PDA

View Full Version : Adventures in computers as transports



lovejoy
20-05-2009, 14:26
Hi all,
Following on from the Non-OS vs OS thread I thought I'd use this new thread as a place to discuss people's findings in terms of using a computer as a CD transport replacement. I think DAC discussion has been well catered for so this thread is for concentrating on the source.

I've been through countless experiments over the course of the last 5 years with many different bits of hardware so I thought I'd do a memory dump of every combination I can remember trying and how well it worked, but firstly, a list of the rules I have learned in that time:

1. Just as CD-transports sounded different, so do different computers.
2. Whichever device you choose to use, break it down into 5 areas - The computer hardware itself, the operating system it's running, the software you use to play your audio, the audio drivers used to deliver the audio signal to your DAC and the type of connection between the computer and the DAC. ALL of these things will make a difference, and that's before you've even started considering your DAC.
3. The term "Bit perfect" audio is nothing more than marketing speak. Don't be fooled into believing it. It means about as much as writing the word 'Digital' on a pair of headphones. What it is meant to mean that the music audio data read off your hard drive is exactly what arrives at the DAC. This, of course would only apply to completely uncompressed audio data - try delivering an MP3 bit for bit to a DAC - just make sure your volume is down when you do because it'll be loud and very unpleasant. But even when you have an uncompressed audio file, delivering the right bits is not enough - they need to get there at the right time too and "Bit perfect" does not cover this. The term completely looses its meaning when you compare two systems marketed as 'bit perfect' and they sound completely different.
4. MP3/AAC CAN be indistinguishable from FLAC/WAV/Apple Lossless etc. It just needs to be ripped properly and handled by the playback device well, but if you're ripping a collection to keep and put your CDs into storage - go lossless as you'll probably end up changing formats or needing a compressed version of your rips at some point - this will save you digging the CDs out again. Also (contentious issue) if you're using a Mac - go lossless, more on why later.
5. Avoid hardware/software that performs resampling unless you know that it's doing a good job and you're upsampling to match the input frequency of what your DAC is capable of. Therefore avoiding the Windows Kmixer (XP) is a good idea. Some Creative soundcards perform resampling internally and from what I can gather, so does a Playstation 3. When playing back CD derived content i.e. 16bit/44.1Khz, I've never heard any benefit from anything that performs resampling/upsampling, and I've often heard it to be detrimental.

So here's a list of everything I've tried, broken down into hardware, OS, players and drivers. It's getting to the point of being pretty exhaustive and I now have a clear favourite in terms of what I think sounds best. The problems arise when you consider other factors such as the ambient noise made by PCs, or how they look in a room setup, or how easy they are to control, or how they manage music files. I'm not going into all of that (that's the next battle). All of these findings are based on sound quality alone - and just to clarify, everything was played through the same amp and speakers, 3 DACS have been used in the process - my old DDDAC kit based on 12x 1543 chips, the Beresford 7510 and 7520.

HARDWARE:

PCs:
Shuttle PC (with Nvidia chipset, and USB output to DAC
Dell Inspiron laptop with USB output to DAC
Full size desktop PC using onboard Realtek audio hardware and optical output
As above but with USB output
Numerous other basic PCs and laptops, the details of which I cannot remember currently

All of the above capable of being fantastic transports using the correct combination of OS, drivers and playback software

Apple Mac:
Macbook Pro (early 2008 model) USB/Optical out
Mac mini (late 2006) USB/Optical out
iMac 24" (late 2007) USB/Optical out

Again, all capable of being excellent transports with the correct attention to partnering software

Other:
Playstation 3 w/ Optical out
- No satisfactory results achieved using either the built in media player or a Ubuntu installation. Concluded that because the PS3 handles so many different formats - CD, SACD, DVD, Blu-ray etc. that all audio is internally resampled - badly. The resulting sound when compared with a well configured PC is flat and uninspiring.

OPERATING SYSTEMS:
Windows XP:
Capable of excellent audio from all sources with a bit of tweaking. Anything that can be used to bypass the Windows Kmixer removes a level of degradation. ASIO4ALL is an excellent piece of software that supports most PC hardware. There are other solutions for more well supported hardware too.
Windows Vista:
Also capable of excellent audio from all sources. Built in WASAPI drivers replace the Kmixer and are a huge improvement, although you need Service pack 1 to make use of it and configure it in exclusive mode. You can also still use ASIO in Vista.
Ubuntu (have tried versions from 7.04 onwards)
Again, fantastic. Quite possibly the best results I have experienced with any type of audio. ALSA drivers seem to work extremely well out of the box.
Mac OSX Tiger/Leopard:
BE CAREFUL! It's capable of competing with Windows XP/Vista but only with uncompressed audio. There is some problem with MacOS (I guess somewhere in the core audio drivers) that make a hash of MP3/AAC playback, and quite possibly ALAC. Playing music on a Mac is the only system where I can immediately tell a difference between an MP3 (compressed at highest bitrates) and an AIFF file. I find compressed audio exceedingly dull and boring played on a Mac, and timing is all over the place. The same is true when using internet radio or Spotify for example, whereas I can happily run Spotify under Wine in Ubuntu and it sounds fine - but any mac - with correct Audio MIDI settings, no DSP switched on, no resampling or anything else that can damage the sound, needs uncompressed audio to sound good. This makes me very sad as this is the setup I'd really like to have as my main front end.

