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174.127.74.43
The Auraliti PK series is an audio optimized playback device with no McSoftware, USB and/or BNC output, with or with out inboard DAC, optional PSU. Headless, plays back files,from directly connected storage device.Plays all sample rare and bit depths up to DSD 128.
Ditch your computer.
FYI, the Bryston BDP series is based in Auraliti architecture.
Edits: 04/20/14Follow Ups:
The Oppo 103 will play DSD and PCM files from a thumb drive or an external hard drive. Costs $500. No software or PC needed (except to get those digital files on the drive.
It will also play them from remote storage by ethernet/wifi.
Hi,
There are a number of vendors that sell "music players" that pretend not to be computers, but are based on commercial barebones or their own cases with commercial grade motherboards etc.
If you are lucky they are actually running a serious OS with full support by major vendor, they just do not tell you,if not they will be running a DIY hack OS (usually some flavour of Linux), where you rely on the vendor to support.
What is worse, in order to avoid any hint of a computer taint these systems usually explicitly refuse the use of touch-screens and similar controllers but force you instead to use another computer (iPhone/iPad, Android Phone/Pad, PC, Mac) as remote control.
So the fun part is that in your mad dash to avoid the "horrible computer" you are actually getting two of them and with much less usability than any off the shelf touch-screen All-In-One PC, which usually costs less than the "not a computer audio computer", running minimal windows and J-River.
Well, to each his own.
As I already have a computer that does full AV, has a simple remote (Logitech Harmony) and is so easy use, even the mother in law can manage (as can my 4 year old daughter), I can see no compelling reason to spend "under $1,000" to get less than what I have.
Ciao T
Sometimes I'd like to be the water
sometimes shallow, sometimes wild.
Born high in the mountains,
even the seas would be mine.
(Translated from the song "Aus der ferne" by City)
.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
Yes, yes, we all know it is a computer. There is no pretending. It is a PURPOSE BUILT Audio computer, not one off the assembly line in China with a hundred parts that have nothing to do with audio and stuffed with bloated O/S's and software that again, have nothing to do with audio.
"Worse"? No running headless is BETTER. Controlling with a phone, which you are going to have in the room with you ANYWAY is far, far better.
You can make all the derogatory comments you like about a product like this but the fact is it sounds better than any "optimized" off the shelf computer running Jriver, Audirvana, or Pure Music. Yes, i have heard them ALL.
Hi,I first kept it generic, as I do not want to be seen to criticise a specific product, but as you insist...
> It is a PURPOSE BUILT Audio computer, not one off the assembly line
> in China with a hundred parts that have nothing to do with audioActually, earlier versions used a generic mini ITX Barebone as basis.
http://vaiopocket.seesaa.net/article/218200640.html
It's main claim to audio use is the add in card, which is either a USB card or audio card, plus the stick on badge on the front.
The casework of the current version looks a bit better and thus may actually be custom made, I can't be bothered to look if anyone of the usual suspects has a suitable barebone....
No matter the case, based on the manual/website the motherbaord is an obsolete intel atom one:
http://www.logicsupply.com/d945gsejt/
Last time I looked Intel Brand Motherboards were made by Foxcon in China (to go with the iPhone you need to control the thing), unless they found someone cheaper since.
So, this generic McDonaldised commoditised motherboard is made in China, in large volume and is full of parts that have nothing to do with audio, actually detract from audio quality and it was made by the lowest bidder.
> and stuffed with bloated O/S's and software that again,
> have nothing to do with audio.It apparently uses Voyage MPD, which in turn is based on two specific Linux Distro's and is likely full of software that again, has nothing to do with audio.
You could probably run Windows Server in Core Mode as J-Play player client in a similar style and get better sound.
> "Worse"? No running headless is BETTER.
We shall agree to disagree. Running headless is worse.
Ask any chicken about running headless.
> Controlling with a phone, which you are going to have in the room
> with you ANYWAY is far, far better.I am with Linn on that. Phones in the Listening room degrade sound quality... ;-)
And honestly, if is based on MPD I know the control software (some people I know swear by MPD based stuff, that if they do not swear at it for clonking out at the wrong time, needing multiple reboots to recognise audio devices etc.) and I do not think it is a remote patch on the stuff I commonly use.
