Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] NAS vs. Locally Attached Storage
donqwan wrote: I am getting ready to bite the bullet and digitize my music collection of ~600 CD's to both FLAC (for listening @ home) and 196 kbps Mp3 (for the iPods). The rule of thumb for FLAC filesize is that you'll be able to store approx. 3 CDs per 1 GB of storage. So, for just the FLAC portion of your library, you're looking at about 200GB. MP3 filesize varys more, but you should be safe adding about 25% to the FLAC storage requirement. That brings you to 250GB. You'll want to add some headroom for growth, and for the funny math that HDD makers use to calculate their storage sizes. For safety's sake, and while still being very economical, you could get a good 500GB rated drive. These are running about $100 right now. Note that two of these will cost about $150 less than a single 1TB drive. Am I better off with a 1TB Lacie with firewire, or a 1TB WD with ethernet? For best performance and packaging, just mount this HDD as a second drive inside your desktop computer's case. (This assumes you have a desktop, with an additional HDD mounting point and a sufficient power supply.) If this is not the case, think external. I'd also recommend getting an external drive of the same or larger capacity than your primary storage drive. This will let you run occasional backups, and give you the option of keeping your backup offsite. You'll appreciate the value of this once you begin putting time into the ripping and tagging process. For performance reasons, I'd recommend an HDD with a SATA interface, whether mounting internally or externally. For external cases, these are your external interface options in rough order of decreasing performance: eSATA FW800 FW400 = USB2 1000BaseT 100BaseT USB1 For flexibility and future-proofing, look for a case with both USB2 and one of either Firewire or eSATA interfaces. (IcyDock makes some nice ones for about $60-70.) A dedicated NAS solution is going to be generally more expensive and give lower performance than a direct attached solution. The benefits of a NAS is that it can be a low power device that services an entire network (even when your desktop is powered down) and that it may offer a user friendly way of achieving RAID. Note that you'd still want a backup, even with RAID, and that your storage requirements don't compel a spanned solution. So, unless you really like the idea of a NAS, you'll almost certainly be better and more cheaply served by a two HDD system. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Here is why no FF/RW
seanadams wrote: I agree. I think the button _should_ behave like a CD player and I'm not aware of any reason why we could not do that. Also, displaying a large progress bar or time line indicating the new seek position might be helpful. +1 on the separate buttons The glyph convention seems to be: | | I recall it took me a while to figure out what the expected behavior was intended to be, as well as how to invoke it. The button configuration was definitely a contributing factor. Also +1 to the position indicator during seek-ahead. Very useful, and likely to be self-explanatory once invoked. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Ripping CD's
jeffmeh wrote: I always find that the FLAC compression takes longer than the EAC rip, so I do not worry about the ripping time. This will vary depending on the speed of the host machine. Before upgrading my box with new mobo, cpu and ram, FLAC took longer to run and EAC+FLAC took about 7 or 8 minutes per CD. After the upgrade, the FLAC encoding almost always finishes before the following track is ripped - it's no longer the bottleneck. It now takes about 4 to 5 minutes to rip and average CD. Same CD drive and interface, EAC error correction enabled. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Cheap tweaks that really work
jeffmeh wrote: Would my audio sound better if I had a cat that was neither alive nor dead? The hifi always sounds better with the house cat in a box. No bothersome mewling at the door, or using the speaker cloth as a scratching post. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] A Cut-Rate Audiophil e�
jonheal wrote: This time, I listened over my speakers. I asked her not to try to trick me, but to simply switch one supply out for the other without telling me which was which. A Question: When your wife was swapping out the PS, was she unplugging them from the wall or just at the SB? The reason I ask is that if the switcher were still plugged into the wall, and the predominant audible effect of the switcher is due to EMI (see John Swenson's post), then it could be that your test didn't properly control for the principle causal factor. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Recommended inexpensive Linear PSU Wallwart for SB3?
stamsyl wrote: I saw it on Ebay. (item # 180054037839) It's mislabeled on Ebay. Should be a WM220-1 (see pic). This looks a lot like one of those listed in the chart here: http://www.elpac.com/products/commercial/external-dual/documents/wm071-1950.pdf It doesn't say 'Linear', but does refer to it as a 'regulated' power supply. And by the 4lb. bulk of it, I'd guess it was a linear. Search the net or eBay for WM220-1 and find one. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Aaargh! InfrantNas / Transporter disaster!