Audio playback software:
Foobar: For Windows, it's a no brainer. It sounds great, it has loads of plugins, you can change it from its basic interface to look like iTunes if you want to. You can output the audio to ASIO, WASAPI or use the Kernel Streaming module if your soundcard supports it. All of which are worth trying. ASIO works best in my system. YMMV.
Windows Media Centre:
Not bad for Vista if you want a full screen interface. A bit clunky but you can read song titles from across the room and use a remote control. Can be used with WASAPI and hence sound rather good.
Winamp: also has drivers for bypassing Kmixer. Again very good.
xxHighEnd: Completely over the top audio player for XP or Vista. Claims that using WASAPI under Vista is the best sound you could ever have from anything ever, and it does sound very good, but the interface is appalling, it doesn't support enough formats and it's not free.
iTunes: AVOID on the PC. It ruins everything. It runs like a dog and will only allow you to use the DirectSound drivers - Hence Kmixer. The only thing it could possibly be useful for is if you buy music from the store or manage your files with it.
On the Mac, there's not a lot of choice, and it doesn't have the Kmixer problems, plus it runs a whole lot better. Again, as long as your library isn't using compression, it's the one to use.
Banshee: A bit like iTunes for Linux. Not as refined but it's coming along nicely, but it has the added benefit that your MP3s, OGGs, AACs, MPCs or whatever you use will sound marvellous.
Songbird: Another nice player for Linux. Seems rather buggy on the Mac version but under Ubuntu seems to run rather nicely.

So to sum up so far (and yes, I'm sure there'll be edits), my current ultimate setup is the Macbook Pro (nice and neat, built in screen, silent, low power), running Ubuntu (free, good Macbook hardware support, good drivers) and Banshee (support for all the file types I need, decent interface, handles internet radio well, supports my iAudio MP3 player). The only problem I'm having with this at the moment is that it's an absolute pig to setup alongside MacOS (which I don't want to get rid of for everyday use).

Second choice is the PC running XP/Foobar/ASIO. If only I could make those damned fans quieter.

So this is where I'm at after so much playing around. I settled on the Mac/OSX/iTunes approach for a while because it's such a nice interface and my music has never been so well organised, but a lot of my music is MP3 because way back I did a big comparison with lossy/lossless and really couldn't tell the difference with my Shuttle based setup, so came to the conclusion that MP3 was fine.

It took me a while to realise with the Mac that I wasn't getting into any new music. Everything was so dull and unmemorable. I'd be listening to new albums and finding I couldn't remember anything about them a few days later and had to keep reminding myself how they went. I began to wonder whether my hearing/memory was going, but now I've gone back to using Windows/Linux, it has all become clear to me. At that point OSX had to go because although I could re-rip everything to losslesss, I rather enjoy a good internet radio station, or the higher bitrate streams on the BBC iplayer site, or Spotify.

My 2p worth anyway. I hope it's helpful if you've not yet dabbled and may discussion commence if you have.

SteveW
20-05-2009, 18:49
Absolutely brilliant Rich...well done. We are in the very early days of hard drive music, and what you have summarised is fascinating and really valuable.
Have a feeling that you may well be right about the Mac issues on producing the best quality. I wish it wasn't so, as we are now a complete Mac household, but if I am to persue this way of producing music may well need to invest in a cheap PC or dig the old ones out of the loft.

technobear
20-05-2009, 21:51
Second choice is the PC running XP/Foobar/ASIO. If only I could make those damned fans quieter.


Fans? :doh:

Lose 'em! :wave:

http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/

:smoking:

ReachtheSky
21-05-2009, 01:02
Wow…….Rich when I asked for your experience summation I was expecting a concise “statement”, but you have given us a awesome overview on the subject. Thank you very much. Well done.

Excluding the Mac’s - being a PC user, my researching had narrowed the field to PC/Foobar/ASIO also. Can any Squeezebox Centre users comment on it’s performance vs basic PC/Foobar/ASIO direct (excluding the convenience of streaming from PC to DAC?

lovejoy
21-05-2009, 08:48
Hi guys,
Thanks for the positive comments.

Yes - Getting rid of the fans is the way forward. I think my main problem is the fan on the graphics card, all other fans are big and run at low speeds, so it might be a change for a simpler graphics card. The current one is complete overkill for what is really only for playing music on anyway.

I guess the main reason for starting this thread is to try and get people away from the thoughts of "It's a computer, it's outputting 1's and 0's, therefore whatever I use will sound the same as any other way of doing it". I don't think the perfect solution exists yet, although I believe it's possible with current hardware.

What frustrates me most is that we seem to have moved backwards in the last couple of years. The best setup I have used in terms of balance between great sound and useability was iTunes 7 under XP for the front end music management and navigation and Multiplugin which allowed you to pipe the audio playback through Foobar. That was an excellent setup, but Multiplugin no longer works under the current iTunes release and development on it seems to have halted.

I'm also really intrigued to hear any comparisons between a good ASIO based PC setup and a Squeezebox.

Krisbee
21-05-2009, 16:52
Another vote for Linux


“Ubuntu (have tried versions from 7.04 onwards)
Again, fantastic. Quite possibly the best results I have experienced with any type of audio. ALSA drivers seem to work extremely well out of the box.”

To be picky, Ubuntu is not an Operating system, but rather a Gnome based Linux distribution. As a Linux user who still has Windows XP on my machine I would agree with the “Linux gives best results” bit.

I don't know what that percentage split might be, but a great many Linux users favour KDE over Gnome, and so your list misses many software choices with the Amarok audio player being a notable omission. Linux offers choice, flexibility and control, all of which I find missing in the Windows world.

