The end of the CD

[Al M.]

Al, you do this regularly. I mean, you've told us a CDP always sounds better than streaming. You've told us 16.44 always sounds as good as hi res. You've told us MQA can't sound good. So go fish.

Quite frankly your closed-mindedness about anything outside a silver disc is mesmerizing in 2017. If you'd tried a server in your room, at least that's something for us to respect your opinion on this thread. Instead you call us naive names as MikeL pointed out.

I have heard carefully implemented computer set-ups (using ethernet connection) in comparison with transports in other, highly resolving systems.

Also, I haven't said that "MQA can't sound good" (if I did, prove it to me). I also haven't claimed that "16/44 always sounds as good as hi res" on the same equipment. I haven't claimed that "a CDP always sounds better than streaming" either, and conceded that my experience is limited. (The one thing I consistently objected to is the often repeated claim that any decent computer set-up beats a great transport, which just isn't true. I haven't heard the best streamers yet.)

You make all this stuff up, Keith. Or you are just not a very careful reader.

 

[spiritofmusic]

So this is my dilemma, solving it gets me off the fence, and solves my chronic medical condition, “Splinters Anal-itis” .
Any move to streaming is NOT to replace my current library, lp or cd (my tt and cdp stay).
It’s purely to access new music at a level of reproduction that at least keeps pace with my current sources.
Somewhere less twds YouTube and more twds SGM.
If it’s closer to YouTube, then what’s the point of investing at all, as Dave says, you can go tablet/Pandora.
But if it’s truly apparent that what BMCG is right, ie a server needs to be truly overspecced and overperforming, then maybe it’s pointless going for anything much less than an SGM or Pink Faun.
Then I had better find more than a couple of hundred albums via Tidal/Roon to justify this expense.

 

[Al M.]

Spirit, simply put you seem open-minded to the idea. Al does not.

Interesting. Where in below post did I claim not to be open at all to the idea of a server? Read carefully, please. Relevant parts underlined.

Sure, if I'd be looking for a file player I'd be looking at an expensive one like yours -- but my fancy goes more in the direction of a Baetis with AES/EBU output. My point is that some seem to imply that any half-way decent computer set-up will beat any CD transport. This is just not true, I know much better. Some also hail the wonders of music exploration by streaming to the point where they seem to imply that everyone who isn't tickled by that lives in the stone age.

But honestly, since I don't have unlimited resources, I still have much bigger fish to fry than going file replay. Improvements in my system elsewhere (some still on order, after having heard demo in my system) have paid off big time and showed just what incredible resolution my CD set-up has. If I would have had put the same money into an expensive server instead I'd be nowhere close to that. If I have extra money to spare sometime, I may consider file replay. In a few years perhaps, right now my appetite is as low as ever.

 

[Al M.]

I apologize to everyone for using the term 'file fundamentalist'.

 

[asiufy]

AES/EBU is only optimized when you feed the clock through a separate line. Otherwise it is a compromised system ...

I'm glad you said it. I find it puzzling that people are advocating for AES/EBU as an overall panacea for servers. Makes ZERO sense to me.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Innuous Zenith seems to be a particularly good sweet spot, a good price and consistent good reviews points to it being a natural choice.
There are a handful of dealerships that stock the Zenith as well as the Hegel HD30 dac, Aqua La Voce looks a good bet too.
All this is on my radar.

 

[KeithR]

I apologize to everyone for using the term 'file fundamentalist'.

Thank you, Al. And I apologize for being overly generic toward your position. I think your real position is 'I like cds and find them sounding good in my optimized environment' - just leave it at that.

 

[spiritofmusic]

I could do with a Man Friday to help me negotiate my way thru all of this, maybe Jarvis, Tony Stark’s right hand man, or Alfred who hangs out in the Bat Cave being generally pretty useful.
Just for those times when The Cloud decides not to talk to me.

 

[Al M.]

Thank you, Al. And I apologize for being overly generic toward your position. I think your real position is 'I like cds and find them sounding good in my optimized environment' - just leave it at that.

Thank you, Keith, and agree on what my position is.

 

[Pb Blimp]

This would be purely anecdotal but how about we poll what people's experience has been with digital playback at show's over the last few years: percent demos done with spinners vs percent demos done from files.

