[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Newbe Questions
jp1 Wrote: Would appreciate any and all assistance on the below questions. I'm a bit swamped, but definitely want to upgrade. thanks much jp Which format is best to import in? Lossless or WAV? (FLAC vs. Itunes lossless, vs Windows Media lossless or uncompressed WAV?) From what Ive heard FLAC is best, but its a bit temperamental, and not supported by Itunes or WMP · Is EAC the only Audio grabber / ripper you would recommend? Or is WMP 10 or Itunes sufficient? · What song container should I use? Does Windows media 10 support FLAC? I know Itunes doesnt. If not, what should I use or just say screw it and go with ease of use? · Which external hard drive should I use? (lacie vs wdc or something crazy like this http://www.infrant.com/products_ReadyNAS_X6.htm), · Once I run out of room, can I just add 250 gig drives like popcorn? Or does it add complexity / high cost? · Do I stay away from a Network drive to eliminate wireless issues and use firewire / USB drive? · Do I need to modify at all my dell Pentium 4 win xp box (circa 2005) to get rid of the fan noise or other random things? · Once the CDs are in the drive, and I have the Squeezebox do I need a Brick, DAC or other digital converter / transporter to get past the USB interference / bad computer fuzz? · What speakers / receiver / amp / preamp etc. should I eventually upgrade to? Im basically running a medium level sony component system thats anywhere from 5 to 15 years old, with pretty-much-blown-out old TDL speakers thanks ! Hi there! That's an awful lot of questions in one go! You'll find discussion on many of them in the forums, so a bit of searching will cover many of them. But I can understand why you're feeling swamped, there is a lot of stuff to work out. As well as the forums here, I also recommend hydrogenaudio.org, where you will learn a lot about FLAC and other formats, also about EAC and other rippers. I'll pick on just a couple of your questions that are perhaps not going to be amenable to a quick search: Once the CDs are in the drive, and I have the Squeezebox do I need a Brick, DAC or other digital converter / transporter to get past the USB interference / bad computer fuzz? If you have a Squeezebox there won't be any USB interference or fuzz. The SB links to your computer using ethernet (either wired or wireless) so you should get bit perfect delivery to the SB outputs. Some people do choose to add a separate DAC downstream from the SB, but most find the DAC inside the SB to be perfectly adequate (or even very good). What speakers / receiver / amp / preamp etc. should I eventually upgrade to? Im basically running a medium level sony component system thats anywhere from 5 to 15 years old, with pretty-much-blown-out old TDL speakers You won't get an answer to that one here! This is an enormously subjective area, dependent on budget, ears and space. Spend as much as you want on stuff that you like! The SB will deliver the music to it perfectly, though, whatever it is. HTH... Ceejay -- ceejay ceejay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=148 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18200 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Sound Quality w/ Latest Firmware
dean Wrote: On Nov 14, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Patrick Dixon wrote: Given that the Squeezebox has a 24 bit output, the rounding error should be down at around at 138-144dB, not 90-96dB and I have a hard time believing that the effect would be as obvious as you state at that level. This is simply incorrect - the rounding error is at the 16th bit of a 16-bit audio signal, therefore it is at -90/96dB. The output audio signal is 24 bits. The rounding error is at the least significant bit there.But this is the 16th bit of the sampled data - therefore the error noise has 16th bit significance - not 24th The source material is 16 bits and when you scale that value it necessarily needs to be rounded to the output resolution.Indeed, and that's fine as long as you don't start discarding resolution It's not just that I like it better - it's also that it's 'correct' to maintain the accuracy of the original digital data - in a similar way as it's 'correct' not to sample rate convert 44.1KHz audio to 48KHz (as some other manufacturers do). It's a tradeoff between the accuracy of the gain control vs the rounding error at the 24th bit.But the gain control accuracy is insignificant conpared to the rounding error. How can you argue that you can't hear the difference etween a rounding error at 16 bits (or 24 as you think it is), but want to preserve volume control accuracy to two decimal places of a dB?