For instance, the Linux ASLA sound system offers a hierarchy of devices:
*
1. hw devices. This dumps sample data straight to the driver. No resampling or depth conversion is performed whatsoever.
2. plughw - does the depth conversion that is needed, but does not resample
3. dmix (the default device) - does SRC, mixing and format conversion

You can test this with a series of aplay commands. For example, assuming device 0,1 is the digital out device shown by “aplay -l”, these would be:


aplay -D hw:0,1 test.wav
aplay -D plughw:0,1 test.wav
aplay -D plug:dmix test.wav

My Chaintech AV-710 s/card uses the Envy24 chipset and works with the ASLA ice1724 sound module. But it only accepts a 32bit padded sample format, so trying to use the hw device directly gives an error.


aplay -D hw:0,1 test.wav
Playing WAVE 'test.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 44100 Hz, Stereo
aplay: set_params:961: Sample format non available

So those looking for the so-called “bit-perfect” nothing getting in the way route might want to see if their s/card can do audio digital out via toslink/coax when the hw device is used directly.

Using the USB input of the TC-7520 avoids this potential problem, and is my preferred choice. But you loose sound mixing and software volume control. So I decided to use the TC-7520 DAC as a pre-amp for my desktop audio set up, as its volume control is within figure tip reach.

Krisbee
21-05-2009, 16:55
Lovejoy's informative review seems to have focused on ripped audio. But what about the humble ATAPI drive? Didn't Creek build a CDP around an ATAPI drive in the past?

My current desktop set up is a PC running Linux connected to 7520 DAC via USB which is used as a pre-amp for my Rotel RA-01. My speakers are a pair of AVI Neutron 3 and my headphones are Senn hd595. Not high end, but not too shabby.

If I play an audio CD in my DVD-ROM it sounds pretty good to me. It's interesting to see how the CD is read in the drive. Some audio software results in the drive LED constantly flashing, while other software seems to result in the drive being read in bursts with possibly some kind of buffering going on. Amarok falls into the second group.

I can't claim to have golden ears, but I cannot hear any real difference between ripped audio or a CD playing in my DVD-ROM on my system using Amarok as the audio player.

So am I deaf, or is the humble ATAPI unjustly overlooked?

lovejoy
21-05-2009, 19:50
Yep. The Creek wasn't the only ATAPI drive. I had a Densen B-410 a year or so ago and that used an ATAPI DVD drive with a controller that Densen designed in house. Their argument being that good quality CD transports were getting harder to source so used a drive that could be read in bursts with a buffer to store the chunks of data. Worked very well too, it is a cracking CD player. I would say that if Amarok reads in this way then there really shouldn't be any difference between that and reading it from a hard drive.

Thanks for the extra info on Linux. My guide was in no way exhaustive and was merely meant to get the ball rolling. I must also admit that the amount of time I've spent with Linux so far is much less than with any of the other OS types. You certainly know more about it than I do. I have some more playing to do ;-).

Labarum
22-05-2009, 20:46
I sidestepped many issues by using a Squeezebox.

None of the PC's audio engine is in use -it simple sends data to the Squeezebox.

The server is in the next room and the Squeezebox is silent - it outputs well to the Standac.

I also get very comprehensive access to internet radio from the Squeezebox with easy control of pre-sets.

In practice, as now, I am listening with a quiet laptop on my knee, so I can tab my browser to Squeezecenter for complete control of the server.

ReachtheSky
24-05-2009, 23:44
I’m surprised at the lack of interest in this particular thread. Does it suggest that most people have this HD source area resolved and that it is a no-brainer?

I must be a little slow off the mark….or maybe I’m showing up which generation I belong to!

I do confess to still enjoying getting up and scanning my CD collection and often finding forgotten gems to listen to once again. But with the overwhelming views suggesting computer HD is “better” and certainly more convenient I am considering the move full time. To this end I have advised friends of mine to follow the Squeezebox route and they have been delighted with the outcome. I have had some reservations to follow suit as my equipment is better than theirs and I don’t know where the ultimate quality ceiling for the Squeezebox solution lies. Input welcomed here!

Summary of my views to date on computer HD source preferences, either:
a) Computer HD, Foobar, ASIO4all, with suitable DAC (Standac or equivalent) or
b) SB3/Duet with ext DAC (or transporter, but much more expensive)

Stratmangler
25-05-2009, 00:40
I've been using a SB3/TC 7510 combo as digital source for a good while now, and to be honest cannot envisage returning to using silver beer mats as source material now, at least past the first ripping stage.

There have been some head scratching times along the way, such as finding the tools to extract the the tracks from DVD-Audio discs or HDCD discs along the way, but on the whole I'm very satisfied with the way my SB3/TC 7510 combo dishes out the music.

The SB3 is stock, albeit with the notorious Maplin PSU, and the TC 7510 has had the full Mod 21 stuff done (by myself, according to the pdf files that Stan has kindly posted links for), the TC7510 also powered by another of the afore-mentioned Maplin PSU's.

The thing to bear in mind with the SB3 (or the receiver) thing is that the unit will deliver 24/48 data max to any external DAC. Recent developments in the Squeezecenter client will resample music data of higher sample rate (ie 24/96 or 24/192) at the server side of this - if you run SB3 then the max you will get out of it will be 24/48, a Transporter will handle 24/96 quite happily.

However a Transporter costs a lot of wonga - SB3 + decent DAC around 1/3 of the Transporter price.

The only real downside to the computer audio experience is that HDD's can & will fail at some point, and definitely need to be backed up fairly regularly (and you can guarantee that the backups have not been frequent enough).

