[ian.ameline]

Don't assume everyone here lives in the USA, or that all countries in the world have the same laws -- in Canada, copying CDs for personal use (whether you own or have borrowed the CD) is perfectly legal. (it's specifically mentioned as fair-use in the law)

Personally I own the CDs for 90% of the music I have on my mac-mini -- which is what I'll be using to feed a BDA-1 when I order it sometime later this year. It works great -- and uses my TV as the display. The mini has a remote, ad software that presents a very good UI for users sitting 10' away from the screen on a couch. (through their "Front Row" application.)

[niels]

I agree totally with first feedback, quoted by James.
I have not owned a dedicated cd player the last 7 years, and I used a dvd player for playing cd´s untill 2,5 years ago.
I then got a Squeezebox, ripped all my cd´s in Apple Lossless in ITunes, and I havent looked back one wee bit.
Cd players are obsolete and I simply do not understand people buy them, except for the old vinyl syndrom that "its cozy to load a cd".
The money that would go into a cd player would buy one very good dac, which is really what you need.
I also feel very lucky I do not have a separate dac, then I would have to switch sources on that one, its sooo convenient when the dac is integrated in an amplifier.
I dont know how popular the B100 is, but buyers are put off by two things, the price, and the wattage. You can get 200-250 watt amps for half the cost of Bryston, and in the Bryston price range most get separates. If however Bryston would make a 200 watt B200 it would be a killer, although expensive. A final remark, even though buyers are ready for wireless sound they are not ready for state of the art integrated amps with dacs built in, I just dont know why. I dont care however, I am not changing!

[mcullinan]

Personally its insanity using a CD, a disc.. with sharp edges, one could cut an artery on its sharp edges. Thats why a Squeezebox  and the soon to arrive BDA-1 is the method of choice.

And as for ripping CDS, you dont even have to do that anymore. I have a lot of Grateful Dead... you can go to dead.net and purchase flac files of your favorite Dead albums... Plus I use HD Tracks, and eventually I hope iTunes will eventually offer Apple Lossless versions of albums.
Mike

[pardales]

I have had a computer-based digital front-end in my system for three years now. Because of it I listen deeper into my collection than I ever did using CD's. There is just no comparison to having your entire collection at your fingertips organized in multiple ways all accessible at at the scroll and click of a mouse. This is not to mention the quality that can be achieved using hard-drives and USB interface DAC's -- I have not gone the wireless route for music streaming yet, except to play the occasional internet radio station. I can't imagine ever using a CD player again.

[James Tanner]

I have had a computer-based digital front-end in my system for three years now. Because of it I listen deeper into my collection than I ever did using CD's. There is just no comparison to having your entire collection at your fingertips organized in multiple ways all accessible at at the scroll and click of a mouse. This is not to mention the quality that can be achieved using hard-drives and USB interface DAC's -- I have not gone the wireless route for music streaming yet, accept to play the occasional internet radio station. I can't imagine ever using a CD player again.

So do most people agree that hard-drives provide better audio quality that CD Drives?
Reasons?

james

[KeithA]

I have had a computer-based digital front-end in my system for three years now. Because of it I listen deeper into my collection than I ever did using CD's. There is just no comparison to having your entire collection at your fingertips organized in multiple ways all accessible at at the scroll and click of a mouse. This is not to mention the quality that can be achieved using hard-drives and USB interface DAC's -- I have not gone the wireless route for music streaming yet, accept to play the occasional internet radio station. I can't imagine ever using a CD player again.

So do most people agree that hard-drives provide better audio quality that CD Drives?
Reasons?

james

James

That one i'm not sure of as I haven't tried it extensively. I know of a few people who firmly believe that the CD is still better. I don't know. I do know that at home  I have an issue of Absolute Sound where Robert Harley addresses that vey issue and if I recall correctly, his conclusion was that hard drives sound better than CDs, for what it's worth.

If I can put my hands on it tonight, I can scan it tomorrow and send it to you as a pdf, if you wish?

Keith

[ian.ameline]

>So do most people agree that hard-drives provide better audio quality that CD Drives?
>Reasons?

Assuming lossless compression (or no compression at all), the same bits should wind up at the dac regardless of whether the source is a cd transport or a copy of the bits on a hard-drive. As an aside, drives are big these days, and there is really no reason for lossy compression.