Of course, different strokes for different blokes. Some think to be high end it must have poor usability, must be difficult to use and all that. Well to me that is low end...
> You can make all the derogatory comments you like about a product
> like this but the fact is it sounds better than any "optimized"
> off the shelf computer running Jriver, Audirvana, or Pure Music.Past Weekend I was at the Shanghai Audio Show, our main presenter (a nice bloke from HK) insisted to use his DIY Voyage MPD based system, which meant a untidy assembly of SSD, tiny system box, Wifi router and several plugtop supplies distinctly lower grade than what iFi ships.
It sounded worse than the 27" Lenovo AIO we commonly use. Heck, most of the time it sounded worse than iPhone via Bluetooth into the same system! Maybe in part due to the power supplies, but the All In One DAC/Tubeamp we demoed has a Switched Mode Supply of it's own (and as result spectacularly low hum, buzz and RFI), so it should not be.
I cannot claim to have heard them all, but I heard a few. In this case I stick to J-River on dedicated but generic hardware, windows stripped down to the minimum and suitable optimisation scripts run, J-Play or not depends.
I have yet to find anything that sounds substantially better using our audio hardware and power hardware and anything I'd prefer operationally.
Again, different strokes.Enjoy what you have, don't get upset by those who (correctly) point out that you are listening to a device based on generic hardware and generic software, heck I do so and I'm not bothered.
Ciao T
Sometimes I'd like to be the water
sometimes shallow, sometimes wild.
Born high in the mountains,
even the seas would be mine.
(Translated from the song "Aus der ferne" by City)
Edits: 04/24/14
Intel Atom Mini-ITX general purpose COMPUTER motherboard. Note the connector layout.
Auraliti PK Series PCM & DSD Player from their Install Guide. Note the connector layout.
Sure looks like a general purpose COMPUTER to me! And obsolete one at that since this motherboard has been discontinued.
"And obsolete one at that since this motherboard has been discontinued."
Is that actually a pertinent fact?
Just for some clarity for some who might not realize. Even the embedded board that do not look like a computer MB no back plane, ports etc... Are still motherboards usually with most of the same connectivity. No full size back plane but headers or bus connectors, etc.
It's a pertinent fact if a buyer encounters a problem that requires a new motherboard. I hope the vendor has a good stock of spares... many tiny Mom and Pop shops probably don't.
But of course, you have not heard the Auraliti. But feel free to keep commenting on what it "looks" like.
Hi,
The point was not what it sounds like. Many computer based systems can sound excellent.
The issue is that you claimed that a Computer made from general purpose china made hardware running a customised version of a general purpose Operating system was not a computer, was not based on "Made In China" generica, did not run and software and so on and that everyone should throw away their computers and get one.
Incidentally, if you are interested in headless, linux based playback systems, try a Raspberry or Beaglebone with Volumio:
http://volumio.org/
Potentially they are able to be as good as any Intel based McPuter platform at much less power consumption and cost.
Ciao T
Sometimes I'd like to be the water
sometimes shallow, sometimes wild.
Born high in the mountains,
even the seas would be mine.
(Translated from the song "Aus der ferne" by City)
Mr T,
For those who are interested.
A couple of cool projects...
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/twisted-pear/250583-building-open-embedded-audio-applicance.html
and
Thanks Thorsten for reminding me about Volumio.
I tried your suggestion and downloaded and installed Volumio into a spare SD card for my Raspberry Pi and booted the machine. It came up, but I could not get it to find my NAS. After a while, I resorted to Google and it turned out that I needed to SSH to the device and make and configure a directory, after which I could configure Volumio to find a Windows Share on my computer. (The Volumio web UI had no error message other than "mount failed" to give me a clue as to what the problem was, so I assumed it was a network problem for a while before giving up and Googling.) At this point I loaded some 44/16 music files into the Windows Share and Volumio was able to "play" them on its built in DAC. Of course this wasn't connected to anything, but time passed on the display, etc.
