Regarding Steve Nugent at Empirical Audio I took a look at the Empirical Audio web site (http://www.empiricalaudio.com/) and found that most of the information was pretty solid. For example here is the list of computer audio recommendations found on the site:
"Recommendations for Computer Audio General Recommendations 1. Rip to WAV or AIFF files if possible 2. Try Upsampling 44.1 files to 24/96 using S/W programs: SRC, iTunes, R8Brain or Adobe Audition - Wave Editor on Mac (Instructions are on the Empirical Audio audiocircle.com forum) 3. Avoid ripping to ALAC or other compressed formats using iTunes 4. Avoid using iTunes on a PC for audio playback 5. Using iTunes by itself on Mac compromises sound quality and resamples files unless you specify sample-rate. Use Amarra, Pure Music or AyreWave on Mac. (More info on how to setup Amarra) 6. Set 64-bit mode on PC or Mac for better sound quality. 7. Avoid Windows Media Player on PCs. Use instead Foobar, Jriver or Media Monkey. Better sound quality 8. If using a PC with XP, always bypass KMIXER using Kernal Streaming. If Vista or Win7, use WASAPI: http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_out_wasapi http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371455(VS.85).aspx" Aside from item #1 which goes along with the current audiophile disdain with lossless compression (you know because wav->flac->wav->flac->wav..... conversions somehow produce wav files which, while identical to the original wav files, somehow sound inferior) there is nothing on the list but worthwhile recommendations. All that being said, Empirical Audio's main product is a $6,000 USB DAC so of course Mr. Nugent is going to push digital audio systems which use a USB connection like a Mac or a PC and not streaming devices like the Squeezebox devices. But Empirical Audio is smart enough to include a S/PDIF coax input on their DAC, as compromised as that "so-last-year" S/PDIF connection may be :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ralphpnj's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=10827 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=96407 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