The big plus with going SB3/DAC route is that the (serving) PC's audio engines do not become part of the equation - the processing of Squeezecenter is kept to the bare minimum, and is pretty consistent.

Just my thoughts.

Chris:)

Stratmangler
25-05-2009, 00:45
As an addendum to my last post - avoid MP3 and use FLAC instead. Squeezecenter/SB3 handles FLAC natively - not all computer based media players do.

Chris:)

Radiotron
25-05-2009, 01:12
[...]I find compressed audio exceedingly dull and boring played on a Mac, and timing is all over the place. The same is true when using internet radio or Spotify for example, whereas I can happily run Spotify under Wine in Ubuntu and it sounds fine - but any mac - with correct Audio MIDI settings, no DSP switched on, no resampling or anything else that can damage the sound, needs uncompressed audio to sound good. This makes me very sad as this is the setup I'd really like to have as my main front end.[...]

What would those correct Audio MIDI settings be? 16/44.1? I've noticed that it's preset at 24bits by default. Thanks.

nb2
25-05-2009, 10:02
I still use a laptop to run Squeezecenter for my Squeezebox and TC-7520
I didn't carefully compared TC-7520 through usb and Squeezebox TC-7520 through ethernet yet.
(I plan to do it, but it takes some time to make that seriously, and I'm very satisfied with the squeezebox).
I don't really want a real PC near my system (too big, ugly, noise ...)
I don't want a NAS because if you are in trouble with Squeezecenter, it is much easier to have a screen, a keyboard, a mouse, and a real operating system.

My next step should be
My Squeezebox + dac (I will probably take a high end one, TC-7520 is not a big enough improvement for me)
Netbook PC (it is silent, cheap, powerful enough for squeezecenter, especially with SSD disk and no fan)
Music on a silent usb external disk connected to the netbook.

Actually I see the netbook as a big silent remote.

Labarum
25-05-2009, 10:54
Actually I see the netbook as a big silent remote.

I use a Samsung Q210 to run Squeezecentre, as a remote to the SB£ in the lounge and the Boom in the kitchen, and for lazy surfing and emailing as I listen to the SB3 or watch the TV (the Virgin Cable box also drives the Standac).

The Samsung Q210 has a 12 in screen, runs Vista and has a DVD drive and an HDMI out, so I can play it through the TV. I have the base moel Q210.

I used to have Squeezecenter on the study PC, but transferred it to the laptop prior to a 7 week trip to Cyprus, and there (on the laptop) it has stayed.

And I am still flabbergasted that you don't reckon significant the difference between an SB3 by itself and with a Standac. The SB3 by itself is dull and lifeless - Great to play though a high street electrical shop mini-stack, but not good for anything serious.

nb2
25-05-2009, 11:17
And I am still flabbergasted that you don't reckon significant the difference between an SB3 by itself and with a Standac. The SB3 by itself is dull and lifeless - Great to play though a high street electrical shop mini-stack, but not good for anything serious.

It depends on what you call significant.
Once I accidently left my amplifier on the input connected to the Squeezebox analog output instead of the input connected to the TC-7520
It took me some time to figure out it was may be not as good as usual ...
For me, this is the best test you can make ...

When my old cd player died, I replaced it with a cheaper one (waiting for computer based system)
That was what I call a night and day difference, huge step back.
You obviously notice it in the very first seconds, even if you don't pay attention.
Nothing compared to the (existing but in my opinion small) difference between SB3 and TC-7520
I tried it with my dealer, and we agreed that the TC-7520 is somewhere in the Cambridge Dac Magic league.
Not in the 1000 euros dacs league.
Which is a good and normal performance you can reasonably expect, and be satisfied with

lovejoy
26-05-2009, 08:54
What would those correct Audio MIDI settings be? 16/44.1? I've noticed that it's preset at 24bits by default. Thanks.

For the most part yes. If you're like me, then the vast majority of your audio will have been sourced from CD. I always stuck to 16/44 to ensure that no internal resampling was taking place.

This was a bit of a hangover from iTunes version 7 which had a software bug in the resampler and the way around it was to make sure your output was set to the sampling frequency/bit depth of your recordings. This bug has now been fixed but considering the tiny amount of 24/48 or 24/96 recordings I have, if I want to listen to those, I'll just go and manually switch to that output in Audio MIDI settings as and when.

It has been said that in iTunes 8, the resampler actually does a very good job so it would be safe to permanently leave Audio MIDI settings to output 24-bit 96KHz. I've not really felt the need to try this with my CD derived content though.

lovejoy
26-05-2009, 09:49
I tried it with my dealer, and we agreed that the TC-7520 is somewhere in the Cambridge Dac Magic league.
Not in the 1000 euros dacs league.
Which is a good and normal performance you can reasonably expect, and be satisfied with

With the greatest of respect to the dealer involved - He would say that. They're not selling Beresford DACs and they certainly wouldn't say that a £150 product beats any of theirs costing £1000.

I know my subjective opinion is as invalid to you as anyone else's, but I would beg to differ. I've spent 10 years in good quality hi-fi retail and I could count the amount of digital products I heard in that time that sound better than my 7520 on one hand. Every single one of those products commanded at least a 4 figure sum.

One thing we might not have touched on is to ask what digital interconnect you are using between your SB3 and your 7520? The only reason I can think of (barring your amp and speakers not being revealing enough to show you the differences - which they should be) is the quality of your coax/optical cable.

I noticed in an earlier thread you said you found no differences between optical and coax.. Which cables are you using? I ask this because when I first bought my 7510 I already had what I thought was a decent optical cable to go between my Mac and DAC. It was an IXOS cable I spent a bit of money on a few years previously, but Stan's cable was very reasonably priced and I needed a spare.