Next I tried to get the Pi to talk to my Mytek. As the Pi doesn't have SPDIF out and I didn't have a USB to SPDIF converter, my first try was to use the USB 1.1 input on the Mytek and connect that to the Pi, since I knew this wouldn't require a driver. After making the connection, I tried to change the audio device, but no change, just the internal DAC was listed on the pull down menu. After wasting a little time I decided perhaps I had been stupid and rebooted the Pi. At this point I was able to configure what Volumio thought was "DAC" and it was now possible to play 44/16 and 96/24 files and listen to the music. However, when I tried to play a 192/24 this did not work. (This is because the USB 1.1 input on the Mytek only works up to 44/16. Actually there was some music, because somewhere there was a sample rate conversion but the Pi's processor was too slow for this to work without stuttering.)
Next, in what I knew (correctly) was going to be a vain attempt, I tried to connect via the USB 2.0 input of the Mytek. This requires a proprietary USB PAL driver installed on the computer and I didn't have this. So this would not work, i.e. the Mytek display showed that it was not connected to the Pi. So it looks like if I wanted to pursue this further I would have to either get a USB 2.0 to SPDIF converter and go that way or find a suitable Linux driver for the Mytek.
All of the above took about 2 hours, which seemed reasonable to me as I am no kind of Linux expert. However, the VOLUMIO web site implied that I could be listening to music in under 10 minutes. Fat chance, I would never have been listening to any music without the fix to the directory structure needed for the mount point to work, something that also requires knowing the root password. In summary, this was an interesting escapade but Volumio is definitely not "Plug and Play". At this point I would say that Volumio is in early Beta test.
So now I am off to Github, to see if I can compile a suitable USBPAL driver for the Mytek 2.0.... If I succeed in getting this to work, I will report back...
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Tony,
Some of your issues with Volumio are Pi related. I have been playing with Linux stuff with a CompuLab Utilite Pro. Much better and more flexible hardware. Do you know that that HQPlayer has a Linux version, I am planing on giving it a try. Looks interesting...
What NAS are your using? Try using the Guest account on your NAS and see if Volumio will see it, that is what I did.
Progress. Or more exactly, lack thereof.
I went to make an ARM version of a Linux driver for my Mytek, but discovered that the gcc had been removed. So it tried to reinstall it with an apt-get but this failed. The error message indicated that the gcc had previously been installed but had been removed.
I thought there was some kind of a version issue in the repositories, so I used apt-get to update the system. BIG MISTAKE. The system (eventually) updated and ran but all the essential optimizations (probably including the USB firmware changes) made the audio performance unusable, with stuttering even at 44/16. Back to square one, reloading the Volumio distro. In this format I can use USB 1.1 to the Mytek and it plays at 44.1 and 96.
Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I'm done. If updating the distro causes a step backwards, there is something fundamentally wrong.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Thanks, I got past my NAS issue. I figure if I had to do mkdir and chmod commands on the Volumio distro then it wasn't the fault of my "NAS" which was just my Windows 7 machine and which share was readily accessible from another Windows machine and also from a Debian machine running on a VM. So I figure this was a bug in the Volumio setup. After I logged in as root and made these changes the identical web UI configuration for the share worked correctly.
I am aware that HQPlayer has a Linux version. But, according to Jussie, it doesn't come with a Mytek USB 2.0 driver. Hence that issue. If i can figure how to get working Mytek drivers, then I will tackle this issue on the HQPlayer machine. Right now, I am deep into Linux mess. It turns out that the Volumio distro had stripped out the gcc compiler, and this wouldn't come back in without an update to the O/S...
I agree with your comments about the Pi hardware. The power wiring, at the very least, is marginal and even getting connectors to seat once the board is mounted in a pill box case is a bit of a problem. However, it's a good, cheap tool for proof of concept.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Thank you for the Volumio tip!
Edits: 04/26/14
No, I haven't heard the Auraliti but that is irrelevant to the original post. I am only lending support to dispel innocent misinformation on the product:
"PCM and DSD playback no software or computer, under $1000"
It might sound wonderful as do many computer based audio systems.
"It is a PURPOSE BUILT Audio computer, not one off the assembly line in China with a hundred parts that have nothing to do with audio and stuffed with bloated O/S's and software that again, have nothing to do with audio."
Now that is a serious exaggeration ...
"You can make all the derogatory comments you like about a product like this but the fact is it sounds better than any "optimized" off the shelf computer running Jriver, Audirvana, or Pure Music. Yes, i have heard them ALL."
But there are still lots of stuff out there you have not heard. I feel you are overestimating the superiority of the one box solution. At the end of the day IMO it is really the same, not better. It is all a mater of choice, dedication and what you are willing to spend.
both other PC mainboards, and the boards in CD players & DACs?
