What is Your Computer Based System?

Jay_S · Aug 6, 2010

Macbook Pro / Itunes
Airport Express N router
D-Link 2-bay NAS
2nd Airport Express N router
TOSLINK cable
DAC

Steve Williams · Aug 6, 2010

Jay why 2 airport express

Jay_S · Aug 6, 2010

One Airport Express is connected by ethernet cable to the network that contains the NAS. The second is next to my music system, connecting to the DAC vis TOSLINK. This allows wireless streaming of music files stored on the NAS drives.

flez007 · Sep 5, 2010

I am currently using an iMac server with an external Toshiba 1Tbyte hard disc, music mostly ripped in WAV format to iTunes and Puremusuic software upsampling.

The iMac feeds a Stello USB-sPDF converter and then to a Reimyo DAC using a Siltech G6 coax digital cable.

I will reire the iMac soon for a MacMini and probably upgrade the Reimyo for a Wavelenght or Ayre USB DAC to skip the Stello link convertion.

Sound Quality continues getting closer to my analog setup but still dont there yet.

Phelonious Ponk · Sep 5, 2010

Steve Williams said:
What is TrendsUD-10

A digital transport. USB goes in, optical, digital coax and AES/EBU comes out, quite transparently as far as I can tell.

http://www.buyoyo.com/buyoyo/eng/ProductDisplay.do?prrfnbr=9702741&prtype=17

P

Vincent Kars · Nov 1, 2010

Phelonious Ponk said:
A digital transport

Pstt.... That is what we call a protocol converter.

Nyal Mellor · Nov 2, 2010

My setup:

Mac Mini 10.6 OSX
iTunes / Pure Music playback software
FabFilter ProQ parametric equalizer used as an Audio Unit plugin in Pure Music
Weiss DAC2 firewire digitial analog converter
Remote control via Apple Touch running Remote

I have had a music server for 5 years now, so was probably one of the 'early adoptors'. The addition of the Weiss DAC2 and more recently the Pure Music software have really lifted this to a reference level source. Plus having ability to do parametric EQ in the digital domain whilst in on the music server is amazing. EQ has no downsides done this way. Note the EQ is only used below 100Hz for reducing the audibility of modal resonances.

Clarification - I am not a dealer for any of this stuff, it just sounds great!

rhopkins · Dec 9, 2010

What am I using?

Computer - 17" HR glossy wide screen display MacBook Pro 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB 1066MHZ DDR3 SDRM - 2X4GB, 512GB solid state drive, and a superDrive 8X DL.

Software - iTunes with Amarra and Saracon

DAC - Weiss DAC1-MK2 D/A converter with Firewire.

rhopkins · Dec 9, 2010

Oh yeah, then in the rest of the house and the home theater, a Synology NAS with mirrored drives and SONOS players. All controlled by iPod touch screens, iPad or iPhones depending on who is holding what when. Pretty cool little system actually!

Idiocratease · Jan 19, 2011

Hi, I have been stimulated to join this forum after reading a bunch of interesting stuff on cables. I also saw the section on computer based audio, and as I've been battling with this for some time, and finally got somewhere, I thought I'd share the info:

There are a bunch of at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDneP-b9aEE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I have recently moved house, and ditched the dell monity, and now use an iPad to control the system... Will post vid someone on this ......

HFX Media PC Case, Intel core2 Quad Q8200, Supermicro C2SEA MB, Corsair Twin3X 4x1GB DDR3 DHX, Patriot SSD 64 GB, Western Digital WD10EVCS CAVIAR silenced in a Smart Drive enclosure, Borg heat pipes on CPU, MB CPU power rails, G45 graphics chip and the ICH10 chip. Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card (includes Bit Matched playback).
Signal to Chord QDB76 DAC via Wireworld SuperNova 6 optical cable. Use of optical cable galvanically isolates the PC from the DAC. The QDB76 is a buffering DAC, which removed source clock jitter, and signal transmission jitter... So the slight increase in transmission jitter associated with optical cables is irrelevant here, and the galvanic (electrical) isolation provides further benefit. There is a huge amount of technology in this DAC, so worth reading about separately
Analogue signal transmitted via HGA 99.99% pure silver Litz configured interconnects terminated with silver plated OFC Audio Note RCA connectors to Chord CPM2600 integrated stereo amp. Speaker cable is Kimber 8TC, and speaker are B&W 805S.
Interface via Dell SX2210T 21.5"W Multi-Touch Monitor, and Windows 7 Ultimate. Access remotely via wireless network through Windows remote desktop sharing (RDP) to laptop when necessary.

