and the device access to the bus was set properly giving  precedence to the ASIO4All device.
I moved the laptop and the storage drives to the laundry room and the SB's connect via wireless.  Spent some bucks on better power supplies for the SB's and am satisfied.  No drive noise either through the power chords feeding back or the fans on the enclosures.  Use my regular laptop to connect to Slimserver through my home wireless network.
I don't remember who it was on 6 Moons but in reviewing one of the Empirical Audio devices that connects through USB, the reviewer encountered the same pop and click issues.  It wasn't ever bad but it would happen lets say once an hour and it finally got to me.  Resolution and inner detail were just terrific and then it would be spoiled by that occasional pop. 
Hope it wworks out better for you.  I just find the SB much easier to live with.

[Nels Ferre]

Thanks for the input, guys.

DU, I think I will be trying that program. Not that I have a problem with EAC at all, but it is slow. Copying 900+ discs will take a dogs age.

Things are arriving slowly but surely. The Western Digital Elements external hard drive looks like a winner. Cheap and silent: I'll be buying another.

Nels

[WGH]

I compared the free ASIO4ALL and the USB-AUDIO drivers and preferred the latter, there is a free trial version to try out before you buy (EUR 49).
http://www.usb-audio.com/

Jim Hagerman recommends the usb-audio driver for his products, I use his HagUSB and it does sound clearer. The driver bypasses the kmixer if you are using Windows XP, where as ASIO4ALL does not.

[ted_b]

 The driver bypasses the kmixer if you are using Windows XP, where as ASIO4ALL does not.

I'm not sure why you can't get Asio4all to bypass Kmixer?  Asio drivers (asio4all is not my fave) all bypass kmixer...at least I thought.....no other real reason they exist in this hobby.

[lcrim]

If the playback device is not mapped which you can accomplish in device manager and Asio4All is installed in Foobar then KMixer is no longer in the playback path.  ted_b is correct, Asio drivers exist to avoid KMixer in XP.  The HAG USB device also gets its power from the USB hub rather than separately and is less desirable than say the Empirical Audio devices and some others, the device I mentioned above for instance.  The SPDIF interface is also responsible for a small but measurable amount of jitter.

[WGH]

I'm not sure why you can't get Asio4all to bypass Kmixer?  Asio drivers (asio4all is not my fave) all bypass kmixer...at least I thought.....no other real reason they exist in this hobby.

Still researching this point, but there is more info at head-fi: http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=223586&page=4

"Unlike ASIO2KS and ASIO4ALL, which are wrappers for KS, the usb-audio driver talks directly to the hardware completely bypassing the OS audio stack."

And this:

"Asio4all was not made to fullfill the audiophile needs. It was made for recording in studios. Using asio4all will enable you to sychronise output and input and mix this the right way without having to worry about windows which will give different latencies to different devices. So if you've got multiple devices you can give them all the same latency and latency compensation. I'll give you an example if you have lost it here somewhere.

Example: (something that might happen in studios)

Suppose you've got 3 devices. Two soundcards for recording and another one for another one for playback. If you are using windows this is what will happen:

Device 1: Latency 128 (samples)/ Latency compensation 0
Device 2: Latency 1024 (samples)/ Latency compensation 0
Device 3: Latency 512 (samples)/ Latency compensation 0

You can see that all of them have a different latency and will have to be synchronised afterwards. Windows will give the appropriate latency for every single device. ( it will also change the signal from and to the device - but lets not whine about that right now)

When using asio4all this is what you can do:

Device 1: Latency 1024 (samples)/ Latency compensation 1024
Device 2: Latency 1024 (samples)/ Latency compensation 1024
Device 3: Latency 1024 (samples)/ Latency compensation 1024

Now you can see that all the devices are using the same latency and because of this every signal will "play" at the same time. Using latency compensation you can compensate the latency. (pure logic there ) So the latency in the end will be 0. You will not have to synchronise anything anymore. Note that you will have to take the highest latency to get this to work. If you take a lower latency the device which needs 1024 will start distorting.