They are very different.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
"both other PC mainboards, and the boards in CD players & DACs?
They are very different."
Are you talking about actual CD players, or Hard Drive, Streamer type players?
Very different mainboard animals, - obviously, - from PCs.....
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
"Very different mainboard animals, - obviously, - from PCs..... "
Depends what you mean... More similar than you think, depending what you are comparing it to. If you are saying the desktop or notebook you purchase from the big box store, yes different.
But when you look inside, an Intel or ARM board with a BIOS running an OS. Yes reduced instructions, and running generally one application, but they are very similar to what many of us are using. Just not in one box.
When did "one box" become an important consideration for an audiophile???
I am saying two things, - (perhaps not so clearly).
1. That an audio only device's mainboard will be very different because it will not have bus slots for cards, USB ports, video ports, huge processor, and RAM DIMM slots. Many of these audio only boxes do have small circuit boards, but overall, set up with damping materials, better, (sometimes point to point wiring, tubes, etc).
2. There's a difference between what I think is good, and what is available: starting with the HD, - which also shouldn't be included. Separating the power supply(s)from the DACs are/should be a good thing.
Cheers,
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
I can guarantee you that a Mini ITX motherboard is not PURPOSE BUILT to be an Audio Computer. It is stuffed with tons of general purpose parts for general purpose computing, many having no relevance to audio at all and are most likely manufactured in China/Taiwan as are most PC motherboards.
By limiting the functionality of the Operating System by removing non essential services on this computer, and eliminating the display, the manufacturer is doing exactly what many inmates here are doing with their general purpose music servers (computers).
If the Bryston BDP series is based on Auraliti architecture as you mentioned, then I guess all those Bryston buyers are being duped into believing it's not a computer??
....and a PCI riser to accommodate a horizontally mounted PCI sound card, or dual USB card by SOtM Audio.
It appears to use multicast DNS and DNS Service Discovery for Zero-configuration networking which is supported on many popular computer Operating Systems including Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows.
To control it via Windows clients such as smartphones, tablets, and computers, Auraliti recommends downloading the free Bonjour software from Apple. Bonjour uses multicast DNS and DNS Service Discovery.
Whatever marketing spin Auraliti chooses to put on their box to appeal to certain audiophile buyers, it is most definitely a computer based on a variant of the Mini ITX standard for motherboards and it is running a computer Operating System and other software.
And yes, it is definitely more of a computer than a CD player, DVD player, or similar consumer appliance. ;-)
No software until something goes wrong then the magic audiophile fairy dust blows away and the silk curtain disappears and the man (Turing) behind the curtain appears.
I've been experimenting with IPv6 and got that running on my LAN by using a Linux VM as a host for a tunnel to the Hurricane Electric service. It turned out that the minute I set this up all my Windows and Linux computers were up and operational with IPv6 addresses, which was actually something I did not want, since I had been relying on the NAT based firewall functionality of my DSL Router supplied by my ISP. While the Linux command lines needed to enable the IPv6 tunnel and routing were very short and simple and could be cut and pasted from the Hurricane Electric web site, getting the iptables and ipv6tables set up to provide firewall capability was not so convenient. (Even my Windows XP machine came up and running and it's web service was operational over IPv6 without any further configuration.)
IPv6 autoconfiguration is very simple since it just uses the MAC addresses and high order address information supplied by the IPv6 router. No klugery as with limited 32 bit addresses and NAT. (Vint Cerf has recently changed his tune and has publically admitted that ipv6 with its 128 bit addresses is the real way the Internet should have been addressed. When I first visited Vint at his office in DARPA in 1978 and told him that the 32 bit addresses in TCP/IP would not be adequate he had looked at me as if I was crazy. He told me that the entire Internet only consisted of 100 computers. My rejoinder was based on Moore's law and the observation that there would be as many computers in the world as fractional horsepower motors, i.e. several of these for every living human and that he was wasting his time if he was building a network that wouldn't scale up.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"the observation that there would be as many computers in the world as fractional horsepower motors..."
That's a very insightful comparison, was it your's truly? I suppose that motors have already long been left in the dust, especially if you count embedded "controllers" and clocks. Things just don't spin and click like they used to...
