Software - Music Player

[Stratmangler]

Oh, btw, had a fiddle with my daughters Sonos and while it is a very neat gadget I didn’t think the sound quality matched my current setup.

And did you hook it up to your DAC ? - it has SPDIF output in both coax and optical.

I wouldn't expect the Sonos analog outputs to be the best.

I use a SB3 myself, and it's linked up to an external DAC, as I don't particularly rate the analog output from the SB3 - the external DAC sounds much better.

[squeezethatbuffalo]

I believe Welder's current DAC only supports USB input.

And I agree with you, Squeezebox products are best used as transports.

[Welder]

Hello Vincent Kars.
I had a look at your site after a comment you made in another thread.
I liked your site, and the way you have approached computer audio.

I already use foobar + AISO4all. Couldn’t get KS to work with the HRT/foobar/xp combo for some reason; something to do with Realtek HD sound drivers.
Would love to strip all the Realtek drivers out and find out what can be done with the core drivers but I’m chicken

Stratmangler.
No, as sqeeze mentions, my Dac is USB only. I have a V-Dac coming over later and i might try with that. Just need to make some cables up.

[Stratmangler]

I believe Welder's current DAC only supports USB input.

And I agree with you, Squeezebox products are best used as transports.

You are correct - my mistake.
I thought he'd also got a Monarchy DAC, but I'm probably mixing him up with someone else.

[Stratmangler]

Stratmangler.
No, as sqeeze mentions, my Dac is USB only. I have a V-Dac coming over later and i might try with that. Just need to make some cables up.

Gotcha
I thought you'd got another DAC too - my mistake.

[Vincent Kars]

Hello Vincent Kars.
I already use foobar + AISO4all. Couldn’t get KS to work with the HRT/foobar/xp combo for some reason; something to do with Realtek HD sound drivers.
Would love to strip all the Realtek drivers out and find out what can be done with the core drivers but I’m chicken

KS won't work with devices having WaveRT drivers such as High Definition Audio Devices integrated with newer motherboards.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=78885

A simple way to try MS HDaudio.sys:

•System: Make a restore point so you can rollback
•Device manager: deinstall the driver (write down type, etc just in case you need to download them from the manufacturers website)
•Programs - remove the driver otherwise it will be installed again at the next step
•Reboot and Win installs the MS High Def Audio Device.

In the past I removed all Realtek and used MS High Dev only.
Today in Win7 my speakers don't work but the SPDIF and USB does.
Something has changed in the MS audio driverrs

http://thewelltemperedcomputer.com/SW/VistaTweak.htm

Thanks for the kind words about my website

[Welder]

I’m quite fortunate in have 3 friends from my engineering days who are also a bit deranged when it comes to audio living close by.
Two are very much state of the art, spent thousands on audio and are very knowledgably, friendly, realistic, if a bit barking.
One is a vinyl junkie (we don’t talk to him much )

[Welder]

Vincent Kars.
K, thx, just need a few valium and I may give it a try.
Thanks for links.
Will this work with 32bit XP?

[Vincent Kars]

I never tried it in XP.
The XP audio is completely different from Vista and higher so probably not.

[Welder]

“The XP audio is completely different from Vista and higher so probably not.”
Ah, this is what I’ve been led to believe.

I had a choice when setting up the laptop, use XP 32 which is apparently less system intensive than either Vista or Win7 and will run quite happily with 512 RAM and 1.5Gig processor, or have the maximum amount of RAM I can squeeze into the laptop (1 Gig) and use Win7 which is also more CPU intensive than XP and try to minimize that.

I have read that Win7 audio architecture is natively better for audio, but the majority of the benefits of Win7 over XP concerning audio didn’t seem enough to warrant getting to grips with a new OS and then stripping all but the necessities out.
Any thoughts on this or is audio nervosa creeping in?

What I have atm, powered, but galavanically (based around an ADuM 4160 chip) isolated Hitachi hard drives, feeding the stripped out Viao, via usb > mono powerd USB hub > HRT Dac > system would seem to be very close to a purpose built music server so I’m not sure one option still to explore (Music sever) would offer any great benefits.

The thing is I am actually quite happy with the sound I get with my current setup. I am thinking about upgrading the Dac but the more Dacs I hear the less convinced I am that I’m going to actually notice (without sitting down and constantly comparing A against B, which isn’t really what enjoyable music listening is all about for me) any sonic benefits.
The transition from CD to file > Dac > current system, was such an obvious improvement with my system that it was a no brainer. The benefits of changing OS and music players etc isn’t quite that clear cut.


Maybe I should just stop tinkering and buy lots more music