The cons for a hard disk are that the drive itself can make some noise -- solution: locate the physical drive in a different room. (mine are firewire connected, and in the basement under the listening room -- 2 terabytes -- all my CDs and DVDs are on them.)

The pros are that when playing back from a hard drive, the computer will read well ahead and if any errors should happen, they will be detected and corrected long before the bits get sent to the dac -- with a cd transport, if you have heavy and loud bass playing (and we all know that Bryston amps paired with the right speakers can shake a room very nicely , there could be more errors reading the optical disc that do get passed through the bit stream heading to the dac.

Speculation, of course -- but I'd bet a considerable sum of money that a properly conducted double blind test would show no difference between the two sources feeding the same dac/analog chain -- assuming lossless or no compression.

[mcullinan]

Im not sure either as I havent played that many CDs recently  I would say though the potential to step even higher in audio quality is on the side of the Hard Drive. I know you can download master versions of recorded albums which are the same quality as what they were recorded in.
Though through the Squeezebox your are limited to 24/48hz... I think the Transporter plays 24/96.
Mike

[Tim S]

As to sound quality, I don't see why there should be an inherent difference. If you get basically the same info to the DAC, I would think the quality of that determines the sound. Of course dealing with a FLAC file off of a computer versus reading a CD requires different processing, but I don't see why either has to necessarily be inferior (though I know squat doodle about the engineering aspects). I had my Squeezebox and my CD player connected to the same DAC for a while and couldn't tell a bit of difference between them. The CD player has been packed in a box for a year or two now.

So I wouldn't say sound quality is the reason driving the switch over to the hard drive approach. It is pure convenience. If you can get the same quality with the much more convenient computerized storage, why bother with the CD player? I've got three music systems in my house spread across floors. The convenience of the hard drive storage system would be worth it even if I sacrificed quality (though I don't think I did).

Tim

[mr_bill]

I have compared my older Sony DVP7000es as a transport to a SB3 and both into a Benchmark Dac 1.  Differences were very very slight, with the SB3 being preferred slightly.
I have also compared the Sony to my Transporter (which I now own) via its digital input and the Transporter streaming sounds better than using a transport through the digital input.
In both cases, I have not used a preamp but rather direct connection to my amps.

[James Tanner]

I have had a computer-based digital front-end in my system for three years now. Because of it I listen deeper into my collection than I ever did using CD's. There is just no comparison to having your entire collection at your fingertips organized in multiple ways all accessible at at the scroll and click of a mouse. This is not to mention the quality that can be achieved using hard-drives and USB interface DAC's -- I have not gone the wireless route for music streaming yet, accept to play the occasional internet radio station. I can't imagine ever using a CD player again.

So do most people agree that hard-drives provide better audio quality that CD Drives?
Reasons?

james

James

That one i'm not sure of as I haven't tried it extensively. I know of a few people who firmly believe that the CD is still better. I don't know. I do know that at home  I have an issue of Absolute Sound where Robert Harley addresses that vey issue and if I recall correctly, his conclusion was that hard drives sound better than CDs, for what it's worth.

If I can put my hands on it tonight, I can scan it tomorrow and send it to you as a pdf, if you wish?

Keith

Yes I would love to see that.

james

[KeithA]

I have had a computer-based digital front-end in my system for three years now. Because of it I listen deeper into my collection than I ever did using CD's. There is just no comparison to having your entire collection at your fingertips organized in multiple ways all accessible at at the scroll and click of a mouse. This is not to mention the quality that can be achieved using hard-drives and USB interface DAC's -- I have not gone the wireless route for music streaming yet, accept to play the occasional internet radio station. I can't imagine ever using a CD player again.

So do most people agree that hard-drives provide better audio quality that CD Drives?
Reasons?

james

James

That one i'm not sure of as I haven't tried it extensively. I know of a few people who firmly believe that the CD is still better. I don't know. I do know that at home  I have an issue of Absolute Sound where Robert Harley addresses that vey issue and if I recall correctly, his conclusion was that hard drives sound better than CDs, for what it's worth.

If I can put my hands on it tonight, I can scan it tomorrow and send it to you as a pdf, if you wish?

Keith

Yes I would love to see that.

james

I'll do that. I'm pretty sure I have the article.