wreford wrote: I just took receipt of my lovely new Transporter and tried to hook it up - only to find it need slimserver 6.5 and the version required for InfrantNas is 'coming soon' - so I can't listen to the damn thing! Does anyone know the eta for the Infrant-compatible v. 6.6? http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29000 --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Speaker recommendations for Sonic Super T Amp
The Klipsch bookshelf models are high efficiency, affordable and nice sounding. Should be well suited to rock. Here are the RB-51s: https://www.klipsch.com/products/details/rb-51.aspx --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Sirius Satellite goes CD quality over internet
Pat Farrell wrote: seanadams wrote: So is it CD quality, or 128K? :) Its digital, so it is perfect! They just leave out 90% of the notes. Short Attention-Span Radio Presents: 20 Second Pops!! ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Raise Your Hand If You've Ordered a Transporter
Responding to some of what Sanjay wrote: 0. A way to purchase individual songs online in lossless format. This is coming. Nothing to do with SD directly, of course, but I've seen industry reporting that hints at this. Some specialty labels and sites already offer this. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_music_store#Online_Music_Store_Comparison_table 1. More reliable WiFi transmission (not a signal strength or channel interference issue - see above). Recent firmware changes have addressed many issues. Not sure what problems you are having, but you might consider going to the latest 802.11n technology or switching to HomePower or wired Ethernet. SD may still have some work to do in this department, but can only take so much responsibility for local conditions beyond their control. 2. bigger display with more characters readable from 12 feet away by 40 year olds - skip the screensaver spectrum analyser Agreed, strongly. This is one hardware enhancement I'd happily pay extra for. If the graphical remote options are good enough, the need begins to fade however. 3. a low jitter digital only version (SPDIF only no BNC/XLR, no DAC) Not sure that the cost savings from leaving out these components would outweigh the expenses of keeping separate models in the channel. Also there are definite benefits in keeping the DAC close to the source clock. To my mind the upgraded DAC in the Transporter, and the removal of SPDIF and the interconnect from the signal path, is the most worthwhile feature of that box. We just need to hear with our own ears how it sounds in order to judge it's value. I'm hopeful. 4. 96Khz/24 bit output option - upsampling from 44.1khz/16 bit Makes sense for native 24/96 sources. I doubt upsampling will sound better, but some may want to try it. Not important to me. 5. a legal way to rip DVD-Audio in 5.1 96kHz/24bit or even just a two channel mixes at up to 192 kHz/24 bit onto Slimserver for personal use and stream it to Squeezebox - consider using MLP to reduce data rate. E.g. Figure a way to pay a license fee to decrypt the data, re-encode with DRM to permit only streaming to Squeezebox not file copying, and charge the small DVD-Audio market $100 extra for a Slimserver plug-in that does this. Interesting, but I suspect only a fringe might find this useful. Are any of these formats seeing significant numbers of releases? Could be useful for pulling audio off of DVD concert and music video compilations. 6. A way of running multiple Squeezeboxes with lossless, synced audio without multiplying use of WiFi bandwidth. Multi-cast? Ad-hoc mode from one SB to the next on a separate channel/SSID? I agree that sync'd playback is a very important feature. The system needs to get this right w/r/t bandwidth, server performance, drift, etc. For me, it's mostly usable right now but I feel there is still some ways to go before this is really nailed. 7. WMA lossless decoding native in the Squeezebox assuming a sound quality benefit or reduced delay between songs. Surely the open source community can reverse engineer WMA lossless decoding without needing to run Windows on the Squeezebox? Being investigated: http://bugs.slimdevices.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2565 8. A remote with an IPOD style wheel control I would love to see a richer remote. For now, the Nokia 770 or a Windows PDA is a good option. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Slim Devices NAS Device
