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In the Forum: Didital Things
In the Thread: High Quality Music Server / CD player
Post Subject: Computer transportPosted by Telstar on: 6/18/2009
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 scooter wrote:

* Regarding playback, I misspoke in my original post of an "Audiophile music server." Upon further reflection, this is an oxymoron, if not a moronic phrase. I think it is highly unlikely that a dedicated audiophile CD player will be beat by a home-brewed or commercially available music server:

- The microcomputer used for a music server is unable to perform specialized application roles at top-tier levels. The microcomputer's operating system and hardware are too generalist, too buggy, too noisy and have too much stuff going on in the background

- The apparently simple task of moving 1s and 0s from a hard drive to a DAC is still a challenge in 2008 (interference, jitter, data loss, etc.). Part of this is due to the limitations of a generalist computer system being utilized in a specialized application


This is not true.

Point one, "The microcomputer used for a music server is unable to perform specialized application roles at top-tier levels": what does this mean?
A today cpu is hundreds of millions times more powerful than any microcontroller used in a cdp or dac. It can perform anything that a cdp/dac can and many things more, all in realtime and without introducing significant delays. Generalist is just a false statement. There are very specific pieces software.
"too buggy": maybe

Point two, the simple task of moving 1s and 0s is still a challenge with any transport used. With a separate transport and DAC, the very same interface issues apply. the best combos have proprietary interfaces (usually based on i2s or ST) with their jitter and interference problems. A single box cdp has an easier life on this.

The issues are basically the same for the computer, as transport, namely (1)- interferences (RFI/EMI), more than within a cdp, also due to fans and other moving parts*, and (2)- jitter, which with some interfaces can be higher than from a SOTA transport, but from other sides can be lower because of no moving parts. it is surely very high using spdif, the worst digital interface ever created (TM by me). Anyway, it's always the DAC which accounts for the vast majority of the sound quality. This is why the guy above feels that his music server with Wavelenght dac sounds better. There is also the unknown rule that NOS sounds better with a computer (and nobody can explain why).

* A computer transport without fans and moving parts can be done with today technlogy, and for a very low cost. The critical point is the interface, the connection to the D/A. I do not have first hand knowledge of the top pro units such as Lavry, Pacific microsonics and Meitner, but i have listened to very good consumer setups. My favourite digital surce is the naim cd555. Yep, extremely regulated psu, in a separate box. Power matters. Everything matters.

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