[budyog]

Now that music servers and the like have gotten much more popular,
the high end digital community has become much more interested.

Again, I've been talking to the folks at Naim, Meridian and Wadia
about this quite extensively.  I have also been talking to a few others
and when we can put something together that seems somewhat conclusive,
i.e. with a little bit of science behind it, we will publish a full report.

Considering the amount of posts I've seen about how to rip files
and store them (not to mention backup!) I would like to cover these
subjects in a lot more depth going forward, as my competitors at
Stereophile, TAS and Hifi+ only see it as an anomaly.

But I think it's all the future and I've always been a big fan of
digital, so I remain enthused....

This will be nice. I am all confused! 
I think there is a past thread call "Got an Ipod, now what! That's me!

[marklivia]

This whole argument about lossless vs. uncompressed is really pointless. There are $300 cd players that measure perfect in every way that sound like crap.
I'm gonna let my ears be the judge.

[AphileEarlyAdopter]

Well..we need to see how the Ipod sounds as a transport. Especially with uncompressed/lossless files on the ipod. In order to be practical, it should sound good with lossless files, as the disk space is limited within an ipod.
People are using Squeezebox, Transporter, sound cards, reclocking devices etc and throwing money at it in various amounts only to get the best possible playback.
Personally, I do not want to invest in $2k for a Transporter because this technology is in a state of flux all the time. I went with the Squeezebox, but HAD to get some mods to get it sound even decent.  The Empirical Audio mods are much more 'reusable' in the sense, any new device can be used (with some mods) with the master clock they provide.

[AphileEarlyAdopter]

This whole argument about lossless vs. uncompressed is really pointless. There are $300 cd players that measure perfect in every way that sound like crap.
I'm gonna let my ears be the judge.

As somebody mentioned, the decompressed flac (or any lossless) files will be identical to an uncompressed file, but it is THEORETICALLY possible that the CPU in the streaming/playback device can get processing intensive, drawing more current and causing power supply induced jitter in the osciallator on the digital output. With the Squeezecenter, I have set it up in such a way that the server decompresses and sends out the decode wav output to the Squeezebox. There seems to be some improvement, but I cannot say it under oath

[smargo]

No reason not to enjoy something now...

Again, this isn't an expensive piece of gear.

Jeff:
 any updates as to sound quality? - and when is it going to be available?

[JRace]

For anyone seriously interested in lossless/lossy compression you should head over to www.hydrogenaudio.org. The folks over there have done way more than just talk about this.
You should be able to find lots of information in reagrds to this topic (compression).

Read lots before you post and make sure you understand their TOS.

[TONEPUB]

No reason not to enjoy something now...

Again, this isn't an expensive piece of gear.

Jeff:
 any updates as to sound quality? - and when is it going to be available?

Availability is looking like the end of Feb, beginning of march.

Sound quality is unbelievably good. It's limited by the DAC you
use.  With the Wadia 521 as a source it sounded like a five figure
CD player.  With the Channel Islands DAC (only 649) it still sounded
pretty damn good!   

Very impressive.

[smargo]

Jeff:

Thanks for the update - can't wait to get one!!

keep us abreast for the next few weeks - sound quality and availability -

thanks
smargo

[Donkeyshins]

Meh.

Call me when Wadia makes a 'killer' dock for a Zune and then I'll perk up.

-D

[cstory]

+ 1 on the Zune.

[TONEPUB]

I agree with you guys on the Zune thing..

I own an iPod and a Zune, so I like em both.
There are some functionality things about the Zune
that I really prefer over the iPod and my experience
has been that the Zune sounds quite a bit better
than the iPod right from the headphone jack.

What do you guys think?

I have been talking to Wadia, and I put that bug
in their ear about 8 months ago when I first heard
about their iDock.  They made it sound like it shouldn't
be too hard to do the same thing for the Zune, so if
they have good success with the iPod one, I truly
hope a Zune dock will soon follow!

Send them an email, make your voice heard!

[Donkeyshins]

I agree with you guys on the Zune thing..

I own an iPod and a Zune, so I like em both.
There are some functionality things about the Zune
that I really prefer over the iPod and my experience
has been that the Zune sounds quite a bit better
than the iPod right from the headphone jack.

What do you guys think?

I have been talking to Wadia, and I put that bug
in their ear about 8 months ago when I first heard
about their iDock.  They made it sound like it shouldn't
be too hard to do the same thing for the Zune, so if
they have good success with the iPod one, I truly
hope a Zune dock will soon follow!

Send them an email, make your voice heard!

I harassed my neighbor who works as a developer for the Zune team at MSFT, so hopefully that will help.   

-D

[cstory]

I'm late in seeing Jeff's note about how he likes his Zune and I wanted to add that I agree that it sounds better from the headphone output, and I like the squircle controller a lot better than the circle on the iPod and way better than the touch screen on the iTouches.

E-mail on the way to Wadia to see if they will work on the Zune version.

Chuck

[TONEPUB]

Im sure if you guys send enough email, that will convince them to at
least think about it...

With Apple having about 70% of the market, it might be a hard sell,
but who knows?  Also, once you put the darn thing on the dock, the
advantages of the Zune kind of go out the window.

For what it's worth though, as a hard core Apple guy, I prefer the
ZUNE computer interface over iTunes by a long shot as well!

Nice to see Apple getting some competition!