[ Even if you don't understand it and won't take my word for it, the difference between the 'rounded' volume multipliers and the unrounded volume multipliers is so slight that it cannot possibly have a negative effect! Yet they can have a positive effect?YES I can believe that it does sound better in some cases because you would be rounding up the gain value. The oldest trick in the stereo salesman's book is to turn up the volume to make something sound better.I'm completely aware of that (it was me that first suggested it to jhwilliams earlier in this thread before I listened properly and tracked this down, but it is not what is happening here. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but I do want to understand this before we make a change.I'm not trying to be difficult either - I'm trying to help you! I have patched my code and I'm perfectly happy that a) it's correct and b) it sounds correct, but I'm concerned for Slim Devices that you should release code with such a significant audio quality bug. I'm trying to help you avoid a mistake. Another proposal moved the 8 to 16 bit threshold from -35db to -30dB. What's the right value for this?The right value is one as low as possible, but where the resolution of the volume control is still sensible. Obviously if the volume multiplier is changing less than 1 bit (ie not changing!) between steps - it's time to ditch the modulo 256 bit. -35dBs is fine for this, I could live with -30dB because I never listen down at this level, but in the interests of 'getting it right' and pleasing the majority of your users, you should stick to -35dB. Or even better, the exact point at which the volume control mutiplier stops changing at modulo 256. -- Patrick Dixon www.at-tunes.co.uk Patrick Dixon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=90 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17269 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Sound Quality w/ Latest Firmware
OK, here's an expanded version of the simple illustrations I posted on the bug report. I have used 2 simple systems - each consists of an ADC the output of which is lsb extended to 5-bits, a digital mutiplier, DAC and finally an analogue gain to compensate for the digital multiplier. In all cases, if the system is transparent, the output should be the same as the input and there would therefore be zero error. Key to headings - A input B input as % of fs C expand to 5-bits D integerised div E dac op as % of fs F analogue gain G ERROR System 1 --- 3-bit ADC, digital multiplier of 4, 5-bit DAC, analogue gain x4 A B C D E F G 7 87.50% 28 7 21.88% 87.50% 0.00% 6 75.00% 24 6 18.75% 75.00% 0.00% 5 62.50% 20 5 15.63% 62.50% 0.00% 4 50.00% 16 4 12.50% 50.00% 0.00% 3 37.50% 12 3 9.38% 37.50% 0.00% 2 25.00% 8 2 6.25% 25.00% 0.00% 1 12.50% 4 1 3.13% 12.50% 0.00% 0 0.00% 0 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% Peak Error 0.00% Input S/N 18.06 System S/N 18.06 System 2 - 3-bit ADC, digital multiplier of 5, 5-bit DAC, analogue gain x5 A B C D E F G 7 87.50% 28 5 15.63% 78.13% 9.38% 6 75.00% 24 4 12.50% 62.50% 12.50% 5 62.50% 20 4 12.50% 62.50% 0.00% 4 50.00% 16 3 9.38% 46.88% 3.13% 3 37.50% 12 2 6.25% 31.25% 6.25% 2 25.00% 8 1 3.13% 15.63% 9.38% 1 12.50% 4 0 0.00% 0.00% 12.50% 0 0.00% 0 0 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% Peak Error 12.50% Input S/N 18.06 System S/N 12.04 As you can see, the first system, because it uses a modulo 4 multiplier and makes use of the 'extra' 2 lsbs in the system, produces no errors and the ouptut S/N ratio is the same as the sampled S/N ratio (3bits = 18dB) System 2 however, doesn't use a modulo 4 multiplier and therefore produces rounding errors. The errors are, peak to peak, 1/8th of the full scale - ie the same as the original sampling error. Output S/N ratio is therefore halved to 12dB. Obviously, you can extend the concept from 3-bits lsb extended to 5-bits, to 16/24-bits - you'll just have more numbers. The point is that the rounding error is significant at the lsb of the sampled signal NOT the lsb of the system. I hope that helps - I don't know how better to explain it at the moment. If you want to hear the difference and you can't, you'll just have to get an a plane and come over here - I'll demonstrate it to you! Looser buys the beers ;-) -- Patrick Dixon www.at-tunes.co.uk Patrick Dixon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=90 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17269 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB-3 and external DAC
