Digital Drive

Posted by Old Listener (A) on November 03, 2008 at 12:04:51

In Reply to: RE: We'll be making an Ethernet DAC later next year. posted by Charles Hansen on November 03, 2008 at 09:36:27

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