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In the Forum: Audio News
In the Thread: “Get Better Sound” by Jim Smith

Post Subject: Jim Smith's bookPosted by BWO on: 9/2/2009

I'v read the book (missing a few of the last pages). The boook definetly have som useful information. Especially about setup, placing speakers at different positions and some decent and brief info on acoustic treatment. Unfortunately, there is in my opinion also loads of snake oil and vodoo. He talks about the importance of turning on the equipment in the right sequence to avoid pollution, cables, cable risers, demagnetizing CDs. He's not spending much time on several of these topics, but he doesn't disregarg them an unimportant.

It's a little hard to understand why he is holding on to stupity when he clearly has a very good understanding in many areas. It brings the thought that he is simply avoiding to confront certain topics to not offend potential readers. That's just my thought however. Look here on some clipped out material Jim Smith says about computer and sound:

"Notebook drives currently top out at 500 GB. This is enough to store about 800 uncompressed CD’s and will cost around $100 in an external enclosure. You can use lossless compression (FLAC for the Windows or ALAC for Mac) to bump this up to around 1300 CD’s, but most people notice a slight reduction in sound quality. But this is a column on how to get better sound! Presumably it’s because the computer’s processor is working harder when decompressing files on the fly instead of just loafing along playing the music.

Since this column is about getting the best sound, adding memory will improve the sound quality. (Don’t ask me why!) The same is true for using a Solid-State Drive for the computer’s main drive, but these are still somewhat pricey. Currently the best ones are the new models from Intel. They have an 80 GB model for around $230 and a 160 GB model for around $450. The 80 GB is plenty to run the applications you will need for a music server. The side benefits of an SSD are dead-quiet operation and incredibly fast boot-up times.

Another nice thing about the Mac Mini is that it has a FireWire port. This gives more flexibility when choosing an interface for your DAC and/or external hard drive. The sound quality will be slightly improved if the DAC and the external hard drive are on different interfaces. So if you have a FIreWire DAC, then use a USB hard drive and vice-versa. (Again, I have no idea why, but this column is about getting better sound!) If you have an Ethernet DAC, then either type of hard drive will work great. If you don't have a FireWire port, adapters are available for both notebooks (PC-Card) and desktops (PCI). Finally, there is a new type of external hard drive interface called eSATA that runs separately from any DAC."

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