I just posted a response over there. It seems like the users over there are thinking of a computer transport as playing wav files out of a PC sound card. Not as a SB/NAS solution. This is the response I posted over there if anybody is interested. Everybody in this forum already knows most of this.
Hi everybody, this is my first post to this forum. So I figured I jump right into a heated discussion. I have been running a computer based transport for about 5 years. I also build and sell a computer based transport system. So Ill get right into what I have learned. 1. Computer based transports sound better a transport that is working correctly has nothing to do with sound. Its job it to get the digital music off the CD and into the DAC without mucking them up. The DAC, amp , speakers, etc produce the sound. With a mechanical transport there are many things that can keep this from happening, a scratch in the CD, mechanical vibration causing skipping, etc. With a computer transport all the data is stored in a file so it is much easier to get it to the DAC intact. If you have a $20,000 CD player, and you clean your CDs before you play them then you also should not have a problem. Its just easier and cheaper to do it with a computer. Also a note on file formats. I use only FLAC file. These are lossless so you get the same bits that were on the original CD to the DAC. 2. Computers are can get viruses and the software can get mucked up This is true. That why you should have a dedicated server for your music. The server runs an embedded operating system such as Linux so it cant get a Virus. I sell the VortexBox appliance just for this purpose. It has software to rip music to the hard disk and stream it back. Very simple software on an embedded system equals few problems. 3. Hard disk fail, what if I rip all my music and then lose my hard drive? Your CDs are also prone to failure not only do they scratch by the plastic they are made of degrades with time. CDs are designed to last 30-50 years then they start to fail. A computer hard disk is designed to spin for 5 years continuously before it should be replaced. It should last at least 10 years but the MTBF ratings are usually based on a 5 year replacement cycle. So if you are 30 now and live to be 80 you will have to replace your hard disk 10 times over your lifetime. Of course this is a moot point because 10 year from now they will have solid state storage that exceeds 1TB so it wont be a problem. 4. Backup? You bet! You should backup all you computer data. Buy a USB hard disk and copy all you music files and all you other computer data to it. Then disconnect it and put it on a shelf. 90% of computer failures are caused by electrical surges. RAID wont help you if your computer gets zapped. 5.I love the ritual of playing a CD yup, and I think nothing will ever replace Vinyl either. There is something about the smell of a Vinyl record and the cleaning solution. Mmmmm But hay times change. My new ritual it controlling my music using a SqueezeCenter remote from my back yard. It can see the cover art, lyrics, etc all from my lawn chair. One ritual I dont miss is sorting all those CDs or trying to find the one Im looking for (I have over 1000) 6. Are there things that you can with a computer transport that your can do with a mechanical one? Yeah lots. Like setting up a 200 song playlist for a party. Or searching for your music by year, artist, album, etc. 7. So this sounds really cool but isnt it expensive? Its actually very inexpensive thats the best part. First you need a server like VortexBox ($359) then you need a player like the Logitech Duet ($327 on my web site). Thats $686 for a complete system. Including the full color WiFi remote. Thats not to bad compared to the cost of a good CD transport. -- agillis rip, tag, get cover art All you do is insert the CD! http://vortexbox.org agillis Lead Developer VortexBox ------------------------------------------------------------------------ agillis's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=21140 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=61715
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