The new lavry unit (due out in a couple of weeks) buffers the incoming stream and effectively does away with jitter.I think there's a degree of marketing BS that goes on with this stuff; you can't easily buffer two streams that have the same nominal rate but are asynchronous. Think of a bucket of water, with a hole in the bottom and a tap filling it at the top. If you start with the bucket half full (I'm an optimist), even if the tap is filling the bucket at exactly the same rate as the hole is emptying it, the bucket will eventually overflow or run dry. In the Real World (TM), you can never get the incoming and outgoing rate exactly the same. There are ways round this; you could reset the buffer between songs (difficult for a DAC), but actually, a SqueezeBox is just about the best buffer there is, because the input rate is dynamically adjusted to keep the buffer from under- or over- flowing. So you don't really need all this other BS stuff! -- Patrick Dixon www.at-tunes.co.uk Patrick Dixon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=90 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17948 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Signal Strength -- Ideal
The best thing to do is move things and see if the situation improves, those issues may not be because of the signal though it's highly likely. And as for what's best? Well, 100% :D I don't run wireless personally (I am a ninja with a hammer and tacks) but for example I'd be a lot happier if mine was 70% all the time and I never noticed it, rather than 99% 23 hours of the day and 30% the 1 hour my neighbour is vacuuming. -- Jim Jim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=213 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18199 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Newbe Questions
jp1 Wrote: From what I#8217;ve heard FLAC is best, but it#8217;s a bit temperamental, and not supported by Itunes or WMP Is that of any relevance now you'll be using a SB? iTunes don't support WMP eitherand WMP iTunes It seems to me a bit like saying my new DVD player is incompatible with my old VHS collection of fave movieswhich I have since bought on DVD Temperamental? Where did you see that? It's job is to make lossless versions of WAV audio files. It cannot afford to half-work or it would be as popular as a Sony rootkit. -- Jim Jim's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=213 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18200 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Newbe Questions
Like others, I'll just address a few issues... jp1 Wrote: Is EAC the only Audio grabber / ripper you would recommend? Or is WMP 10 or Itunes sufficient? If your CDs are in good condition and your CDROM drive is capable of correct DAE (nearly all modern drives are), then pretty much any ripper will deliver a perfect result. EAC's advantage is that if there are any uncorrectable errors on the CD, then it'll make a much better job of getting a decent rip than most others. (I can only speak for Windows here - my understanding is that cdparanoia is equally good for *nix). jp1 Wrote: Do I need to modify at all my dell Pentium 4 win xp box (circa 2005) to get rid of the fan noise or other random things? Your PC doesn't need to be in the same room, or anywhere near the listening room. Mine is in the attic, and so the fact it has a not-very-quiet fan isn't an issue. If you only have the one PC, and it's in your listening room, then yes, you'll have to address noise issues. There's not much point in having playback as good as you get from a Squeezebox if you're listening in an environment with high levels of background noise. jp1 Wrote: What speakers / receiver / amp / preamp etc. should I eventually upgrade to? Im basically running a medium level sony component system thats anywhere from 5 to 15 years old, with pretty-much-blown-out old TDL speakers TDL speakers (pretty much all their models) are excellent designs. You say they are blown-out: what does that mean? If the drive units are damaged, then it would be worth getting them repaired. To replace them with better speakers would cost a great deal. Mid-level Sony gear probably doesn't do them justice. When considering replacements, bear in mind that TDL speakers do need quite a lot of oomph to drive them. -- cliveb cliveb's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=348 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18200 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Sound Quality w/ Latest Firmware
sbjaerum Wrote: + return int($floatmult * (1 8) + 0.5) * (1 8); I'm not sure if performance matters here, but one thing to consider is that multiplying an integer by (1 8) is the same as shifting that int left 8 bits (and it may be more efficient, depending on optimization, etc.), so the line above could be: + return int($floatmult * (1 8) + 0.5) 8; -Joe -- skyrush skyrush's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=853 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=17269 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Jhymn, DRM, iTunes 6
Okay, flat-out, here's the question/problem: I stupidly upgraded to iTunes 6. Then, I bought my SB3. Then, I find I can no longer strip DRM. Anyone know of a work-around? -- highdudgeon highdudgeon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2195 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18211 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Squeezebox 2 - Subtle noise and distortion.