These folks are always looking for the best advantage possible to sell their gear and I have noticed a definite trend to files. Would this be the case if even a marginal SQ compromise were present? It's not that hard to lug a few CD's to the show if they are superior.

 

[Empirical Audio]

I'm glad you said it. I find it puzzling that people are advocating for AES/EBU as an overall panacea for servers. Makes ZERO sense to me.

Here is the problem with AES/EBU for playback:

1) it requires at least 5V and most logic is 3.3 or lower, so you need a level-shifter or a pulse-transformer, both of which add jitter over a S/PDIF output.

2) AES cables are problematic because of the twin-axial construction and the XLR connectors that don't match 110 ohms. Good cables are harder to build and actually rare.

Using a word-clock or master clock from the DAC to synchronize the source is always a good idea, but it's not limited to AES/EBU. It can be done with S/PDIF or even I2S and has been done. I had products that did this. I even modded a Sonos to accept an external Master Clock so that the clock in my reclocker would be the master. So you can do it in a server, not only in a transport.

I actually prefer S/PDIF over AES/EBU and I2S over AES/EBU. Easier to deliver low jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

 

[Al M.]

As far as I know, the folks of Berkeley Audio and also Mike Moffat (Theta Digital, now Schiit) name AES/EBU as their preferred connection.

 

[ddk]

This would be purely anecdotal but how about we poll what people's experience has been with digital playback at show's over the last few years: percent demos done with spinners vs percent demos done from files.

These folks are always looking for the best advantage possible to sell their gear and I have noticed a definite trend to files. Would this be the case if even a marginal SQ compromise were present? It's not that hard to lug a few CD's to the show if they are superior.

Yes Paul, we used servers in our 2nd room for the last 6 years out of convenience knowing full well that it sounded crappy but the main room was/is always analog and spinners. Talking to other exhibitors many use computer audio also for convenience, ultimate sound quality is never the ultimate goal at a show and believe me it's not easy appeasing all when sharing a room with several big egos. Our analog/CD player rooms always get best of show while computer fronted rooms barely get a mention and then it's usually about a new product and not the sound quality.

david

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Yes Paul, we used servers in our 2nd room for the last 6 years out of convenience knowing full well that it sounded crappy but the main room was/is always analog and spinners. Talking to other exhibitors many use computer audio also for convenience, ultimate sound quality is never the ultimate goal at a show and believe me it's not easy appeasing all when sharing a room with several big egos. Our analog/CD player rooms always get best of show while computer fronted rooms barely get a mention and then it's usually about a new product and not the sound quality.

david

by servers, what you mean is laptops? right?

you know, those things with all those SMPS's?

the one's that sound the same as all other computers? right?

since earlier you inferred that all those file players are computers, but now are using the term 'servers', one could get confused by exactly what you mean. laptops = servers = computers. are those terms interchangeable to you?

you are the one using the term 'crappy', so please help us to understand what you are meaning here that it applies to.

 

[ddk]

by servers, what you mean is laptops? right?

you know, those things with all those SMPS's?

the one's that sound the same as all other computers? right?

since earlier you inferred that all those file players are computers, but now are using the term 'servers', one could get confused by exactly what you mean. laptops = servers = computers. are those terms interchangeable to you?

you are the one using the term 'crappy', so please help us to understand what you are meaning here that it applies to.

Laptops and iPad controlled high end NAS servers.

Crappy is the way everything sounds, it's hifi and annoying but even forgiving the tonal character the worst attribute of computers is the way they make every recording sound exactly the same, there's no difference in the ambience, back ground, tonal variety even dynamics, every recording was the same as the rest. Classical, Jazz, Rock, Techno they all sound the same as do instruments and even the musicians.

david

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Laptops and iPad controlled high end NAS servers.

so the NAS are the storage devices, and the laptops are playing the files. I would not use the term 'high end' to describe a NAS (unless part of an engineered system). possibly if the dac had Ethernet then it's different. which dacs were you using? were you using USB?

more likely it's a generic type NAS, which is just a bit bucket and has little (but not nothing) to do with performance. it's the nasty SMPS-rich laptop you are hearing (the NAS likely has SMPS's too). of course it sounds crappy. you choose easy and not performance. it does not take much of a server to surpass a laptop. and decent transports will sound better than laptops....no surprise there. but putting together a show system it's an afterthought anyway so I get it. but don't then generalize about 'computers', take the time to investigate how different servers differ.