Keith

[Rootmann]

I also now listen to all my music from a hard drive based system.  I have been using this almost exclusively for the past 2.5 years, and yes, I own all my 1500 plus CD's too.  I now have all my CD's in Apple lossless format, but also have many of them in FLAC just because I wanted to compare and see if I could hear a difference.  If there is a difference, I am having trouble picking it up.  I must admit, I began ripping CD's in 128 bit MP3, then 320 bit MP3, then lossless and FLAC.  I could tell a huge difference from 128 to 320, then lossless/FLAC.  There was no comparison going from MP3 to lossless/FLAC, and it took a long time to correct my MP3 mistake through my own stupidity, or lack of knowledge.  Had I known Lossless and FLAC sounded that much better I would've never gone MP3.  Oh well....

I now use a Dell Quad Core PC with multiple disk RAIDS(for protection of my music library), fed wireless from another room to an SB3 to a Benchmark DAC1 in my main listening room.  There's no way I would go back to a single CDP at this point.  Convenience being the number one reason, and I just plain get to listen to more music this way.  Instant access to any album, song, or artist has put my collection at my fingertips, AND keeps my wife happy too with my expensive hobby(WAF guys!!!)

The Squeezebox and my own homegrown PC solution have been a music lovers dream.  I look forward to grabbing a Duet soon, with it's LCD remote.  When I buy new music, which is weekly, it's on my music server and available within the hour.  More music, more quality listening time, faster access to good wine while we jam!!!

Rootman

[James Tanner]

Hi all,

Some things to be aware of when using your computer as your music source:

1. The PCI add-in audio card.  They utilize the power supply of the PCI bus of the computer.
This power supply is typically quite noisy, so it is difficult to get high-quality output from these cards. They are also limited in form-factor and cooling capacity.

2. There are severe interconnect length limitations when either S/PDIF or analog outputs are used, so this places the computer very close to the audio system and the rotation noise can be a concern.

3. AC power of the computer can also easily cause hum in the system.


Wireless converters typically use Ethernet wireless protocol. This has some issues as well.

1.The wireless network can be shared by other devices, such as printers and other computers on the network. Since the Ethernet protocol allows ANY device to demand service and bandwidth, other devices can "hog" the network and cause drop-outs in the audio stream.

2. The current wireless devices I believe are limited to 44.1kHz sampling rate?


james

[niels]

I must admit I was a bit worried when Bryston announced their cd player, I was afraid it wouldnt sell, but then, there is a market for almost anything if the quality is superiour.
More and more audiophiles are going harddrive, some very very reluctantly, but take a look at the slimdevices forum for audiophiles : http://forums.slimdevices.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7.......a lot use Transporter, or SB3 with nothing more than a harddrive and active speakers, pluss a set of attenuators.
In the review of Squeezebox 3 in Stereophile some time ago he compared streaming wireless to SB3 and playing the cd from an Ayre cd player, both into the same dac he was hard pressed to hear a difference.
http://stereophile.com/digitalprocessors/906slim/
Remember to put the Squeezebox to "No Bitrate Limit"
Transporter review : http://stereophile.com/mediaservers/207slim/  It will do 24/96.
Now the high end companies come on the bandwagon, McIntosh and Linn have servers or network processors, at fanatical prices, but no doubt especially the Linn have reference status.
Major companies now offer media players with builtin harddrive, like Cambridge Audio, and Pioneer is announcing an upcoming affordable sacd-amplifier player with network connection.
But, nonetheless, we are talking bits from a computer (that cannot make a mistake) fed into a dac, and in my opinion thats all that matters. More and more music is available as download, look at Linn, this one for instance : http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-the-complete-works-of-ravel-vol--1.aspx

And yes, the Squeezebox is not 24/96, but if the file is ripped for instance at compression mode 5 in flac it will play, the SB3 just throws away every other sample. (This ripping because of a bug in the new SqueezeCenter software, I think maybe it is fixed now. If you use SlimServer 24/96 will play just fine.)

My music is streamed wireless via the router to the Squeezebox 15 feet into another room.
I have compared the Apple Lossless streamed wireless to the SB3 and into the Bryston dac with the digital output of same music played on my Philips DVD 963SA player via Stax 006t & 4040 headphone system, and I couldnt tell a difference, but, the difference between the analog output of the Philips and SB3 compared with the Bryston dac is rather big......