Rick
I'm not sure where I got the idea that computers would proliferate much like fractional horsepower motors. I do recall reading that the average (American) household had several dozen fractional horsepower electric motors, and a little thought at the time about my own situation confirmed that estimation.
I was in charge of computer networking at Digital Equipment at the time I first met Vint Cerf, and we had a network architecture that allowed for only 16 bit network addresses in theory and only about 8 bits in practice. (This was at a time where the DECnet software was being called "bloated" by some people in the company, despite the fact that it fit in 32 kB of memory.) We were being pushed by our customers, especially NASA, to expand this limit, but for various reasons never really solved the address problem because of company politics and a management directive that we were to collaborate with our European brethren who were hooked on "International Standards" under the auspices of bureaucratic organizations such as ISO. Anyhow, our concerns about network size had provoked my thinking on this subject.
I can take some credit for the 48 bit Ethernet addresses as I was one of about five people at the meeting between Digital, Intel and Xerox where the 32 bit addresses of the Xerox's 3 Mbps research Ethernet were expanded to 48 bits to permit decentralized administration. I was personally responsible for the 16 bit CRC being changed to 32 bits, and this only happened because I told the President of DEC that I would not have any part of standardizing an unreliable data communications system that could lead to dangerous data corruption. This was an interesting situation, whereby Ken Olsen told the head of Xerox that Digital would back out of the deal if they didn't agree to the 32 bit CRC. (The actual 32 bit code had been selected and its performance analyzed by two mathematicians at the Wright-Patterson Air Force base a few years earlier for a military communications network.) Some emails on this subject went between Xerox and Digital over the ARPAnet and these got intercepted and passed on to the press. I believe it was one of my emails that was the cause of the first public story in Electronic News Daily about collaboration in networking between Digital and Xerox. (Intel came later.)
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
It's fun to see where things go over time and to be involved in the early days as you were.
I was simply struck with how well the motor:computer (for lack of a better generic term) analogy actually works. It's one of those things that would never have occurred to me but now that you've mentioned it has been shifting from "what?" to "OK" and is approaching "that's obvious".
Small motors were huge to my Mom. One of her pride and joys circa 1950 was an electric clock. It even had a little red dot that magically would appear if it had lost power. And the phone Co. had a time of day thing that was accurate for setting them. Just knowing the time used to be really hard but we were rolling in new times and technologies. Each new appliance was a thing of wonder, begone accursed treadle sewing machine and icebox!
It's sort of odd how audiophiles have become lagging adaptors, that certainly didn't used to be the case. I was buckling up in our Toyota mobile computer this morning to go to the dentist and the radio display said that it had connected to my cell phone which is normal. THEN it said it had connected to my music device. My what? I guess I could sing into it's speakerphone... Or maybe my cheapest-thing-available cellphone can store music? Don't know, don't care. I just punched up KWAX and listened to classical music on the way.
But in reflection I suppose that sort of thing IS progress. A couple more generations of Flash and prolly my closet full of music WILL fit in my pocket and can be rendered by headphones, cars, home stereos and ice-chests...
We may need some new fora.
Rick
Interesting story Tony.
I'm no networking expert but Ethernet has come a long ways since the days of CSMA/CD and coax cable.
I also played a little with IBM 16 Mbit/s Token Ring back in the 1990s and helped a customer improve his performance by increasing his MTU.
We now support jumbo frames with improved CRC in modern Ethernet devices, thanks to Federal Government network requirements many years ago that forced vendors provide this capability.
The Tascam DA-3000 is under $1k. Works perfectly!
Different animal. Can you attach hard drives?
Also, the PK series can also playback files on a network, as well as directly connected storage.
running software.
my blog: http://carsmusicandnature.blogspot.com/
Yeh, I know, so is a CD player these days.
It just not a McComputer, massed produced to browse the web, get infested with viruses, and watch youtube.
Gang,
Look at the ability a large company has over a small one. All of these are computers and what do you get for a $25 mother board, limited ram, slow hard drives and a sub par CPU?
To me the operating system has just as much to do with the sound as the computer. But overall Apple's hardware is leaps and bounds better (and yes more expensive) than anything else out there. Plus you can run any OS you want on it.
Linux to me is a mixed bag and kind of like the wild west. First none of these companies selling stuff are paying for Linux like they should for a commercial product. This is the only way Linux is going to move forward. You have to pay good engineers to write GOOD code.