Crappy is the way everything sounds, it's hifi and annoying but even forgiving the tonal character the worst attribute of computers is the way they make every recording sound exactly the same, there's no difference in the ambience, back ground, tonal variety even dynamics, every recording was the same as the rest. Classical, Jazz, Rock, Techno they all sound the same as do instruments and even the musicians.

david

i'm not claiming you would ever be fully satisfied with any digital or that you even care enough to get into it. but it's wrong to not educate yourself about how different file handling approaches sound and then just paint things with a broad brush.

 

[ack]

As far as I know, the folks of Berkeley Audio and also Mike Moffat (Theta Digital, now Schiit) name AES/EBU as their preferred connection.

AES/EBU in the Baetis sounds really good, ditto with excellent transports... or QED, as they say. It's just that it's expensive to get an excellent transport, not much different than doing so many other things audio right. As you know, I will continue spinning disks as well, until there is something better - and that has yet to come.

 

[microstrip]

so the NAS are the storage devices, and the laptops are playing the files. I would not use the term 'high end' to describe a NAS (unless part of an engineered system). possibly if the dac had Ethernet then it's different. which dacs were you using? were you using USB?

more likely it's a generic type NAS, which is just a bit bucket and has little (but not nothing) to do with performance. it's the nasty SMPS-rich laptop you are hearing (the NAS likely has SMPS's too). of course it sounds crappy. you choose easy and not performance. it does not take much of a server to surpass a laptop. and decent transports will sound better than laptops....no surprise there. but putting together a show system it's an afterthought anyway so I get it. but don't then generalize about 'computers', take the time to investigate how different servers differ.



i'm not claiming you would ever be fully satisfied with any digital or that you even care enough to get into it. but it's wrong to not educate yourself about how different file handling approaches sound and then just paint things with a broad brush.

In my limited experience, mostly from what I try to learn from what I read, there is such a large variance in the architecture and systems of computer audio that precludes us from analyzing components with dogmatic views. IMHO our usual concepts of "high-end" can not be applied in this field. Each case is a separate case. But one point must be accepted - in general, the food is always the same, independently of the cooker, the different in just on how we feed the DAC!

BTW, as far as I remember, your case is one where we were not sure that the "food" was the same. Do you still have tuned custom settings in HQplayer your server?

 

[Mike Lavigne]

In my limited experience, mostly from what I try to learn from what I read, there is such a large variance in the architecture and systems of computer audio that precludes us from analyzing components with dogmatic views. IMHO our usual concepts of "high-end" can not be applied in this field. Each case is a separate case. But one point must be accepted - in general, the food is always the same, independently of the cooker, the different in just on how we feed the DAC!

+1

BTW, as far as I remember, your case is one where we were not sure that the "food" was the same. Do you still have tuned custom settings in HQplayer your server?

after experimentation HQplayer's settings are all 'bit-perfect' for the MSB Select II, it's still running. if the SGM team has tweaked anything i'm not aware of it. according to them this was the only dac they have encountered that was better in 'bit-perfect' mode including dsd (the MSB Select II has a 'dsd optimized' setting internally that is used which did make a significant performance difference.....and bettered the HQp dsd algorithms ).

 

[spiritofmusic]

What I take from this is that a tiny inconsequential percentage of the music buying public prefer the sound of their cdp’s to streaming (me, Al, Dave, Microstrip) - which will mean zip in the move to make CDs extinct.
A similar infinitely low percentage don’t like the computer interface in choosing music (me) - ditto as before.
Cd will only survive if whole territories still choose to buy them in numbers (and this means Europe esp Germany, Low Countries and France), Asia (where broadband is very variable).
And if streaming evolves to have issues (crashing, hacking etc), Tidal folds etc.
And if collectable versions, limited edition boxsets etc continues.
And if a counter culture of handling physical media picks up, in the same way the modern vinyl (and in a smaller way, cassette tape and R2R) revival represents.