I was extremely glad I bought it, as my IXOS cable made the 7510 sound unbearably bright and hard. The difference between that and Stan's optical cable was astounding and if I hadn't been able to compare the two side by side, I'd never have thought such a difference possible.

I'd say if you haven't got one already, you owe it to your 7520 to feed it with the best quality digital interconnect you can find.

lovejoy
26-05-2009, 09:57
To get back on thread, I've been doing some more playing around with Ubuntu over the weekend. I seem to have discovered just the piece of software I need for music playback. It's called Elisa. It's very much like Front Row on the Mac. The thing I've been missing is having an app where I can navigate my music via remote control and see it on a screen across the room. Elisa addresses all of this and looks rather fine - very much like Front Row in fact.

Along with that I have been playing with an app called Jack - A bit like the linux equivalent of ASIO, albeit with many more configuration options. A bit early to provide any definitive feedback on it at the moment, but as it stands I could spout hyperbole about it all morning. That's how mindblowingly good it was all sounding over the weekend, and I hadn't even drunk much ;-).

I think I might just have found the setup I'm going to stick with - That fills me with no end of joy.

DaveK
26-05-2009, 10:16
Hi Rich,
Please keep us posted - I for one am very interested in this sort of application - sounds good (no pun intended :lolsign:)
:cool:

nb2
26-05-2009, 19:05
With the greatest of respect to the dealer involved - He would say that. They're not selling Beresford DACs and they certainly wouldn't say that a £150 product beats any of theirs costing £1000.

I know my subjective opinion is as invalid to you as anyone else's, but I would beg to differ. I've spent 10 years in good quality hi-fi retail and I could count the amount of digital products I heard in that time that sound better than my 7520 on one hand. Every single one of those products commanded at least a 4 figure sum.

One thing we might not have touched on is to ask what digital interconnect you are using between your SB3 and your 7520? The only reason I can think of (barring your amp and speakers not being revealing enough to show you the differences - which they should be) is the quality of your coax/optical cable.

I noticed in an earlier thread you said you found no differences between optical and coax.. Which cables are you using? I ask this because when I first bought my 7510 I already had what I thought was a decent optical cable to go between my Mac and DAC. It was an IXOS cable I spent a bit of money on a few years previously, but Stan's cable was very reasonably priced and I needed a spare.

I was extremely glad I bought it, as my IXOS cable made the 7510 sound unbearably bright and hard. The difference between that and Stan's optical cable was astounding and if I hadn't been able to compare the two side by side, I'd never have thought such a difference possible.

I'd say if you haven't got one already, you owe it to your 7520 to feed it with the best quality digital interconnect you can find.

Well no problem, this is just a matter of personal taste and feelings.
Anybody can be satisfied with whatever product he feels like.
I just give my opinion in case someone is interested :-)
As far as my dealer is concerned, our conclusion came only from what BOTH of us heard ...

I just don't subscribe to the way some people rate different dacs, but I have no problem with that ...

What I can say so far is

- I got excellent results with the squeezebox on a decent system, and I really consider the squeezebox is an excellent value for money (as a dac, and it gives much more than a dac).
- I got slightly better result with the TC-7520 on the same kind of system.
- I got much better results with CD players and other dacs on the same kind of system (and I have several others to try).

Up to now, on my system, compared to all sources I tried, including Squeezebox and TC-7520 LM4562NA, my dead old CD player was much much better, without the slightest hesitation.
I think it is useless to search in the Dac Magic price range.

Now, people can perfectly think that when a TC-7520 doesn't spank a squeezebox, or doesn't sound almost as good as higher end dac, this is due to the power supply, the op amps, the amplifier, the speaker, the cables, the transport or whatever else you can think of ... which prevent the TC-7520 to show its qualities ...
Note that you could also think that when someone says that the squeezebox is just "Great to play though a high street electrical shop mini-stack", or when the high end dac is only marginally better than the Beresford, it could simply be because you didn't spent weeks finding the right setup for the squeezebox or the high end dac ...

Every serious dealer I spoke with, think that Dac Magic is not in the 1000 euros dacs league, and is a good "multimedia" dac.
I agree.
I don't find the TC-7520 vastly superior to the dac magic, may be sometime different, but not really "better".
I cannot consider a dac "spanks" another one, if it takes me some time to notice I accidently left my amplifier on the SB3 input instead of the Beresford input, on my system, with my cables.

You asked about my digital cables.
At home all cables I use are bluejeanscable, at least 1.5 meter length for digital.
Shorter digital cables are apparently known to be the source of reflection problems.
Up to 5 meter, with decent cables, there should be no length problem.
And most high end digital cables comparison I heard of, used shorter lengths, one meter or less ... so are they relevant ?
When I wrote I found no difference between optical and coax, I was only talking about the TC-7520 with bluejeanscable optical and coax connected to the squeezebox.

If you need to spend several times as much as the dac in power supply, op amps, digital cables and so on, to see its qualities, as far as I am concerned, I'm pretty sure I'll spend more in the dac and keep my bluejeanscable ...

I think the digital treatment to the data sent to the dac is much more important.
For example, you wrote somewhere that the Playstation 3 was a bad transport for you.
Are you sure you configured it with the correct settings ?
If you let the playstation convert everything to 48 Khz (I think it is the default setting), no need to say that comparison with another transport is useless ...