Hi Everyone I have a quality issue which I hope someone might be able to help with on my otherwise fantastic Squeezebox 2. I will try my best to describe the symptoms. When I listen to quiet music at reasonable amplification either through my Squeezebox 2 or SoftSqueeze, I hear background digital noise. This can only be descirbed as a wind or sea like sound. The music still plays, but quiet pieces sound distorted, whereas louder parts sound acceptable. In short, I guess I could say that I seem to have a reduced signal to noise ratio. In comparison, if I listen to the same AAC file through iTunes, or decode the file manually to WAV using faad (faad -o outfile.wav infile.m4a) and play that, then the quality is perfect. I get the same problem if I set the player settings with or without rate limiting (i.e. transcoding via lame, or sending the signal raw). My set-up is as follows: Server: Fedora Core 4 running the following software: # rpm -qa slimserver slimserver-6.2.0-1 # rpm -qa faad2 faad2-2.0-0.lvn.5.4 # rpm -qa lame lame-3.96.1-0.lvn.1.4 # uname -a Linux slimlinux 2.6.14-1.1637_FC4 #1 Wed Nov 9 18:19:37 EST 2005 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux My audio files are unprotected AAC (all ripped CDs through iTunes) I have added the following lines to /usr/local/slimserver/convert.conf: # Transcoding for AAC files. mov mp3 * * [faad] -w -f 2 $FILE$ | [lame] --resample 44100 --silent -q $QUALITY$ -b $BITRATE$ -r - - mov aif * * [faad] -w -f 2 $FILE$ I have also commented out the following entry: #mov aif * * # [mov123] $FILE$ I have searched as far as I can on this forum and Google but simply cannot find an answer. If anyone else is seeing the same problem, or even knows the answer, then I would really appreciate the help! Thanks. -- slimnick slimnick's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2333 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18219 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB1 digital out compared to SB2 and SB3
kronos, the sb2 has a better digital output than the sb1 - i have both and an audio synthesis dax decade. this dac has 2 'lock' methods one for low quality high jitter signals and one for high quality low jitter signals. the lock method is shown on the display as either lock (low quality) or x-lock (high quality) the sb1 (even with various reclockers and jitter busters) always showed 'lock' on the display. the sb2 always shows 'x-lock'. i'd say this is pretty conclusive proof that the sb2 has a better digital output than the sb1. of course dacs vary in their sensitivity to jitter but i've often found that dacs that are less sensitive to transports don;t produce a sound that i enjoy, i suspect because they are desinged from an engineering first perspective rather than a music first one which means only 'good enough' psus and components but then i'm a audiophile nutter, so i'm happy to live with my current solution - an sb2 and a sensitive a/s dax decade. cheers julian. -- julian2002 julian2002's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=113 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18116 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Jhymn, DRM, iTunes 6
Burning to CD and re-ripping will actually work?! -- highdudgeon highdudgeon's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2195 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18211 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Jhymn, DRM, iTunes 6
highdudgeon Wrote: Burning to CD and re-ripping will actually work?! Yes but you suffer a generation loss. However it may be acceptable to you. -- m1abrams m1abrams's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=850 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18211 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Squeezebox 2 - Subtle noise and distortion.
Quick update - I have upgraded to the new version of Slimserver: # rpm -qa slimserver slimserver-6.2.1-1 This also installed new firmware on the Squeezebox 2. Unfortunately my problem is still there. Nick. -- slimnick slimnick's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2333 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18219 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Jhymn, DRM, iTunes 6
fuzzyT Wrote: m1abrams wrote: Yes but you suffer a generation loss. only if you re-encode lossy. True, however even if you encode lossless you will still have the lost data from the original lossy encoding. Which is the best you can get from it. -- m1abrams m1abrams's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=850 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=18211 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
[SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Squeezebox and Yahoo Music Subscription
mkozlows Wrote: If, on the other hand, you like the cheap, unlimited access to a huge music catalog better than you like the Squeezebox, check out Roku's players. They're terrible, far worse than the Squeezebox in basically every way, but they do support PlaysForSure, which is what you need to operate with Yahoo. Having had both players around for several months, I certainly wouldn't say the Roku is terrible or worse than the Squeezebox in basically every way. For one, the Roku is available with much larger displays. For another they have a better remote. Until the Squeezebox 2, they also had better analog audio quality. One of the huge Roku advantages is you don't need to run any proprietary software on your server. The Roku players connect to Windows Media Connect which is essentially part of XP SP2. That's also why they can play Microsoft DRM content such as Yahoo Music Unlimited. Trying to use the Roku with Slimserver isn't a great thing (although it mostly works), perhaps that's what you're referring to? The only significant feature the Roku lacks (for me at least) is the ability to sync multiple players between rooms in your home. Otherwise I mostly prefer it over my Squeezebox 2. I'm waiting for either Slim to add DRM support or Roku to add player sync (which they claim is on their intended feature list). The first one to offer both sync and DRM will get more of my business and I know several custom home audio/video installers waiting for the same thing. -- AV_Guy AV_Guy's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=328 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=16189 ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Squeezebox and Yahoo Music Subscription
On Nov 15, 2005, at 5:44 PM, AV_Guy wrote: For another they have a better remote. I'd like to know why you think the Roku remote is better. My experience was that my hand got cramped after just a few minutes of use of the thing, plus I found that the navigation user interface was quite unintuitive. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