OSX is good code and I have had really good luck with using it in an audio setting.
Windows is better than it use to be, but it is the most frustrating operating system and company to deal with.
So when you buy one of these servers you have to think about more than just the hardware. What about backup and other apps you may want to run and what about this that and the other.
To me I think about the one engineer who designed XYZ product. Then I think about OSX/Windows were there is thousands or millions of programmers working on those.
Which one would you want in your system?
Thanks,
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
Server 2012R2 installs in 6 minutes or so!
I have not had any issues with W8 or W8.1 since install.
You are a high-end audio developer surely your research in that area has led you to see that an "off-the-shelf" commercial computing device, (designed to do more than 1000) different functions, will necessarily compromise itself as an audio playback device.....
For example, the MSB devices are "computers" too, but they are different kinds of computers, designed for only one thing.
I will take my chances with someone like them. (My personal take: I don't want a built in hard drive, and I want to have internet radio).
Consumers yelling at MSB to get what they want, will more likely be heard than any hand grenades flipped into the Apple Corp campus.
Apple Corp will never give two craps about audio, EVER!
The only way to make a consumer computer, designed for something OTHER than high end audio, sound good; is to have high end audio designers turn it into something that it is not: that makes it a waste of time and money for everyone wishing to achieve SUPERIOR playback quality.
The best turntables, Universal disc players, still blow away computers, every time....
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
I disagree. Machines are nothing more (or less) than sums of their components. Well designed and built machines will be good, and crap wont.
Good quality audio performance is way down the list......
You can have a "good" machine, and still have it suck for audio....
Just like any commercial product, - we've seen both PC & Apple Corp, manufacture machines that vary in quality due to many factors, one of which is cost to make vs selling price vs value to consumer.
This is basic stuff, and obvious.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
I totally agree with that. It's just not important enough to govern audio reproduction into perfection. All the psychotically obsessed talent which has picked it up as a hobby seems to help it along pretty well though. I'm generally very satisfied with my lovely mid fi noise machine that most any poor person like me could afford.
"Machines are nothing more (or less) than sums of their components."
I beg to differ. The behavior of complex systems can not successfully broken down and understood as the operation of separate parts. There are mental models (e.g. linear approximations to reality) that allow this kind of breakdown, but these are invented by man for the purpose of doing simple (a.k.a. simplistic) analysis. If the goal is functional mediocrity this type of analysis may be appropriate, but most audiophiles are not interested in mediocrity.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"I beg to differ"
Well, who wouldn't when the statement gets taken out of it's intended context and put into isolation like that?
"The behavior of complex systems can not successfully broken down and understood as the operation of separate parts."
For me, theorems get promoted to truths as a method of getting off the proverbial pot. Sure it's a risk but call me edgy.
Some systems can be understood well enough to control and some can't.
Digital computers theoretically can be perfect at their jobs assuming the job lies within capabilities of the proven technologies available to the developer -and the developer has a good handle on the application -and does a good job.
That's the whole point and the beauty of the digital abstraction. Because it rarely occurs does not mean it isn't possible. I've seen plenty of apparently perfect digital machines. Some, rather complex.
Sound systems via generic affordable consumer grade, modular, relatively open architecture, originally intended as general purpose office machines obviously presents some challenges.
In my opinion it's all about scope and definition. After all it's not like we are talking life support or weaposn of mass destruction. Guaranteed, all perceivable problems would have been solved long ago if higher ups thought it was useful for killing commies or whatever.
If yours isn't perfect it just means you haven't worked out the bugs yet, well that or maybe it's just the whole analog thing....That seems to be where most everybody is blowing it.
My first hand perspective differs significantly....
For example Apple Corp own and develop Logic and Garage Band, absolutely and implicitly audio recording software packages.
Logic is a very high end audio application which you perhaps would be surprised to know that a VAST number of record producers use to either record, edit, mix and master their albums with, in fact you may even have records which incorporated it during production (The same application was previously owned/developed over decades by EMAGIC, a German company) !
Furthermore although I am listening to one of my $20K+ vinyl rigs as I type, only last night I set up a friends system with an Apple Mac Mini & Audirvana software feeding into his professionally modified (upgraded) and rather expensive OPPO BDP-105, which he absolutely loves btw.