I'm interested in your results since your system seems really good, and should show differences in dacs qualities.
The squeezebox classic is quite cheap.
I think you should really try it.
It is an easy way to suppress most problems you can have with softwares or drivers which can silently resample or transform the digital signal.

lovejoy
27-05-2009, 07:58
As far as my dealer is concerned, our conclusion came only from what BOTH of us heard ...

I just don't subscribe to the way some people rate different dacs, but I have no problem with that ...


To go back to answer your original question in the previous thread, I would say "Yes", there is something amiss somewhere, but I think we've reached a point where without being there to hear what you're getting it's pretty much impossible for any of us to help troubleshoot from a distance, but I think I can speak for the vast majority of 7520 owners here when I say yours and your dealer's findings are in stark contrast to the rest of us here.

The reason I bought a 7520 was because I could hear a significant difference between that and my 7510, even with the 7510's uprated op-amps and super-duper power supply, so I'd put money on the difference between 7520 and stock SB3 being bigger than that, given that there are no other limitations in the system.

What I can say so far is



- I got much better results with CD players and other dacs on the same kind of system (and I have several others to try).


I'm really interested to know what these are. Any chance of a rundown?



I think it is useless to search in the Dac Magic price range.


Completely agree with this point.



Now, people can perfectly think that when a TC-7520 doesn't spank a squeezebox, or doesn't sound almost as good as higher end dac, this is due to the power supply, the op amps, the amplifier, the speaker, the cables, the transport or whatever else you can think of ... which prevent the TC-7520 to show its qualities ...


This is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make. A large percentage of the cost of what goes into making a high end piece of digital equipment is the power supply, then the op-amps. The DAC chip itself costs relatively little. To this end, Stan Beresford has designed a fantastic piece of equipment within a budget constraint and actually encouraged people to have a go at optimising the system by the use of better power supplies and op-amps etc. You have the choice of doing this, or you could just spend a lot more money at the outset and get a solution where all of this has been taken care of for you. From a dealers point of view, the latter approach is far more attractive as the problems that the former poses make the whole thing more trouble than it is worth. I chose the former as I'm a bit of a geek and I've learned a heck of a lot and have enjoyed every minute of it. The rewards of this time and effort (of which there has been a lot) are now paying dividends in how utterly amazing my system is sounding.



Every serious dealer I spoke with, think that Dac Magic is not in the 1000 euros dacs league, and is a good "multimedia" dac.
I agree.


'Serious dealers' are prone to a modicum of hi-fi snobbery, certainly where Richer Sounds products are involved - I know, I've been there and got the T-shirt. I've not heard the DACMagic so can't comment on how well it compares with the Beresford, but to dismiss it as merely a 'multimedia' product sounds lazy and smacks of 'we don't sell it, therefore it can't be that good' mentality that many dealers are guilty of. I'm willing to put money on the fact that at least one of the dealers you've spoken to has never heard it either.



Up to 5 meter, with decent cables, there should be no length problem.
And most high end digital cables comparison I heard of, used shorter lengths, one meter or less ... so are they relevant ?


I've read that when using coax digital interconnects 1.5m is a good length to avoid signal reflections, but that doesn't automatically mean that anything shorter will not be any good. I heard a Siltech cable going back a few years which was only 0.5m and that was quite amazing compared against a decent budget cable. Longer lengths will introduce problems other than signal reflections so I've always stuck to between 1 and 1.5 metres. Whilst optical cables don't suffer from signal reflections or electrical noise, I'd still stick to under 2m lengths. But that's just me.



If you need to spend several times as much as the dac in power supply, op amps, digital cables and so on, to see its qualities, as far as I am concerned, I'm pretty sure I'll spend more in the dac and keep my bluejeanscable ...


You pays your money, you takes your choice. That extra money you spent will have gone into more expensive power supplies, op-amps etc.



I think the digital treatment to the data sent to the dac is much more important.
For example, you wrote somewhere that the Playstation 3 was a bad transport for you.
Are you sure you configured it with the correct settings ?
If you let the playstation convert everything to 48 Khz (I think it is the default setting), no need to say that comparison with another transport is useless ...


Absolutely 100% agree with you.

I spent a while playing with the PS3. In it's stock form, I tried every possible output frequency. Whether that was default setting, native CD, or upsampled, the results were very poor. Then I tried installing Ubuntu and ripping some CDs losslessly and setting up the audio output for 16-bit 44.1KHz, but apart from not sounding any better, ran Ubuntu painfully slowly, so it wasn't really a good solution.



I'm interested in your results since your system seems really good, and should show differences in dacs qualities.
The squeezebox classic is quite cheap.
I think you should really try it.
It is an easy way to suppress most problems you can have with softwares or drivers which can silently resample or transform the digital signal.

The Squeezebox has tempted me a number of times. I have been very close to buying one, but I'm so happy with my PC setup now (which I am about to elaborate on), that the need for one has suddenly vanished.

I think from all of this you have drawn a good conclusion, i.e. that in order to seriously improve what you've got already, you're going to need to throw a not insignificant sum of money at it. It would be really interesting to know what route you choose.

lovejoy
27-05-2009, 08:29
Well I am full of the joys of spring this morning.

I've been wondering for a while now why it is that so many pieces of software claim to be 'bit perfect' i.e. they're not messing around with your audio data at all and yet they all sound different to me. Well, I think the answer came to me in last night's experiments.

I have been playing with 'Jack' as I mentioned in my previous post under Ubuntu (other Linux flavours are available). Jack is meant more for recording music than playing it back, in that it provides a low latency audio layer which is critical for people using their computers as recording studios.