DerekDenyer wrote: Based on 50w vs. 200w 24/7/365 at 8p per KWHr. I didn't believe this figure when I first calculated it!. The next version of the ReadyNAS firmware is in beta and being community tested. Some of the features in this update will address issues of noise and power consumption. It looks like there will be a disc spin-down feature that may get power consumption down to 35w when idle. More here: http://infrant.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4578 --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Help...not enjoying my SB3
Phil Leigh wrote: One note of caution - the Faraday cage has very low WAF... No, no, no. It's not a Faraday Cage at all. Completely the wrong name for this. Call it an Antique, Burnished Copper, Flowering Vine Trellis. All the rage in English garden clubs. A must have for every home. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Help...not enjoying my SB3
Phil Leigh wrote: I'm still having some trouble explaining 1Tb of external disks as somewhere to keep all of our digital photos... Oh, that sounds like a Treasury of Precious Memories. Don't forget the flowered dust ruffle (sound-proofing) and doily (drink coaster). Bonus points for lavender potpourri behind the fan. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Naim enters the music server game
Andyoz wrote: I think someone needs to really push the active speaker concept into the mainstream. The more domestic friendly versions of active speaker out there, the better. Yeah, I wish Paradigm would bring out a new edition of their Studio Actives. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Slim Devices NAS Device
Pale Blue Ego wrote: It seems a little underpowered with 256 MB of RAM. RAM is upgradeable. See: http://infrant.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=66 --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Check your hearing
Deaf Cat wrote: Is it me being a bit daft, what would create that sort of high freq (annoying) stuff in music anyway? Drummers and piccolo players, mostly. Seriously though, pure sine waves are rare in music. Exceptions for synthesizers, triangles, and members of the flute family. Musical waveforms are complex mixtures of primary frequencies and secondary harmonics. These secondaries are responsible for the timbre, or quality of sound, that, as an example, makes a piano playing a middle-C sound different than a clarinet playing the same note. Secondaries are multiples of the primary frequency and can range quite high up into the audible spectrum. A reproduction system that does not cover this spectrum will not be able to accurately represent the full range of each instruments voice. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Help...not enjoying my SB3
Lyonesse wrote: Im not knocking the SB3 in any way, I just want to find a way to integrate it into my system better so as to kick back and chillout with my new toy ;) Have you tried using the SB3's analog outputs? It won't cost anything to try this and you may find that they sound better (to you, in your system). You may also want to try one of the linear power supplies. Though scoffed at by the empiricists, and lacking a clear engineering story for why the sound might improve, many users have reported an audible and desirable change in the quality of the sound. It's not free, but is cheap to try this. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Slim Devices NAS Device
Heuer wrote: No. The NV is designed as a RAID server so the disks spin 24/7 and so do the fans. The Qnap TS-101 disk does stop (no fan) when not being used. Not currently anyway. The NV has upgradeable firmware, and the request has been made and acknowledged for a disc spin-down feature. AFAIK, no promises or ETA. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: digital room correction
radish wrote: The point is, replacing the $300 Behringer with a free piece of software will save $300 from whatever the total cost of the solution is. And allow us to continue to make use of the SB's internal DAC. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: digital room correction
opaqueice wrote: azinck3 Wrote: The possibilities are exciting. Thanks for all of your work in this area, Hugh. Agreed. I'm very interested in trying this. I might even have tried out the DEQ, but I like using the analog outs on my SB2s. Using the DEQ would mean either using it's internal DAC or pairing it with another external DAC. I doubt the DEQ's DAC is as good as the SB2's, and an external DAC might be nice, but it's not in the budget right now. The approach of using the SlimServer computer to do the processing makes more sense to me. The computing power is already paid for, and by doing the processing upstream of the SB, I can continue to use it's DAC. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Sonic Impact Super-T amp with SB - speaker choice?
