[James Tanner]

Hi saveloy,

OK thanks - I felt it would be important that people could use the BDP-1 with DAC's they prefer.

james

[saveloy]

Hi saveloy,

OK thanks - I felt it would be important that people could use the BDP-1 with DAC's they prefer.

James

Albeit inferior ones, James!

Kyri

[James Tanner]

Albeit inferior ones, James!

Kyri
james

Is there a link to the review?

james

[skunark]

Werd, this is the absolutely best USB cable for your application:



Nap. 

How many carets?

[saveloy]

Is there a link to the review?

james

The review has not been posted yet.  But it should appear here soon.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews

Kyri

[Napalm]

How many carets?

They're actually small Shakti stones. If you still feel they're insufficient, you can add a pair of Shakti on-lines:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/audiovideo.htm

Nap. 

[James Tanner]

The review has not been posted yet.  But it should appear here soon.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews

Kyri

Thanks Kyri - much appreciated.

james

[Napalm]

Hi saveloy,

OK thanks - I felt it would be important that people could use the BDP-1 with DAC's they prefer.

james

Mhh I saw that coming. The BDAP-1 may of course have a BNC output for those inclined to use an external DAC.....

Nap. 

[saveloy]

James,

Knowing PMC's preference, vis a vis UK hi-fi magazines, it's safe to say that there will be at least one more review coming up soon. 
I shall keep you posted. 

Kyri

[James Tanner]

EXPLANATION OF DIGITAL DATA TRANSFER IN BDP-1

The BDP-1 reads the data into the memory (i.e. RAM in the BDP-1) and passes it to the music processor (sound card) which is the first time that you must consider it "music"... up until this point it is just computer data and not subjected to all of the adverse influences and correction/elimination techniques.

james

[saveloy]

EXPLINATION OF DIGITAL DATA TRANSFER IN BDP-1

The BDP-1 reads the data into the client memory (i.e. RAM in the BDP-1) and passes it to the music processor (sound card) which is the first time that you must consider it "music"... up until this point it is just computer data and not subjected to all of the adverse influences and correction/elimination techniques.

james

James,

In a similar vein, with regard to the review. The reviewer suggests that the BDP-1 would be better served, in terms of jitter, if it had the DAC within the same casework.
I understand all of your arguments against this, but that is how 'everybody else' does it.

[skunark]

They're actually small Shakti stones. If you still feel they're insufficient, you can add a pair of Shakti on-lines:

http://www.shakti-innovations.com/audiovideo.htm

Nap. 

OMG those are hilarious...  Reduces EMI, increases the horse-power on your car, snap on with velcro strips and lasts a lifetime..   There's so many things wrong with their understanding of EMI.

[James Tanner]

James,

In a similar vein, with regard to the review. The reviewer suggests that the BDP-1 would be better served, in terms of jitter, if it had the DAC within the same casework.
I understand all of your arguments against this, but that is how 'everybody else' does it.

Well we disagree of course but to each his own I guess.

james

[drummermitchell]

Thank Christ,Bryston isn't everybody else .

[1ZIP]

Thank Christ,Bryston isn't everybody else .

Amen

[werd]

Not that I want to fan the flames, but I have a simple question re the USB cable debate.  If the quality of USB cable from the HDD to the BDP-1 impacts the quality of the music, then doesn't it also stand to reason that the quality of the USB cable from the PC to the HDD during the ripping phase would also impact the quality of the music?  After all, each cable serves exactly the same purpose.  So if you're using a standard computer cable to feed the HDD when ripping, you have already "degraded" the music.  How would an expensive USB cable from the HDD to the BDP reverse that?

Hi

This is an excellent question. It points out the reason why we have conflicting opinions (or at least i do) on the subject. The notion put forward by pretty much everybody is that the HD isn't sending audio data but just raw data from the HD to the bdp1. Its been further clarified that its directed to the ram where it becomes audio data by the bdp1 where its then sent off to a dac in either redbook or hirez. Its also been mentioned  that since its "raw data" that the usb cable isnt consider an audio cable into the bdp1. All this is the basis for the idea that the usb is not a factor in play.

Ok now to answer your question. Why is the usb cable seemingly not important at times of ripping but important at times of audio playback using a computer or a device like the bdp?.

The answer is really simple. The answer is "there is no free lunch in digital playback !!". Lets take my system for eg. The system i built i would consider to be capable of hi resolution. Its a very sensitive system and will respond to small changes in playback. The amp i use is a 650 watt 14Bsq. Brand new and its beautiful, everyone should have one....  . It picks up everything. I also have a very nice AC Torus power block in 240v balanced and an excellent cable scheme. It is really really  sensitive to small changes. This is where just using a computer for downloading and using a computer for playback things start to become different.

