[ajzepp]

A few months ago I really started getting tired of my Squeezebox Duet. It worked great for the first couple years, but lately it's been a real PITA. I came on audio circle and got some ideas and suggestions, and I'm now at the point where I could not be happier with the sound quality and convenience of my system.

Fellow AC'er, SRB (Steve), helped me to learn about a USB-SPDIF adapter. He suggested a very inexpensive Behringer model that was available on Amazon, so I picked up one of those and an optical cable. I am an admitted fan of iTunes, so I ran that with the adapter and optical cable into my DAC (Tdac from Tube Audio Design).

Since that time I found a very interesting adapter from Mapleshade (one of my favorite places for "tweaks") that uses identical circuitry as the adapter that many consider the best on the market, the HiFace adapter from www.m2tech.biz. I then picked up a dig coax cable from blue jeans cable, and last night I fired it all up. I am absolutely thrilled with how things are sounding, and I love how much convenience is built into everything. I downloaded the "remote" app on my iPhone, which controls my iTunes software, which really makes listenign to music a true pleasure.

It's been a long time since I've been this excited about the state of my rig    I have some NOS tubes coming in soon, so next step will be tube swapping on the Tdac

PS. I also spent a lot of time treating my cable terminations and the inputs on my components with that Caig DeoxIT stuff....seems to have contributed to the improvement, as well!

[srb]

Glad to hear that the Mapleshade USB-to-S/PDIF Reclocking Adapter has improved your setup.  Although I have no idea what the Amish maple enclosure or cryogenic treatment adds to the performance, the price was the same, or in some cases $10 less, than the price for the stock HiFace from most stateside vendors, so what's not to like?
 
I see you are using a Blue Jeans digital cable.  I read about the recommended Mapleshade Clearview Double Helix Digital Interconnect with PLUS upgrade, although this is the first time I have seen a digital cable claim that it had "about a half octave deeper bass" (albeit compared to their own Ultrathin).  I did rather fancy the installation tip of "fluffing" the polymer sleeve by blowing into the RCA plug, though.  But these cables are outside of my price scope.
 
Let us know if you apply any other upgrades or tweeks to your digital playback system.  Enjoy!
 
Steve

[ajzepp]

Thanks Steve, you really helped me get on the right track with all this, and it's really worked out great 

I actually had a conversation with Pierre from Mapleshade today about the USB adapter. He firmly believes that if I went with a shorter dig coax run, and specifically the Mapleshade cable, that it would be a nice improvement over the BJC one. I told him that I typically kept my laptop about 10' from my DAC so that I could control the music, and then that's when he suggested the iPhone app ("remote") that I think some of you guys from the Apple circle had mentioned before, as well. I downloaded it today and it worked great...very impressive given how much trouble my Duet had been giving me.

Anyway, Pierre loves the idea of PC/Mac based music, and since I've been a big fan of his products for several years now I may take advantage of his 30 day return policy on the dig coax cable. He also suggested I always run the laptop unplugged and on battery power whenever listening to music, so I'll give that a go too. I don't know if all of his products work as advertised, but his background is impressive enough and I've had good enough results with his products that I always listen to what he has to say.

I'm just really thankful we have this community for help and to share ideas, cause there's no way I could have reached this level of enjoyment by myself...this place rocks!

[timind]

Nice to hear things are cooking for you.
I recently had a similar experience with my Mac Mini running itunes when I inserted a Monarchy Audio DIP between the Mini and PS Audio DLIII. Prior to the DIP I would listen to the Mini for convenience only. Now I'm really listening and enjoying the sound. I am surprised by this tweak and my reaction to it. Enjoy your tunes.

[ajzepp]

Nice to hear things are cooking for you.
I recently had a similar experience with my Mac Mini running itunes when I inserted a Monarchy Audio DIP between the Mini and PS Audio DLIII. Prior to the DIP I would listen to the Mini for convenience only. Now I'm really listening and enjoying the sound. I am surprised by this tweak and my reaction to it. Enjoy your tunes.

I've heard nothing but great things about Monarchy Audio. I've spoken with the owner a few times and I was very close to buying their NM24 DAC.

I'm trying to decide if I want to play around with Foobar2000. I keep hearing the sound quality is superior to iTunes, but things are working so well right now I almost hate to mess with it lol.

[srb]

I assume you're still using a PC (I know you had talked about getting a Mac a while back).  If you're using Windows Vista or Windows 7, J. River Media Center ($50) will allow you to use the WASAPI Windows mixer-bypassing driver (like foobar) but with a much better interface, playlist options and features.
 
The only drawback right now is their iPhone/Pod app doesn't seem to be as full featured as iTunes Remote app, but I'll be investigating it and other app options for it in the near future.
 
Steve

[ajzepp]

I assume you're still using a PC (I know you had talked about getting a Mac a while back).  If you're using Windows Vista or Windows 7, J. River Media Center ($50) will allow you to use the WASAPI Windows mixer-bypassing driver (like foobar) but with a much better interface, playlist options and features.
 
The only drawback right now is their iPhone/Pod app doesn't seem to be as full featured as iTunes Remote app, but I'll be investigating it and other app options for it in the near future.
 
Steve

Yeppers, still have the Dell laptop...planning to go to a Mac between now and Christmas, cause I definitely need an upgrade!

Thanks for the J. river media center info...you must have read my mind, cause that's the sort of thing I'm trying to learn about next. I was giong to play around with Foobar, but someone on the audio asylum posted directions on WASAPI support through iTunes by changing some audio settings in QuickTime. Here is what he said:

"Download the latest iTunes for PC (which comes with QuickTime as ever), then start QuickTime and go into Edit > Preferences and choose the Audio tab. Here, you have 3 options for where to output sound - Standard DirectSound, Safe mode or Windows Audio Session. Choosing the latter routes everything through WASAPI. It doesn't work in exclusive mode, but it does give you 'bit perfect' output. Now go back to iTunes and start enjoying your music like it's never sounded through iTunes before.

Then, if you're inclined to do so, do a comparison between Windows Audio Session and DirectSound and prepare for a shock. "
(Posted by "DrChaos" from AudioAsylum)

[srb]

"Download the latest iTunes for PC (which comes with QuickTime as ever), then start QuickTime and go into Edit > Preferences and choose the Audio tab. Here, you have 3 options for where to output sound - Standard DirectSound, Safe mode or Windows Audio Session. Choosing the latter routes everything through WASAPI. It doesn't work in exclusive mode, but it does give you 'bit perfect' output. (Posted by "DrChaos" from AudioAsylum)

I tried it, and it seems to work like iTunes on OSX - it won't automatically change bit depth and sample rates on the fly from song to song.  I must set my audio device to 16/44.1 to play 16/44.1 files and to 24/96 to play 24/96 files, etc.
 
If I leave the device setting at 24/96, then 44.1 files are upsampled to 24/96 (or 24/192 files downsampled to 24/96), hence not bit perfect.  I guess that's the beauty of the exclusive mode in that it will allow bit perfect output on whatever file is being played without needing to manually reset the device's output to match.
 
Steve

[Vincent Kars]

By design everything is routed through the Win mixer.
As a consequence all audio will play at the bit depth and sample rate as set in the audio panel.

The exception to this rule is WASAPI in exclusive mode.
This allows the media player to talk directly to de driver of the soundcard.
This bypasses the Win mixer.

This requires a media player supporting WASAPI in exclusive mode like J River, MusicBee, Foobar.
It is up to the developer of these players to see to it that all audio is played at its native resolution (if the hardware allows for it).