This will not alter the playback quality. (it will still be bit-perfect) The only thing which is really changing is the latency. Note that it is only interresting to do this when you are recording from more than 1 device. ( so that would be in a studio most likely)

Audiophiles use asio4all just because asio can bypass windows. (to make the output signal bit-perfect) It does not matter what latency you are using and because of this you want to use the highest latency possible. (2048) It does not matter since you are not trying to synchronise anything. You just don't want windows to touch your signal. You can compensate the latency but again: It doesn't matter since you are not trying to synchronise anything."

And from the Hagtech weblog:

"Tried out the www.usb-audio.com driver for windows.  It's the alternative to ASIO4ALL... Wow, best sound I've had yet.  Seems to be the real thing.  No goofy wrappers and dlls and other wierd stuff.  Just a new usbaudio.sys for windows...  Now it is guaranteed to bypass kmixer and all that other crap."

"Yep, this is it.  Best sound yet.  The www.usb-audio.com driver for xp is the best yet.  This is the way it should have been done in the first place.  I am
now using latest foobar2000 with this usb_asio driver from Germany.  No wierdness, no games, just straight unmodified 16 bit data sent out USB port.
Listening here with a CHIME connected to an OBOE (for headphone output).  Best playback yet from CD.  Very clean and open."

[lcrim]

Within both Asio4All and Foobar there are latency settings that can resolve  the issues encountered.  In using more than a single device there is a program called Double Dawg available @ http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3/dawguse.html which allows reordering of the latency of all devices on the PCI bus including sound cards.  This can be helpful but not a complete fix when another device gets processor time and causes your audio to pop.
There are tests for checking whether or not KMixer is out of the signal path that I don't see in your "research."

[WGH]

There are tests for checking whether or not KMixer is out of the signal path that I don't see in your "research."

Haven't got the the kmixer test part yet. For me it is a moot point, I don't really care if the kmixer is in or out using ASIO4ALL, just what sounds the best, and for me it is the usb-audio driver. It will be up to others to provide the definitive answer regarding the kmixer and other ASIO drivers.

[WGH]

Well, it looks like I was misinformed regarding the kmixer and ASIO4ALL. I came across a blog written by Michael Tippach, the developer of ASIO4ALL where he says:

 "It is the Windows Kernel Mixer that would usually add sample rate conversion plus a fair bit of latency to your audio stream. Since ASIO4ALL bypasses all of this, you are stuck with what the audio hardware actually supports.

http://www.garyfeng.com/wordpress/2004/10/12/asio4all-universal-asio-driver-for-wdm-audio/

Mea culpa

Wayne

[ted_b]

Wayne,
You were right the first time....it only matters what sounds best.

[Nels Ferre]

Everything arrived and is up and running.  The DAC got hooked up this morning, so there is still much break in needed.  Everything sounds promising so far.  I wonder why I waited so long.   

A couple of observations:

1. While the Trends unit has a DAC built in, the performance is far superior using an outboard DAC downstream of the Trends.

2. I opted for the optional battery power supply for the Trends, and can't hear the difference. When the batteries die, your PC Audio front end won't work.  You need to remember to unplug the battery supply when not in use. It's not worth the hassle.

3.  I am using ASIO4ALL. When I tried to use the driver recommended by Jim Hagerman, it would make my Foobar 2000 freeze. A track could be selected, but it wouldn't play.

Sixty or so CDs copied, 800 and change to go.

By the way, the wife thinks it's a really great setup: fantastic sound, and she doesn't have to go searching for CDs anymore! 

[ted_b]

Wow, you've actually INCREASED the WAF.....great job!   

BTW, I installed a Monarchy DIP upsampler (although standard DIP, non-usampled will do) in between my SB3 and my DAC (currently a decent little Ack Dack) and it really really cleaned up the soundstage and made my DAC seem to have another level of resolution.  It's my stopgap until I do the Empirical Pace-Car/SB3 thing (another topic, no thread hjack here).  Anyway, cheap ($150-250 used) tweak.

