Digital numpty needs help

[Oldpinkman]

I dare say there's something somewhere I should have read, but I struggle with digital. I have my DaCapo and only use if for CD's atm, although I know it has a 96KHz facility too. How do I move to high quality digital music from PC or mac?

Let me give a specific example. My stepson bought me the tab for Damien Rice "O" for christmas, presumably because he wanted it for himself. I have bought the CD from Amazon with a free rip - which is MP3 quality. How could I have bought that album in a better digital format? Where from? And are there any good books or guides on how to then play it at best quality through the HiFi?

Don't get me wrong - DaCapo does a stonking job with CD's, but I feel I am missing this 24 bit malarky, and I don't want to listen to some obscure beardy-wierdy from the Linn label just for the sake of saying I have 24 bit digital.

Any practical help regarding being able to play high quality digital versions of the music I actually want to listen to would be much appreciated :scratch:

[Markiii]

getting hold of Hi Res downloads is unfortunaetly still not universal, not everything is available.

There is also a trust issue as a couple of online sources have over the years been outed as selling upsampled stuff that is no better than the Red Book it started life as

Linn Records stuff is top quality and reasonably priced, but it depends if their catalogue is your cup if tea

Hardware wise, what do you currently have available PC/Mac/tablet wise?

would you intend to rip your existing CDs? or just buy new Hi Res stuff to stream?

[John]

A lot will depend on your computer
What operating system is it
Getting a DAC either one with a USB or get a converter and a digital DAC Lots of options
Also consider if you want to go down DSD route
If you can hold on till we meet at James bake off we can chat deeper about the options

[Jerry B]

Had replied, but see some of your other posts.

So, will read and learn!

[Oldpinkman]

Thank you Mark. That makes some sense of it for me - the short answer being that CD may be the best available resolution for "common" music atm. I will hope to learn more "one to one" with John at the end of the month, although with floods, power cuts, man-flu, and the complete loss of my HMRC agent login facility for 3 days (fixed with atypical efficiency by HMRC in the end) this is shaping up to being a particularly character building tax return season :(

In truth, I don't find it that bigger hassle to drop a CD into a player when I want "hi res", but probably ought to start to tackle the whole PC music issue at some stage - currently I just rip to MP3's for my phone to play in the car...

[Rothchild]

One thing you can start doing if you're considering a move to a non-cd based digi system is to do your CD rips to FLAC, rather than MP3, then have your computer music program transcode the files to MP3 when you put them on the phone (to save space). That way they you've already got your library ripped to the highest quality and ready to use and you can modify (downgrade) them from there for use on whatever platform you want them on.

[Oldpinkman]

One thing you can start doing if you're considering a move to a non-cd based digi system is to do your CD rips to FLAC, rather than MP3, then have your computer music program transcode the files to MP3 when you put them on the phone (to save space). That way they you've already got your library ripped to the highest quality and ready to use and you can modify (downgrade) them from there for use on whatever platform you want them on.

Thanks again. Once the tax return season is out the way, I need to have a damn good PC organise regarding backups and the like, and that may be the time to go FLAC. Gonna mean terror-bites of hard drive though...

[StanleyB]

I would offer a word of caution as far as 192KHz downloads are concerned. I have the album Legend by Bob Marley in 44.1/96/192Khz. Not all the tracks on the 192KHz version are the same as on the 44.1 and 96KHz. That became obvious after listening to all three versions on a DAC that could highlight the differences.
The other problem is that 192KHz files require a lot more time to decode, which can result in buffering delays.

[DSJR]

Richard, the price of Stan's DACs is so low, relative to the antique you're using, that I'd seriously take a punt on one and relegate your De Capo to standby use.

I think Stan would fairly back me in this - modern DAC chips do most of it all internally now, so there's so much less for a designer to get wrong outside of this. Stan has worked hard to get the supply for his internals as immune as possible and this allows modern all-in-one chips to shine as they should. You just don't NEED a huge box full of 'stuff' these days as Marco and I have (the boards in my CD94 based Micro Seiki strike the fear of God in me, the wiring and circuit tracks involved and I know Marco's DAC box is even worse in this area, the great sound despite all this, rather than because of it)...

Go on, you know it makes sense to try it at least. My jury's out on hi-res right now as I'm getting very good 3-D and musical sounds without this 'luxury,' but some here like it and these people are almost certainly rather younger than I and without knackered hearing ;)

[Markiii]

If your looking a terabytes of storage now would be a good time to look at getting a NAS

Personally I use unRAID

It's so easy to setup even I who No sweet FA about Linux managed it

[Rothchild]

Terrabytes are dirt cheap these days: http://www.ebuyer.com/320102-hgst-1tb-touro-mx3-portable-hard-drive-0s03457 you could probably fit several hundred FLAC ripped CDs on one of these.