I highly encourage everyone who doesn’t own a mega-buck digital front-end to plunk down $349.00 and buy the laptop that Gary recommends and devote a day to setting it up with Gary’s great instructions. Of course if you opt for the SS hard drive, it will double the cost. I didn’t opt for it, but I can’t imagine the SS hard drive would make another quantum leap in sound quality over what I’m hearing now. I’m going to wait for the storage capacity to double and the price to drop in half before I make that plunge. That won’t take long in the digital world that ages in dog years.
In the analog world, you can’t buy a source for $349.00 today and expect much from it. In the old days, that might have bought you a Rega P-3, but it didn’t buy you a cartridge. And I was never fond of glass platters being spun by a rubber band anyway.
The digital sound quality that you can obtain with a laptop using your software of choice (I’m using Foobar) and a D/A converter is simply stunning (and yeah, I said it). I’m using the mighty Creative Labs E-MU 0404 USB DAC that cost me a whopping $200.00. The 0404 is another giant-killer that is stupid good for the money. For a grand total of $549.00 plus some of your labor, you now have a digital front end that will play back any digital file up to 24/192. Hello HDtracks. No, it won’t do DSD, but ripping DSD files to a computer hasn’t come cheap yet. And neither is there much in the way of software to download at the present time.
If you love the digits and are still living in the stone age of using a CD player and want to put together a killer digital front end for comparatively little money in this wacky hobby, follow Gary’s instructions before you can’t buy that Toshiba laptop any more. Otherwise, you will have to wait for Gary to come out with Part 3 of his digital journey. Thanks again Gary for sharing your knowledge with us.
In the analog world, you can’t buy a source for $349.00 today and expect much from it. In the old days, that might have bought you a Rega P-3, but it didn’t buy you a cartridge. And I was never fond of glass platters being spun by a rubber band anyway.
The digital sound quality that you can obtain with a laptop using your software of choice (I’m using Foobar) and a D/A converter is simply stunning (and yeah, I said it). I’m using the mighty Creative Labs E-MU 0404 USB DAC that cost me a whopping $200.00. The 0404 is another giant-killer that is stupid good for the money. For a grand total of $549.00 plus some of your labor, you now have a digital front end that will play back any digital file up to 24/192. Hello HDtracks. No, it won’t do DSD, but ripping DSD files to a computer hasn’t come cheap yet. And neither is there much in the way of software to download at the present time.
If you love the digits and are still living in the stone age of using a CD player and want to put together a killer digital front end for comparatively little money in this wacky hobby, follow Gary’s instructions before you can’t buy that Toshiba laptop any more. Otherwise, you will have to wait for Gary to come out with Part 3 of his digital journey. Thanks again Gary for sharing your knowledge with us.