After half an hour of configuration so he can eventually import his thousands of discs and enjoy an incredibly flexibly accessible organised library of music, as I also do, he was slack jawed at the much improved sonic refinement the MacMini HD (ram actually, when using Audirvana) playback was over the same reference disc he has been listening to for more than 25 years.
We extensively compared the OPPO and HD playback and I left him absolutely overjoyed......
My current dac which has handily outperformed every other dac I have used, cost no object, including the MSB Platinum... employs as you say an 'off-the-shelf" commercial computing device' as a core aspect of its very existence and remarkable computing power (its an FPGA device FYI).
As for absolutes, the only one I acknowledge is the absolute realisation that my intelligence is only limited by my ignorance ;-)
I do agree with Sprezza here. I hope that I didn't imply, (perhaps I did), that setting up something like a fully optimized PC or a fully optimized Mini sucks. It definitely does not. I've been running a NAS system since 2003 and have made various improvements to this point: and still think that it could be greatly improved.
If i may reiterate, I was not talking about "good," - but SOTA. Based on my experience, that level of SOTA when Meitner launched his 2 box hi-rez system in 2000 is not achievable with a consumer PC or MAC. Indeed, we're seeing top tier developers/manufacturers turning away from these things. My focus about, and on, the mainboard, is/are, that replacing the power supplies, pulling the CD drives, pulling the HD drives, & fans, etc... still leaves us with a mainboard that has too much in the way of the signal path, and too many other "features" that are either noisy, or violate the integrity of the playback of the digital file. Part of it of course is the playback software, (I understand), but it also has to be hardware if something like ITunes, JPlay, Audirvana, Pure Music, all sound so different... A computer is not designed to be a music playback transport, and people who design computers, are not as good as high end audio designers. Heavily modified computers, cannot be modified enough to compare to the very best turntables, and universal/SACD players.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
While your story had a very good set up, and I understand your were making some good,points, the Oppop 105 is a notch above midfi in my opinion and is loaded with non audio circuitry and components. So the Mac Mini beating it out is certainly no surprise.
'A notch above midfi' .... I'm sure others may beg to differ, whatever your definition of midfi is (!) but upon first listening to the stock BDP-105 he had soon decided to sell his certainly considered hifi reference boat anchor, the multi-award winning critically acclaimed $8000 Marantz Flagship SA-7S1.
Digging the new found resolution & refinement of the BDP-105 he then had extensive modifications undertaken to it by Joe Rasmussen of Custom Analogue Audio, that is what we compared the essentially out of the box MacMini to, in as much as we did in fact use the 105, but as a USB dac instead of disc transport.
So we were in fact still listening to the Oppo and its 'load of non audio circuitry and components' as you state.....
Only underscoring your miscomprehension of the nature of the issue, on one hand you readily accept that the MacMini 'beat it out', but for all the wrong reasons ;-)
I was responding to Sordidmans statement that '......, Universal disc players, still blow away computers, every time.....'
My first hand experiences and that of MANY others, is contrary quite unsurprisingly !
Agree with almost all...BTW..I have found OS Mavericks to be as buggy as any recent Microsoft operating system.
Edits: 04/22/14
"I have found OS Mavericks to be as buggy as any recent Microsoft operating system."
I'm not sure whether is is praise or criticism. My Windows 7 x64 system has been quite reliable.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
..same here..but we all know about the security patches and bug fixes and user issues from Xp to Vista.
Windows 8.1 and OSX Mavericks have been pretty solid for me.
W7 is still not 100% 'solid'. However W8 and 8.1 are fine.
"The best turntables, Universal disc players, still blow away computers, every time..."
Not true. At least in my limited experience.
You are biased, dumping your high end audio gear for a TD1543 dac with silver whatever.
Fred,All of my "experiences" for the last two years are chronicled at AudioStream. I haven't personally owned a TD1543 for many years. My opinions are based on all of the equipment I have reviewed.
Given that I praise gear that I don't own, I just don't see what you are referring to.
Edits: 04/23/14
Go back to your Gordon la la days here. That was what I was talking about. Should still be on record.
If I remember correctly, you got rid of your TEAC SACD in favour of a TD1543 usb dac as being ';better'.
Yeah, sure. That was in 2006. The Wavelength DAC sounded better to me.