I have never had a more pleasing, and easier system in use, pluss all my cd´s are stored away.
The bryston dac handles also my movies, I send the PCM from the dvd player to it.
The future, which is here, is not separate this and that, its tv, cable, internet, radio and music in just one cable......except if you play sacd, but I gave that up after trying it out.....

The focus nowadays is on the dac, there is a lot of discussions as to what to choose here.

For those with soundcard : http://www.mp3car.com/wiki/index.php/Bit-perfect

[Crimson]

I haven't used my player in about 4 years other than for SACDs. My 'server' feeds multiple systems via USB, ethernet, and wifi (yes, I'm an Apple/iTunes junky but I don't use compression). WRT whether HD-based playback is better than dedicated players: I can only surmise that when ripping a disc to a lossless format with some manner of error correction, the computer rereads the data (more or less) till it gets it right. This is not the case with 'real-time' CDPs.

[Crimson]

Hi all,

Some things to be aware of when using your computer as your music source:

1. The PCI add-in audio card.  They utilize the power supply of the PCI bus of the computer.
This power supply is typically quite noisy, so it is difficult to get high-quality output from these cards. They are also limited in form-factor and cooling capacity.

2. There are severe interconnect length limitations when either S/PDIF or analog outputs are used, so this places the computer very close to the audio system and the rotation noise can be a concern.

3. AC power of the computer can also easily cause hum in the system.


Wireless converters typically use Ethernet wireless protocol. This has some issues as well.

1.The wireless network can be shared by other devices, such as printers and other computers on the network. Since the Ethernet protocol allows ANY device to demand service and bandwidth, other devices can "hog" the network and cause drop-outs in the audio stream.

2. The current wireless devices I believe are limited to 44.1kHz sampling rate?


james

James,

All of your observations are correct. It's definitely not a 'plug-n-play' technology if you're looking for good sound. To comment on your points:

1. IMO, soundcards are not the way to go for the reasons you cite.
2. Lengths are an issue. My main system is fed via USB with the computer (iMac, silent) connected using a 6' cable. The actual files are stored on NAS drives (loud fan noise) in a different room.
3. AC noise! That took some messing around with, but I finally got it right with a combination of power conditioners and circuit separation.

WRT wifi transport, yes it is currently limited to 16/44.1. OTOH, I've run tests trying to overload my network and never came close to producing playback hiccups. I'd say home networks don't have enough traffic for it to be a concern, especially considering that most consumer-grade network equipment now runs 1000Base-T or 802.11g/n.

[Toka]

I'd say the "future" has more to do with solid-state devices, but thats still a ways off. 

As far as my digital needs are concerned, I'm already on the server bus. Back up your data and you are fine. iTunes works very well (and has no DRM issues if you are using your own music), and ALAC encoding is stellar. Hook up a Squeezebox to your DAC and enjoy. If you get the "touchy-feely" itch, listen to vinyl. 

[smerlas]

The BDA offers flexability to systems.  For high quality sound I have the CD player on my home system.  But have gotten away from using the CD player in my vehicle.  Transporting the CD's is hard on them.  So I have utilized an IPod I received as a gift to have a compact means of transporting my CD's and expanding the selection that can be listened to in the vehicle.  This also led to installation of the software at work and the ability to have my music library at work.  I like the flexibility it offers.

The music quality is not the same as a quality CD transport.  However in these venues the advantages outweight the disadvantages.  Road noise and office environment are not "ideal" listening environments.  The IPod product has since failed and has not been replaced. 

I can see the future where a good music storage device and the ability to select and or program listening sessions would be great, as well as the ability to listen to digital music broadcasts through a 2 channel system.  I run the cable box audio outputs through my system and have recently watched / listended to digital music concerts and was impressed with the sound quality.  With the ability to route these signals through the BDA is has to be amazing.

I purchased the Bryston CD player as a high quality device to play my CD collection with the hopes that even if that media slowly disappears in terms of new releases I will have a quality player to spin my collection.  As the popularity of digital storage and libraries increases I am sure there will be advances in the BDA.  I am not in a position personally for one in my system but do see it down the road.

[Levi]

I think solid state hard disk drive is the future!  They will be quicker, greener and ultimately more reliable. 

Who knows, It may even sound better. 

Cheers,
-Levi