Steve Williams · Jan 19, 2011

Idiocratease said:
Hi, I have been stimulated to join this forum after reading a bunch of interesting stuff on cables. I also saw the section on computer based audio, and as I've been battling with this for some time, and finally got somewhere, I thought I'd share the info:

There are a bunch of at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDneP-b9aEE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I have recently moved house, and ditched the dell monity, and now use an iPad to control the system... Will post vid someone on this ......

HFX Media PC Case, Intel core2 Quad Q8200, Supermicro C2SEA MB, Corsair Twin3X 4x1GB DDR3 DHX, Patriot SSD 64 GB, Western Digital WD10EVCS CAVIAR silenced in a Smart Drive enclosure, Borg heat pipes on CPU, MB CPU power rails, G45 graphics chip and the ICH10 chip. Creative X-Fi Titanium sound card (includes Bit Matched playback).
Signal to Chord QDB76 DAC via Wireworld SuperNova 6 optical cable. Use of optical cable galvanically isolates the PC from the DAC. The QDB76 is a buffering DAC, which removed source clock jitter, and signal transmission jitter... So the slight increase in transmission jitter associated with optical cables is irrelevant here, and the galvanic (electrical) isolation provides further benefit. There is a huge amount of technology in this DAC, so worth reading about separately
Analogue signal transmitted via HGA 99.99% pure silver Litz configured interconnects terminated with silver plated OFC Audio Note RCA connectors to Chord CPM2600 integrated stereo amp. Speaker cable is Kimber 8TC, and speaker are B&W 805S.
Interface via Dell SX2210T 21.5"W Multi-Touch Monitor, and Windows 7 Ultimate. Access remotely via wireless network through Windows remote desktop sharing (RDP) to laptop when necessary.

First off thanks for joining.

The You Tube video showing your system was terrific and the sound I was hearing was darn good

Phelonious Ponk · Jan 20, 2011

Vincent Kars said:
Pstt.... That is what we call a protocol converter.

Thanks for the correction, Vincent. I see Trends actually calls it a USB converter.

Tim

amirm · Jan 20, 2011

Nice video indeed Idiocratease. Who makes your PC case? And whose DAC is it? Does the buffered system keep up for long period of listening? Even 2 seconds is not enough to keep up for long periods and eventually the DAC may have to interpolate samples if it runs out. So I am curious how it handles that.

Idiocratease · Jan 20, 2011

amirm said:
Nice video indeed Idiocratease. Who makes your PC case? And whose DAC is it? Does the buffered system keep up for long period of listening? Even 2 seconds is not enough to keep up for long periods and eventually the DAC may have to interpolate samples if it runs out. So I am curious how it handles that.

Thanks for positive words folks. There are links and info in the comments on the YouTube site, but the case is HFX ... Google quiet PC and hfx will find these.

The dac is a chord qdb76. There is a 2 sec and a 4 sec buffer. I understand the issue your referring to, but I have never had any buffer fill playing music for some hours. I suppose it depends on how far the PC clock is out cf thre DAC clock.... Anyway, never had a problem. The dac clock pointers re-set after a couple of seconds of silence... So if you are changing a disc or looking around the library the dac clock pointers reset.

amirm · Jan 20, 2011

Ah, rebuffering on silence is clever

.

Idiocratease · Jan 21, 2011

This is the latest embodiment using the iPad as a control for the media PC....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU7yg8PuPSM&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Steve Williams · Jan 21, 2011

Is the RDP a freee App for the ipad

Idiocratease · Jan 21, 2011

No it's a few pennies really. There are some free apps, and some which I bought and wasted money on, but this is a good one... I just tried to check the price, but as I have it installed this is not immediately obvious .... I think it as less than 10 euros. So nothing really.

Johnny Vinyl · Jan 22, 2011

What wonderfully done video, and like Steve said...sounds pretty darn nice as well! I need to get me one of those PCserver thingies one day! Thanks for sharing Sir!

Idiocratease · Jan 27, 2011

Thanks John, I quite surprised how good that bit of Telemann was capured by the mic on my mobile. Probably rock you have sounded awful. Any, the sound from the actual system as as good and I could hope for. Windows 7 was a great help, I later found XP was causing some degradation. The problem only surfaced when I replaced my dac. Originally I had an audio note 2.1 signature. Sounded great, and is a value dac, but replacing with the ultra clear Chord QDB lead me to hear some high freq. Corruption, which the tube dac did not reveal. It was XP. Replace XP with win 7, and massive Improvement.

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