Digital Drive

Upsamplers, DACs, jitter, shakes and analogue withdrawals, this is it.

Use this form to submit comments directly to the Asylum moderators for this forum. We're particularly interested in truly outstanding posts that might be added to our FAQs.
You may also use this form to provide feedback or to call attention to messages that may be in violation of our content rules.

You must login to use this feature.

Inmate Login

By default, logging in will set a session cookie that disappears when you close your browser. Clicking on the 'Remember my Moniker & Password' below will cause a permanent 'Login Cookie' to be set.

Moniker/Username: The Name that you picked or by default, your email. Forgot Moniker?	Examples "Rapper", "Bob W", "joe@aol.com".
Password:	Forgot Password?
	Remember my Moniker & Password ( What's this?)

If you don't have an Asylum Account, you can create one by clicking Here.

Our privacy policy can be reviewed by clicking Here.

Inmate Comments

From:
Your Email:
Subject:

Message Comments

Original Message

RE: We'll be making an Ethernet DAC later next year.

Posted by Old Listener on November 3, 2008 at 12:04:51:
I'm encouraged to read your intelligent posts in this thread.

Some comments about an Ethernet DAC as you call it:

- I've been following the SlimDevices product line for some time. I think the squeezebox H/W is a good idea. The Duet controller is a huge improvement over the 2 line remote w/o display that came with the Squeezebox 3. The SqueezeCenter or whatever they call it now is a huge mistake. Their server has a very sub-par interface and poor support for a wider variety of tags or for different ways to view and select music. They locked out everyone who wants to use the player s/w they like. The open source development model turned decisions over to early adopter geeks when they needed to make the s/w better adapted to a broader, less technical set of customers. SlimDevices/Logitech has pulled the decisions and control back into their company but they haven't fixed the problem.

- You should provide a device driver that looks like another audio output device and forwards the audio output stream over an Ethernet connection to your DAC.

- Wireless is still a source of problems for the customer and the manufacturer. Recognize the advantages and problems of wireless and not and be prepared to provide good customer support.

- An Ethernet DAC is not inherently suited to multi-room or home theater audio-video synchronization. You need to decide whether tight synchronization will be supported or not. If it is, you need to give a smooth, positive customer experience.

- Audiophiles are beginning to yammer about high bit rates being essential for any DAC solution. If you charge a lot of money for for your Ethernet DAC, you'd better have a high ceiling for the sample rate.

- It may make sense for you to start with a really expensive high-end device. However, I think the action will be at much lower price points than your high-end line. I'm certainly not a customer for a $ 5000 plus product.

- Long term, your company and the high-end industry will be much better off if you produce a standard protocol for communicating from the device driver in the computer to the Ethernet DAC. Then you want to work with Microsoft and Apple to get a high-quality, bulletproof driver into the standard Windows and OSX OS distributions. Much of the attraction of USB DACs has been the fact that no driver installation is required.

- You might also consider making an ASIO interface part of the driver package. Bypassing the Microsoft audio stack can be a simple way to get good, consistent results for audio output.

I've been an audiophile for about 40 years. I spent over 2 decades implementing real-time kernels, device drivers and kernel level s/w. Much of the current PC audio scene is a complete waste: charlatans fleecing know-nothings. I'm encouraged that you recognize the potential of an Ethernet DAC and I hope you will pursue the project.

Bill