However, Jack has a little checkbox marked 'Realtime' which also works in playback. Whereas your 'bit perfect' should ensure the same bits that came off the CD reach the DAC, 'Realtime' ensures they do so when they should. I had often wondered how, in a computer system, audio was dealt with in a way that delivered data to the digital outputs with the highest priority, above all other tasks as a time critical operation. When you think how an operating system has to deal with a million and one tasks and divide its time between each and every one of them, it's amazing that they can manage to deliver audio at all, and I think this is the fundamental issue that separates them. 'Bit perfect' is not enough. Timing accuracy is equally, if not more important, and from what I can gather at the moment, not all OS types are capable of real time audio handling. Hence, different systems, different sounds.

The guys who developed Ubuntu Studio clearly already know this as a lot of this is set up out of the box. I just took the long way around and did it all through a standard Ubuntu install ;).

You know when your system is doing something really special when:
1. You've got a massive grin from ear to ear with everything that you play and constantly utter the phrase 'well I've never heard it like that before' after every song, and
2. You can't play it loud enough.
So I must apologise to my neighbour's dog on that front, thankfully the neighbour's themselves had popped out.

I've arrived and I'm absolutely chuffed to bits about it. All this time and effort spent is now being well rewarded and I'd recommend to anyone wanting to dabble, a full digital front end that you can setup for not a lot of money:

A nice small form factor and quiet PC, something along the lines of a Dell Optiplex that you can get off Ebay these days for around 65-100 pounds. Install Ubuntu Studio on it, rip all of your music onto it, plug that into a 7520, put that into your amplifier and be thoroughly blown away.

OK that maybe over simplifying things a bit, but I'm happy to help for anyone stuck following this route. Maybe I should set myself up with a sideline in selling and installing such things ;).

Tony Moore
27-05-2009, 09:53
Hi Rich,

Interesting post. Do you connect from your Linux PC to TC7520 using USB or s/pdif?

Have you tried both?

Cheers,
Tony
ps. I think around 1m length s/pdif electrical is the length to avoid as it puts the reflection's timing close to a multiple of the clock rate (for 44.1Khz sampling/32bits) making the clock recovery PLL work harder and therefore potentially introducing more jitter. 0.5m should be ok, as should 1.5m+. This would be different for 48Khz and/or different bit depths of course. I've not done the calculations myself though so this is all 2nd hand info!

lovejoy
27-05-2009, 10:06
Hi Tony,
I am using USB at the moment, which in a previous listening test I preferred over both optical and coax. Not a night and day difference, just better focus.

I'd like to try the other connections again, as the limitation with the USB connection is that I can't play my 24/96 content without downsampling it.

When I can get the digital output on my soundcard working under the current Ubuntu build, I'll give it another go, but until then, not hearing the very small handfull of 24/96 material I own is a very small sacrifice.

leo
27-05-2009, 10:11
Does the USB interface chip for the 7520 supply the dac chip direct like I2S or is it used to output spdif ?

lovejoy
27-05-2009, 10:23
Hi Leo,
From what I can gather, there is a little daughter board that sits above the USB socket that has a crystal and a USB -> I2S converter IC (can't remember the device name as I don't have the DAC to hand) which feeds the DAC chip directly.

Stan might be along to correct me on this though...

nb2
27-05-2009, 15:04
To go back to answer your original question in the previous thread, I would say "Yes", there is something amiss somewhere, but I think we've reached a point where without being there to hear what you're getting it's pretty much impossible for any of us to help troubleshoot from a distance, but I think I can speak for the vast majority of 7520 owners here when I say yours and your dealer's findings are in stark contrast to the rest of us here.

I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I already said that in my opinion, it is not the TC-7520 which is bad, it is the SB3 which is good.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that you never tried the Squeezebox (neither as a dac nor as a transport for the Beresford).
So it is more "the rest of them", than "the rest of us"



I'd put money on the difference between 7520 and stock SB3 being bigger than that, given that there are no other limitations in the system.

Well, personally, I don't bet, I try ...

I won't tell anything about the TC-7510 alone, or compared to anything else, I never heard it.
Even if it is much easier than with any other software (the operating system doesn't matter), you have a few things to check if you want to have the best result for the squeezebox.
Of course make sure you use lossless 44.1 flac or wav carefully ripped.
Make sure you correctly configure the analog output with 100% volume and no attenuation (correct settings can be found on slimdevices forum).
I am not sure those who claims the squeezebox is not very good, really used it at its best (and I guess some of them actually never tried it ...)
But for them, if the TC-7520 is not astounding for me, I obviously have a wrong setup for this dac ...
Add also that it seems to me that the TC-7520 output is slightly louder than the Squeezebox one, which is a well known reason to subjectively improve perceived quality.

On another forum, I contacted privatly two members who said their Beresford is very good improvement over the Squeezebox

- The first one told the difference is there (I agree), but that anybody claiming it is "night and day" is not serious (I agree too).

- The second confirm that the Beresford is much better than the Squeezebox.
But ... his beresford is now for sale ... and he ordered a dac magic, not a 4 figures priced dac ...

All in all, I am far for being the only one with my findings.
And others could as well have used the Squeezebox with a not so good setup.



I'm really interested to know what these are. Any chance of a rundown?

I had a Kenwood CD player bought I think in 1987
Not cheap, but something a student could afford.
May be a DP 3010, but I am not absolutely sure, it finally died, and I don't have it anymore.
When I replaced it, that was a night and day difference, in the wrong way ...
I have now upgraded up to the TC-7520 LM4562NA, and I am absolutely positive about that, I still don't get back 10% of what I lost ...