Everything that encompasses my digital playback gets amplified. I mean everything. This is what makes computer or cd playback so lousy. All the noise, all the cabling, all the week engineering. Including vibration due to an inferior chassis gets amplified. Not saying this is what i have now but what i need to draw attention to or things can sound pretty noisey and distorted.

What also gets amplified is running an outboard HD into a device like the BDP1. I really wish that the bdp1 was the starting gate for playback. I really was hoping that the bdp1 would sort it all out and be the impenetrable fence between the HD and the dac. For playback using an external HD unfortunately it isnt. But the good new is with a usb stick it is and is very respectable.

So when i say "there is no free lunch in digital playback" this means you can not go throw any HD with any usb on the bdp1 with the kind of system i have and many other systems present on this board with out tending to the noise. You can reduce the damage significantly. One way i found was by improving the usb interface between the HD and the BDP. My feelings are not the cabling but the connects. The connects on my wireworld starlight are leaps and bounds better than what i see on the piece of shit usb i started with. I believe there is noise reduction benefits to this Wireworld usb. BTW this usb cable is 7 mtrs to boot. 

Ok what did it sound like

Skunark was kind enough to make a very pertinent observation regarding the powersupply or wallwart. The wallwort on this HD is under powered. Its shows up in the bass and i have lost a lot presence using it, especially compared to the provided usb stick by Bryston. I would also say its nothing short of menace for emitting noise back into my line.

.

This is where James you need to sit down..... What it also did was carry a high pitch glare with it on everynote and every beat the song had. It reminded me of 9pin dot matrix printer that i still use at work. Every time the printer hits the paper it emits a high slam printer drone that either gets faster or slower but the pitch is the same. This is what the bdp reminded me of with my Omega HD and crap usb cable to it.

This is not the way the bdp sounds with the provided usb stick by Bryston. I was so relieved when i put that stick in because showed me the real capablity of the bdp. It also improved with the wireworld. There was still noise issues and it felt underpowered. Favorably it had better bass and the printer comparison was no longer there. All the bad stuff can be worked with. Better HD with a decent powersupply is great place to start.

So why am i annoyed. Well when i have an experience like this and i post it. I post it in good faith. Unfortunately there is a culture of audio naysayer enthusiam that seem to think the conditions needed to rip cd's is the same type of interface that can be used for playback. That is absolute nonsense. I know first hand that "there is no free lunch in digital playback".....

[skunark]

Skunark was kind enough to make a very pertinent observation regarding the powersupply or wallwart. The wallwort on this HD is under powered. Its shows up in the bass and i have lost a lot presence using it, especially compared to the provided usb stick by Bryston. I would also say its nothing short of menace for emitting noise back into my line.

Hang on here Werd, my comment is mostly to the fact that wallwarts tend to be noisy and that noise could bleed onto other components on the same circuit much like having a dimmer switch or a refrigerator on the same circuit as your gear, which to me is bad form.   Most wallwarts are ON when plugged in with no regard of what is connected to it, but that could be the subtle difference you notice between the thumbdrive and the wallwarts.  With that said, noisy supply or not, the USB HDD will deliver the data safely to the RAM in the BDP-1 unaltered, and no different than a usb thumb drive.   

If you would like, I could explain in great detail how the HDD/SSD,  SATA to USB controller, PHY, DLL, etc.,  uses several different error correction and detection techniques, along with the fact that a USB HDD will also retry any data when a failure is detected.  You might google the OSI model, but for USB there's several error correction schemes in play for a usb hdd device and really it's just down to unrecoverable device fault or crash for any real failure.

A USB DAC is different, it's classified as an "usb audio device" and will use an isochronous protocol that doesn't allow for retries or even check for errors.  This works fine for those cheap headsets you might use on a conference call and for lower reliability applications.  To me it's very poor choice for an audiophile to use as a solution since the consequence is losing a millisecond of audio, and if I remember correctly it would be one channel which also lends to the high jitter commonly found in older USB DACs.  Correct setups have shown that you can have amazingly good USB DAC solution with jitter in the picoseconds, but this isn't my choice.   

The robustness of the BDP-1 as a transport eliminates this concern I have for hi-rez playback, first you have a reliable USB connectors for HDD and thumbdrives, embedded linux computer that doesn't alter the hi-rez content and ships it out on an AES-EBU digital output.  Technically it's the most robust hi-rez player out today.