joncourage wrote: I use the Super-T with a pair of Totem Arro's Just out of curiosity, do you have any specs on the Arro's efficiency? Having some numbers in hand might provide a usable baseline for those considering this amp. Thanks. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Flac vs Wma
steelee wrote: I'm using MP10 and can't find anywhere to turn it off, have logged a support call with MS via a select account we have at work!! so will wait to see what they have to say.. If you get the chance, try to confirm not only whether automatic level adjustment is occurring, but how it is implemented. In other words, are gain information tags being stored and applied on playback, or is the adjustment being applied to the audio data itself before it is stored. Big difference. If it uses tags, then the original data is theoretically recoverable. If not, the WMP Lossless isn't lossless at all. Maybe someone on HydrogenAudio has some knowledge of this. Of course, the likeliest response will be a hailstorm of Don't Do That remarks. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Flac vs Wma
steelee wrote: Has anyone actually done any comparison of Lossless Wma vs Flac Or is it the assumption that flac must sound better? On the contrary, I believe the assumption is that they should sound exactly the same. Each file format is storing a compressed, but fully retrievable, representation of the original bits. Presumably, there is no problem here and the bits are being retrieved correctly after decompression. So, what else could account for the difference? 1)If one or the other is being inadvertently transcoded to a lossy format by the server. Check your server settings. 2)If one or the other is having its gain adjusted somewhere in the process. Most likely this would be due to the encoding software either altering the original data before storage or adding gain tags that are triggering SlimServer to apply adjustment. Control for this by turning off SlimServer's gain adjustment features and making sure that the WMA encoder isn't changing the data. For the latter compare original WAV data with a copy that has been compressed to WMA Lossless by your encoder then decompressed back to WAV. 3)That there is some difference caused by the server-side decoding of WMA Lossless tracks vs. the SB decoding of FLAC tracks. Though this seems unlikely, it could be controlled for by decoding both WMA Lossless and FLAC tracks to WAV on the server before sending to the SB. perhaps others?? --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Flac vs Wma
snarlydwarf wrote: It looks like it is -always- encoded with the equivalent of replay-gain turned on. Any idea of whether this is accomplished by storing gain adjustment tags in the file header data, or actually applied to the audio data? If it's the latter, then WMP Lossless isn't. Lossless that is. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Stereophile review in the works!
ezkcdude wrote: Welcome, John! Because I'm slightly star-struck :), I won't belabor the point, but why aren't you using FLAC or some other lossless codec? Of course, a full review of the device should include coverage of how it works while playing back the various file formats. Considering your audience, I would hope however, that the majority of the review would be given over to the audiophile potential of the device. And for that section of the review, I would hope that lossless formats (esp. FLAC) would be used. After all, why conflate the matter of the device's performance potential with the issue of the sonic impact of lossy formats? --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Anyone recommend decent speaker cable?
You might take a look at the Mapleshade speaker wires. http://www.mapleshaderecords.com/audioproducts/speakercable.php Very nice sounding in my system. I had tried fat braided copper bi-wires and DIY Cat5 before these. They were a big upgrade over both. Plus versions are, I believe, cryo'd. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Mobile Music
I'll add one more shortcoming to the list: lack of support for replaygain. Any device that supports a shuffle playback mode really needs to support gain tags. Take care of that and add FLAC support for those times when I just don't want to transcode, and the iPod would be just about complete for me. For now I use one anyway. Because I already have it. It does most of what I want, and there's not anything out there that's compellingly better. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: AB Testing Support
hifisteve wrote: As it happens, the time difference between creating WAV and FLAC files is quite significant in my experience. Multiplied by 2000 CD, that's a good chunk of my time I'd prefer not to spend sat at my PC when the extra storage cost so little. You may be able to get the advantages of FLAC without spending any more time than you would on WAV. EAC can be configured to rip and compress to FLAC in one step. On my machine (Athlon XP 2400) the compression process only lags a few seconds behind the rip. Other folks are using a batch process that compresses overnight. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Stock RCA cables?
Skunk wrote: I do want to make the DIY silver wire in teflon tubing interconnects. I made these: http://www.venhaus1.com/diysilverinterconnects.html They work great. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Interim Measures - PC Powered Speakers?
radish wrote: I know everyone's probably sick of hearing this already but the T-amp really is amazing. I agree on the sound of the T-amp, but be sure to know it's limitations before buying. It is a low power amp that really ought to be paired with high efficiency speakers. This depends on how loud you might like to listen, but should be considered. The spec on the T-amp says something like 15wpc, but I'd estimate it's real usable range to top out at probably 6 to 9 wpc. Driven too hard it will distort. Using a better power supply may stretch this somewhat. In any case, if you are shopping for speakers at the same time as this amp, make sure to look at the efficiency spec. I'd be image most folks would be happy with something with a 90db/watt rating or better. Some of the small Klipsch models look like they might be a good match. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Where is the incredible sound?