May be those 10% are "night and day" for many people, but when you know what this old Kenwood could do ... may be those people simply don't know there is much better.



I chose the former as I'm a bit of a geek and I've learned a heck of a lot and have enjoyed every minute of it. The rewards of this time and effort (of which there has been a lot) are now paying dividends in how utterly amazing my system is sounding.

No problem, especially if you enjoy it.
But upgrade whatever you want, at some point, the dac chip will be the weak link, and you will have to change it.
There is a point where you might as well build entirely your DIY dac (or directly buy a higher end one).



'Serious dealers' are prone to a modicum of hi-fi snobbery, certainly where Richer Sounds products are involved - I know, I've been there and got the T-shirt. I've not heard the DACMagic so can't comment on how well it compares with the Beresford, but to dismiss it as merely a 'multimedia' product sounds lazy and smacks of 'we don't sell it, therefore it can't be that good' mentality that many dealers are guilty of. I'm willing to put money on the fact that at least one of the dealers you've spoken to has never heard it either.

"Multimedia" means in comparison with high end audio dacs.
In my opinion, and in theirs, it is not pejorative, it simply means they are not in the same league.
All dealers I know who commented the Dac Magic with me, actually sell it (and yes, listened to it also).
In fact I think all dealers I know, are honest enough to say it when they never heard a product, and so say they cannot give their own advice ...



I heard a Siltech cable going back a few years which was only 0.5m and that was quite amazing compared against a decent budget cable.

What I mean is that if you use short length, you are likely to have reflection problems requiring a good and expensive cable.
If it is long enough, no need to spend unreasonable amount of money, a decent cable should be enough.
So one should feed his dac with a cable (decent or xxx high end) long enough, in order to get the best result.
In my opinion, bluejeanscable are good, it is not cheap spaghetti.



The Squeezebox has tempted me a number of times.

Once again, considering all transports you already tried, if you never heard it, you should really try the Squeezebox classic at least as a transport.
Get a second hand one if you want, it is cheaper than a TC-7520 ...
I bet you will stop loosing time with questions about OS, drivers, usb cable, and you could move that ugly PC far away from your system.
(Ethernet is perfect over 100 meter length and everything about music starts in the squeezebox)

lovejoy
27-05-2009, 21:43
Once again, considering all transports you already tried, if you never heard it, you should really try the Squeezebox classic at least as a transport.
Get a second hand one if you want, it is cheaper than a TC-7520 ...
I bet you will stop loosing time with questions about OS, drivers, usb cable, and you could move that ugly PC far away from your system.
(Ethernet is perfect over 100 meter length and everything about music starts in the squeezebox)

I don't consider that I have lost *any* time. This has been a learning experience, I have managed to answer a lot of questions I had about how computers deal with audio along the way and came out with some very surprising answers. The whole experience has been frustrating at times, but mostly enjoyable and the rewards will, and indeed are now far outweighing the time and effort spent.

As for the ugly PC, I may replace it with a smaller box at some point, but ugly though this one is, it allows me to use Spotify, Last.FM, BBC iPlayer for radio, MySpace for seeking out new bands, and countless other things. There is no more comprehensive route for discovering new music.

I think if the chance to hear a Squeezebox appears, I will jump at it, but at the moment, I have no further need to spend money on audio equipment.

Maximum
31-05-2009, 12:40
It seems we had a very similar weekend last week lovejoy. :)

After reading what you had put about linux I decided to try and revive my ubuntu partition into working order and got the sound working through usb to my 7520. To be fair I still preferred the foobar/ASIO combination as it seemed to have more depth.

I started looking into distros concentrating on audio usage, finding Musix, 64studio, and Ubuntu Studio. Musix was a large download and going slow, 64studio ran but I got annoyed with the ntfs access issues, so Ubuntu Studio is currently installed. Sound seems to be working well through Jack, but I get dropouts with the generic kernel and the realtime kernel crashes after about 10 minutes.

It was really odd though, as every time I read this thread you seemed to have done the same playing I had just done. :lolsign:

lovejoy
01-06-2009, 08:22
Ah, excellent news to see that someone else is having a play with it. Quite spooky to see us following the same paths without any co-ordination though.

A bit more investigation for me over the weekend. I too have been playing with Ubuntu studio. I really liked the look of it, but I soon realised that it had added a lot of extra and unnecessary software, clutter and confusion - apart from the option of the real-time kernel I didn't think it really added anything over standard Ubuntu for pure music playback.

It also turns out that the real-time kernel is unnecessary as Jack will do all of your real-time audio handling without it being installed, so I've now stripped back to standard Ubuntu Jaunty.

Installing the GnomeAlsaMixer has allowed me to get the optical and co-ax digital outputs working from my on board sound which is great news and I've also been auditioning the different sound options - between OSS, ALSA and PulseAudio. Following all of this I have completely removed PulseAudio from the system.

The current (and new favourite) setup is - Co-ax digital into the 7520, ALSA audio drivers, Jack in real-time mode, outputting everything at 96KHz and using Moovida (was Elisa) for navigating and playing audio. It's sounding pretty phenomenal.

I'm finding output from Jack via co-ax at 96KHz an improvement over USB now. The sound now reminds me of the Theta CD player I heard a few years back. Massive amounts of detail and very rythmic. You can follow every single instrument in the mix with ease, but unlike the Theta it doesn't go so far as to pull the recording apart and present everything almost like they were separate performances. This is a VERY good thing.

The one thing I have left to investigate is 24-bit output. Alsa seems to be locked to 16-bit only in Jack. I'm sure this is just a matter of a bit more fiddling though ;-).