[Welly123]

Hang on here Werd, my comment is mostly to the fact that wallwarts tend to be noisy and would that noise could bleed onto other components on the same circuit much like having a dimmer switch or your refrigerator on the same circuit as your gear, which to me is bad form.   Most wallwarts are ON when plugged in with no regard of what is connected to it, but that could be the subtle difference you notice between the thumbdrive and the wallwarts.  With that said, noisy supply or not, the USB HDD will deliver the data safely to the RAM in the BDP-1 unaltered, and no different than a usb thumb drive.   

If you would like, I could explain in great detail how the HDD/SSD,  SATA to USB controller, PHY, DLL, etc.,  uses several different error correction and detection techniques, along with the fact that a USB HDD will also retry any data when a failure is detected.  You might google the OSI model, but for USB there's several error correction schemes in play for a usb hdd device and really it's just down to unrecoverable device fault or crash for any real failure.

A USB DAC is different, it's classified as an "usb audio device" and will use an isochronous protocol that doesn't allow for retries or checks for errors.  This works fine for those cheap headsets you might use on a conference call and for lower reliability applications.  To me it's very poor choice for an audiophile to use as a solution since the consequence is losing a millisecond of audio, and if i remember correctly it would be one channel which also lends to the high jitter found in older USB DACs.  Correct setups have shown that you can have amazingly good USB DAC solution with jitter in the picoseconds, but this isn't my choice.   

The robustness of the BDP-1 as a transport eliminates this concern I have for hi-rez playback, first you have a reliable USB connectors for HDD and thumbdrives, embedded linux computer that doesn't alter the hi-rez content and ships it out on an AES-EBU digital output.  Technically it's the most robust hi-rez player out today.

Skunark,

I wish you lots of luck with giving any explanation to Werd, he doesn't seem to want to understand or listen to reasonable argument.

But, thank you for your detailed explanation, which to me at least makes perfect sense.

James, regarding our PMs, sounds like Skunark will be able to provide more assistance.

Regards

Russell

[Welly123]

Wally

This will be the last time i make post to you. If you stop stroking your own ego and read my posts you will find my first post references the usb stick supplied by Bryston as reference. For the short time it was available to me it was beyond obvious of the sonic drawbacks of throwing a generic usb between  my omega hd and the bdp. Put your comb down and go find my post yourself its all there.

As far as proving my point. I am not sure i know what you want me to prove to you.  It could be that if you can't hear a difference with a usb cable your gear past the bdp is probably a lot like your ego.... junk and hard to listen to. Or  maybe you want me to prove that you need to learn how to listen to a stereo..... idk.

But what ever it is please don't tell me. This has turned unbearable.

Werd,

Excellent news, I can understand why your stupidity has become unbearable... even to you.

Damn, now I have stooped to your exceedingly low level of not making any positive contribution within a post.

Regards

Russell

[Welly123]

As someone who consults at the highest levels of computer infrastructure (30+ years) with corporate computer systems that support the databases that run these corporations (and I am talking Fortune 50 (that’s fifty) companies here), we internally have no debate about the type of Ethernet cables, SAN fibre  channel cables etc that are used.

And we arent talking low end Windows or Linux servers... we are talking multi-multi-million dollar Unix systems with downtime requirements measured in minutes a year.

Robust and reliable is the benchmark for corporate infrastructure cables (with the caveat that the highest quality glass is needed for SAN fibre  channel cables given the high bandwidths/run lengths they need to support but in this USB cable debate we are talking copper)

Once you have those parameters squared away (Robust and reliable) ... the computer infrastructure components don’t care if you use long crystal copper or you use a special Dialectic or twice the number of strands or some special helix winding pattern etc.

You can string Ethernet cable 50m or 100m with no signal loss.

Yes, USB is a different protocol , but underneath fibre channel/Ethernet/USB are all packet based protocols.. its just the resilience  of the sender/receiver to packet loss/retry that’s different.

USB has a very limited cable distance without a repeater (5m max)  but the point is, the packet sender/receiver don’t perceive any differences on cable quality... with reference to two cables that aren’t broken in some way.

If you plug in a cable and the sender/receiver can handshake reliably, job done.

So in my view, high priced USB cables are a con and they would not contribute to any SQ difference.

Peter

Peter,

Thank you for restoring my faith, with a very intelligent contribution and from a professional "in the business".

It is obvious that I was becoming frustrated. 

Regards

Russell