aj's right: It's going to come down to your source files. What format are you using? If not using a lossless codec, then that's almost certainly your problem. If lossless, then I fail to see how the squeezebox could cause the changes you describe. I assume you used the Bel Canto dac with your CD player as well, so the only thing you're comparing is the cd player to the SB3 as a transport. So then we're down to the only possible differences being either jitter, bit-read errors (for the SB the read errors would come at the time of the rip), or some sort of DSP being run at the time of the rip. The SB3 has been shown to be have very low jitter readings and I'm not one to put much stock into jitter or bit-error problems being audible, but even if you do believe that those are audible neither jitter nor bit-errors could produce a consistently "bright" sound. The issues would be far more random.
The much more likely culprit is that some sort of DSP is being run at rip time. What's your ripping method? As aj pointed out, comparing foobar's reproduction of the audio to the squeezebox is not a valid comparison. What kind of sound card do you have? Is your foobar machine hooked up to the Bel Canto dac, too? For that matter, is it hooked up to the same speakers? Do you have any sort of DSP running in foobar? A couple of other tips: 1. Be sure you don't have bitrate limiting turned on for the SB3. (player settings -> audio) 2. For optimal audio performance set the player's digital output to "fixed volume" so as to avoid losing any dynamic resolution. (player settings -> audio) one other thought: perhaps your CD player was running some sort of DSP before sending the digital out? -- azinck3 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ azinck3's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3967 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=24613 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