pablolie wrote: Like the OS I use now will be around in 5 years... right. Good luck running that application then. two thoughts: 1) store the source code, not the binary executable (better yet: store the format spec and re-implement if needed) 2) emulators already exist for current OS's (VMWare,et.al.). ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Idiots guide to FLAC vs WAV vs MP3
A decent, rough rule of thumb for me has been to estimate about 1GB of HDD space needed to store 3 CDs worth of FLAC encoded files. Double this figure if you want to keep a backup of your library on HDD. Background numbers: CDs are averaging about 500 to 550MB. FLAC encoding results in an average of about 55% of original file size. This based on a sample of a couple of hundred CDs encoded. Your sample may differ significantly, but it's a decent guide for estimation purposes. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Idiots guide to FLAC vs WAV vs MP3
IIRC, EAC has the capability to test whether the drive has the caching feature. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Idiots guide to FLAC vs WAV vs MP3
Skunk wrote: fuzzyT Wrote: IIRC, EAC has the capability to test whether the drive has the caching feature. Yes, it does. And if your drive caches it automatically checks the box, sort of guessing that you want it to rip 'faster' rather than 'better'. Skunk, i think you may (or i) must be misunderstanding the meaning of that checkbox. You seems to be describing it as: This deluxxe drive caches data, please use the data from the cache in order to get faster rips. While I've always understood it to mean: This darn drive caches data, check here if you'd like me to try harder to defeat the cache and get you an accurate rip. I think maybe somebody is going to have to go to hydrogenaudio after all. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Speaker recommendations aprox. $1, 000
teanau wrote: or is part of the beauty the single driver? not just the elimination of crossovers? one of the key design benefits of a single driver system is that there is a single point source. this avoids time-alignment error and other issues and helps with imaging. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Best mod?
Heuer wrote: Photos of the completed unit will be much appreciated here to inspire others. Glad you managed to get the job done at the right price. Quick question: Has anyone had a chance to do any listening comparisons between the Cascade-sourced PSU and the Elpac unit? The Elpac costs a bit more, but is plug-and-play. The Cascade-sourced unit is cheap but needs tinkering and a case to get it going. I have the Elpacs but would consider replacing it for at least one of my players (SB2) if there was an audible difference. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB-3 and external DAC
Hiroyuki Hamada wrote: I got a great tip from a Toslink user, Victor Lee, at another audio forum ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). He soldered in a 0.1 uF ceramic cap between the 5V pin and the ground pin of the Toslink module of his SB1 and got much better sound. He found that there was no local filtering for the toslink transmitter of the SB1. Sean, Any comment on the above? ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Audiophile review of SB3
Jim wrote: Gassing people because of their religion was right to some depending on what side of 1940's German politics they were on - Hitler even wrote about that. Hitler has been mentioned. I now invoke the tradition of Godwin's Law and call for an end to this thread. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law Thanks, --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Receiver / Speaker Recommendations?
Are you going to want to use the reciever as a selector/amplifier for sources other than the SqueezeBox? (ie: radio,cd,tv,etc). If not, you may want to consider powered speakers (amp built into speakers, aka active speakers.) In fact, even if you are using other sources, you could still use a preamp/input-switching device that would output the chosen source at line level to the powered speakers. Do a bit of forum searching for some recommendations for powered speakers that others here have experience with. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB2: reduce analog out voltage by 10x?
seanadams wrote: Hmmm looks like using 128x (instead of 64x) oversampling brings the out-of-band noise way down, mostly under -115dBu all the way up to 96KHz. wonder what are the pros/cons of using 128x all the time. the noise is low level and out of band, but could be interacting with signal, no? is the level still that much lower when processing signal? --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB2: reduce analog out voltage by 10x?