"Yeah, sure. That was in 2006. The Wavelength DAC sounded better to me."
In some ways Digital Audio years are like Dog Years! Allot has changed since then. And it is not just the DAC chip but analogue circuit that mattered. Even though the DAC was lower-rez, no doubt it sounded better...
think that the Sony PS1 sounds better than high end boxes!
Judgement by ear has to have a basic context. A TD!1543 chip costs less than $1, consumes loads of power and has a 13 bit or so resolution. No doubt in PS1 territory.
think that the Sony PS1 sounds better than high end boxes!
Judgement by ear has to have a basis context. A TD!1543 chip costs less than $1, consumes loads of power and has a 13 bit or so resolution. No doubt in PS1 territory.
Nt
I've been lucky, - but there's always a ton more out there........
We certainly could use more Ed Meitners out there. Certainly, there will never be an Ed Meitner coming out of either Apple Corp, or Microsoft, - while not an absolute certainty; something that I would put money down on.
"Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'"
So the only way to get good software is to pay engineers? Guess you never heard of Firefox, Thunderbird, Audacity, miniMserver, foobar2000, FLAC,, etc etc etc etcThink again.
Edits: 04/22/14
Yeah, and, unfortunately, also OpenSSL.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
"running software"
That covers about everything designed in the last third of a century. Computer, Calculator, Car, CD player.. and the rest of the alphabet too! Essentially every non-edible product has elements that could be called a computer nowadays. It's just part of our current epoch.
Rick
I've been using an Auraliti PK100 for a few years now.
I really enjoy the fact that this player operates like any other component in my Audio system.
The only real decisions that need be made are what "peripheral" equipment you are going to
use with it (cables,external HDD or Thumdrives, DAC). There is an internal DAC that is probably comparable to many $500-$800 DACs, but the player performs to a "Higher End"
Component level when used w/ a "Higher End" ("subjective"... He,he,he) DAC.
While ,I am able to play DSD through it, I'm a bit torn if I want to change the DAC I'm using w/ it. Ordinarily, picking DSD capability over "conventional" PCM abilities was a "no brainer",
The problem is my PCM playback (minus any Oversampling) has been anything but "conventional" lately.
Interesting. Thanks for your take.
Speaking in general, not to your situation specifically. I still thinking building a system around a few DSD files is silly.
My interest lies in the fact that I will be making my own DSD recordings shortly.
Cool, Did you come across a Korg MR2000S . Years ago I was able to play around w/ a Korg
MR-1 & was really a bit floored by some of the results I gott with it. The Korg MR2000S would be on my short list of DSD recorders to get(particularly now that it has been discontinued; I don't thing Korg understood who they should have been marketing this recorder toward.)
I have a Korg MR-2. Floored is the right word. I have had high resolution recorders for 5 years now. Even the 96/24 is pretty stunning.
I've had my PK90 since day one (Nov 2011) and now am looking to sell it (too many servers, etc. on my plate). It has all the firmware and settings for a NAS connected setup running PCM and DSD, and can be set as an HQPlayer network adapter too. PM if interested.
Edits: 04/21/14
Thank you, I actually just purchased the Bryston BDP-2. I can imagine what your back room looks like!
2TB was 5 years ago, moving on to 6TB later this summer....replacing 4TB...
If I recall correctly, the 2TB limit was due to 32-bit operating systems, BIOS limitations, and the master boot record on disk.... which is another good indication (in addition to the comments I made above) that the Auraliti product is based on a computer and operating system, older ones at that.
I agree that limitation is a concern. I too have a massive collection. I spread it over several drives. One huge drive to me poses more risk for failure.
One huge drive to me poses more risk for failure.
to run RAID 1 on my otherwise single drive. And maintain a spare drive for the mirror. Along with backups on four external USB drives.
> I spread it over several drives. One huge drive to me poses more risk for failure.
I think it depends on the probability of failure for the specific drive. Are larger drives more likely to fail? You still have to have backups for each drive regardless of size. However, if a large drive fails, it will take a lot longer to make another backup of a 6-TB drive compared to a 2-TB drive. On the other hand, the more drives you have the more failures you might also experience. It really boils down to whether larger 6-TB drives have greater probability for failure than smaller 2-TB drives.
Best regards,
John Elison
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