[Nels Ferre]

You may want to consider giving Easy CD-DA Extractor a try some day.  I cut my teeth on EAC, but took Easy CD for a spin at Mike Galusha's suggestion.  I found it (1) much faster than EAC, (2) infinitely more intuitive than EAC, and most importantly (3) produced rips just as accurately as EAC.  It isn't free ($28 EUR, or about $40 USD), but I figured if I intended to rip all my current CDs and all those to come, it was worth it.  The only downside I've found is no OSX support. 

I tried Easy CD Creator last night, anything faster is a big help with a decent sized collection.

I found that with Easy CD Creator set for maximum jitter correction/error correction, it is actually slower than EAC. Easy CD Creator also seems to comvert WAV files to MP3 before converting to FLAC, even with everything in the program set for FLAC only.

The way EAC works, press a button and walk away...with Easy CD Creator, you must drag and drop files  for conversion to FLAC after the ripping process is complete.

I'm not seeing the advantage here.  Thanks for the heads up though, and I am glad it is working for you.

[Double Ugly]

Firstly, Easy CD isn't working for me and hasn't since I went to a Mac machine almost a year ago.  Consequently, I don't remember much in the way of specifics about the settings I used, but something is definitely amiss if it's taking longer to rip than EAC.  I, too, used maximum jitter/error correction (I was paranoid because I'd bought in to the EAC hype), but it never failed to rip at least 2-3x faster than every variation of EAC I tried (several).  Others here and elsewhere have experienced the same, so your results are more than a little surprising.

In fact, your's is the first experience I've read or heard about wherein the Easy CD/EAC comparison didn't match my own.  Some buy it because they're uncomfortable working with the EAC interface (which is just a step or two above DOS IMHO), but that isn't true for a great many of us.  We bought it because it rips just as well in half or less time, *NOT* because it rips more slowly.  I have way too many CDs to use a slower - but more intuitive - program.  Ease of use was just icing on the cake.

I recommend checking with the programmer extraordinaire (Mike Galusha) before giving up.  Maybe it's something with the program settings or with your computer, but whatever the reason, I'd relatively confident Mike can point you in the right direction.  Regardless, it'd be a shame to ditch it before making an effort to find out.

I may sound like I have something to gain, but I don't.  I'm simply dumbfounded by your findings, and since I recommended you try it, I feel compelled to help you discover the issue.

EDIT:

...with Easy CD Creator, you must drag and drop files  for conversion to FLAC after the ripping process is complete.

I should also point out that, in addition to always being faster, Easy CD never, EVER ripped to anything other than what I wanted (FLAC).  Unless the program has gone tango uniform in the past year, something in the settings is definitely wrong.  I would never recommend a program that does what you describe above.

[bpape]

Faster or slower, if he is correct that it is using MP3 as an intermediate step, I'm out.  I can't believe they'd do that but maybe so.

People make EAC sound like it's a real PITA to set up.  It's really not.  It does take a little time ONCE.  After that, it just runs.  It's not a stallion but it makes excellent copies which to me is what it's all about.

Bryan

[Double Ugly]

Faster or slower, if he is correct that it is using MP3 as an intermediate step, I'm out.  I can't believe they'd do that but maybe so.

See above.  I was editing as you posted.

[lonewolfny42]

They have a forum for questions....

[woodsyi]

When I used it, which I have not since I had a silent PC built and had most of my CD's ripped for me by Donnie in Toronto (for free  ), it recorded to Flac without any intermediate steps.  I don't know if it ripped to Wav and converted to Flac like EAC but it was one step set up.  This needing to drag and drop doesn't jive with my experience.   Once the CD was put in, Easy Extractor immediately filled with the tracks.  All I had to do was to look for the art work then click to rip and I was done.  I, too, used the highest error correction setting and it still was faster than EAC.