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My observations on creating a computer-based system

Posted by greg7 (A) on September 3, 2011 at 19:56:13

I recently assembled my first computer-based audio system. Following is a summary of observations and experiments for reference.

Note: Most (but not all) of how I assembled this computer front end came from the Channel D Pure Music reference section here:

http://www.channld.com/computeraudio.html

(With special thanks to the Gordon Rankin and the Computer Audiophile website)

The front end is comprised of: 2011 15" 2.0 GHz quadcore Macbook Pro, 8 GB RAM, OWC 120 GB SSD internal hard drive. All music is stored in AIFF format on two OWC 500 GB portable firewire hard drives (one being the back-up for the other). The DAC I settled on is the Wavelength Proton (more on this below).

The rest of my system is a Rega Brio R integrated amplifier, Spendor S3/5R speakers and Sennheiser HD600 headphones (along with fairly fancy cables, although I consider them lesser players from experience). All of the equipment is on a Quadraspire Q4 Evo rack.

1) Pure Music definitely sounds better than Itunes. I also plan on trying Decibel, Audirvana and Fidelia at some point. I also downloaded Bit Perfect from the Apple website (it costs $5.00). Bit Perfect is an Itunes add-on like Pure Music that offers a lot of what Pure Music does (e.g., memory play).

2) Rips using the Macbook Pro's superdrive sound better than an rips using an external Pioneer optical drive even though error correction was enabled in both cases.

3) Powering the external hard drive via the optional AC wall wart sounds much better than bus powering it via firewire (and there isn't a penalty of additional noise, either).

4) The replacement internal SSD hard drive sounds MUCH better than the stock 500 GB HDD that came in the Macbook Pro.

5) Playing music stored on the stock internal HDD sounded equivalent to playing music from the external hard drive. I haven't compared playing music stored on the replacement internal SDD to the external hard drive yet. However, given the current price of large capacity SDD, this experiment isn't high on my priority list.

6) I tried 3 different USB DACs (Proton plus HRT Music Streamer 2+ and Hegel HD2). The Hegel HD2 was transparent but slightly fatiguing and austere. The HRT 2+, while somewhat veiled, was very natural, warm and musical. As expected, the Proton is definitely superior to the other two overall, especially in timing (the asynchronous aspect, I'm sure). I haven't had a chance to try the Proton's headphone output yet.

7) I didn't hear any worthwhile difference between USB cables (Audioquest Cinnamon, Wireworld Ultraviolet, Wireworld Starlight, Belkin) with the Hegel HD2 or HRT 2+. I do hear differences now with the Proton. I will be comparing USB and firewire cables again (the firewire connects the external hard drive to the computer). I will also investigate vibration devices under the external hard drive.

Edits: 09/04/11 09/07/11

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Kimber Kable

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