seanadams wrote: well it does have a marginally higher noise level in the audio band. here they are overlaid: promising. for the few db in the audio band and for the potential harmonic interactions of the slightly higher band stuff. hard to say what the ears will make of it, but we'd sure love to find out. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Warming the sound a little on a SB2
Deaf Cat wrote: Are these linear 5V supplies something that can be picked up easily? Is it any linear 5v supply we are looking for or are some types better than others? I'm not sure that anyone has identified a cheap, easily available off-the-shelf model that fills the bill. If they have, I've not heard about it. The Bolder Cables company sells what looks to be a high quality unit, priced accordingly. Vinnie at Red Wine Audio will put you on batteries, among other things. You could rig your own battery/charger system. Other list members have been working on designs for what may become a DIY kit or someone's product. There was some discussion here a while back: http://lists.slimdevices.com/archives/audiophiles/2005-May/thread.html#290 Enthusiasts at diyaudio and audiocircle are also hard at work. Part of the delay in finding options for a quick and easy, external linear PSU upgrade seems to be that the more talented and ethusiastic designers and modders are setting their sights higher than that. They're seeing bigger gains in more extensive internal changes. For myself, I'm waiting to see how it settles out before carving up my SB2 or spending big on an external PSU that may or may not work well with whatever mods turns out to be The Way. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB2 audiophile edition
well, not _just_ for the sake of fitting in. if the power supply and regulator bits were internal, then a bit larger case would be in order. and i'm not wanting anything massive, just a something on the order of a standard CD player. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: SB2 audiophile edition
Yannzola wrote: That's assuming folks want to have their SB2 sitting with the rest of their gear. Personally, I like my gear hidden away... I _like_ the way my gear looks. And I'm just musing about have an alternate model, not a design change for the existing model. ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] Re: Flac or not, that is the question
Pat Farrell wrote: This tells me that one shouldn't bother to read AudioAsylum. Your conclusion covers vastly too much ground. We have a paraphrased, hearsay report of a statement attributed to one user of a well-populated forum and you would judge that this somehow invalidates the statements of the entirety of that group? Lossless means that the data is preserved. It is trivial to test that a lossless process is correct, compress and uncompress and then bit compare. All true. Similarly, if you hear that Lossless WMA is different (more or less accurate ) from lossless AAC is different from MLP is different from flac, it is pure BS. The speeds, DRMs, platforms supported, etc. are different, but being lossless is like being pregant. You are or you are not. There are no degrees. The problem with this is that no human can hear a bitstream. These bits everyone is so fond of characterizing with pure perfection are an abstraction. Information represented by physical changes in an engineered system. In this case, represented by the rise and fall of --analog-- voltages in wire. Buffered and pumped into a processor for digital decoding. Sent to an imperfect receiver into another device for D/A conversion. Amplified and sent to an imperfect transducer and pumped into a non-ideal acoustical space. Energy then transferred to another transducer and converted to perception by an organic system of which we have only the barest of understanding. What could go wrong? Everything. Perfect Sound Forever was, is and shall continue to be another case of marketing fluff. FLAC encoder input = FLAC decoder output, certainly. But extending that to a statement that a system processing identical bitstreams will produce identical sound is to ignore an awful lot of real world complexity. If you must have a rational model for expecting the observed behavior, I'd float these as possibilities: power supply variance or noise due to processor current consumption, RFI or other system noise due to processor activity, difference in signal paths for PCM vs. decoded FLAC, just to name a few. Before attributing the strength of a mathematical proof to your understanding of a physical system, it is best to be sure that you have modelled the entirety of that system. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
Re: [SlimDevices: Audiophiles] limits of perfection
Pat Farrell wrote: No problem. I think you have me confused with others. Or, more likely, just a general Zeitgeist sort of thing. Apparently this had been building and for whatever reason this thread tipped the boat. Nothing to do with you at all as it turns out. This is the line of BS that the XM and Sirius folks say, its digital, so it has to be just like CD. Ah, no, not at the data rates that they send. Of course, in a car, Red Book is overkill. Even my Lincoln has 65 or 70 dB of road noise at speed. Yeah, the satellite and cable TV companies are playing this game as well. Acting like their precious all digital signals are the cat's meow when I can clearly see compression artifacts from across the room on my decidedly non-spectacular, 27 set. High rate and wider than 16 bit bitstreams are much closer, but DVD-audio and SACD are dead. Too bad. Well, these died in the market but despite the obvious improvements. suffered from PSF problems similar to RedBook. Consider what you are really buying when you know how much resampling typically occurs in the path from the source studio and on through mixing and mastering. Another confusion between ideals, real-world potential and actual implementation. --rt ___ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
