Linux-Based Audiophile CD Archival System

cporter writes: "My disappointment with the quality of compressed digital music formats (MP3, Ogg, WMA, the list goes on ...) and playback hardware has so far forced me to stick with the good ol' aluminum coated plastic discs. However, Linn has created the Kivor Knekt multi-unit linux-based hard disk system for archiving CDs in uncompressed form for cataloging and playback (yes, it does support ripping to MP3). It includes the Tunboks storage system, the Linnk control interface, the Oktal D/A converter, and the PCI Musik Machine sound board. The system can support up to 11 hard drives for storing audio. Stereophile magazine has a review in their current dead-tree issue, not available online, during which the reviewer hooked up a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and found an AMD Duron system running Linux. The price is a mere $20,000, plus installation. Guess I'm sticking to CDs for the moment." Looks amazing despite the price. They should send me a review model :)

Comments

Try FLAC

[redcliffe]

Try the Free Lossless Audio Codec. It isn't as compressive as MP3 or OGG, but will help.

http://flac.sf.net

David

Complicated, expensive, and stupid

[NineNine]

If you don't want any compression, why not go down to Circuit City and buy a 400-disk CD jukebox for $300? What's the point of spending a lot of time and money to transfer CD's (uncompressed, no less) to a computer?

Re:uncompressed? hello?

[MarcoAtWork]

Oh, come on, and since when so called 'esoteric' audio component makers make meaningful decisions? It's just a matter of perceptions, if it's priced at $20,000, a lot of 'audiophiles' will think it's worth it.

It's the same rationale as people who think that a CD player that has a gold plated/rare woods case sounds better than a standard plasticky CD player regardless of what actually is inside.

Same goes for people who spend hundreds of dollars for gold-everything interconnects (cables) and other various snake oil products.

Music appreciation is by definition subjective, so if one spends several hundred bucks for a component which *might* produce a difference measurable in a lab with ultra-sensitive equipment, one mysteriously becomes able to hear this difference even while listening to the newly enhanced hi-fi kit from three rooms away and under the shower...

While it's obvious that there *is* quite a difference between a $300 hi-fi, and a $3000, most of the things above a, say, $5,000 threshold for a complete system (CD+pre+amp+speakers+interconnects) tend to cater more to your aesthetic senses than actually sound incrementally better. If the room you put this system in has not been modified in any way (i.e. if you stick the speakers in a wall mounted library 3" apart from each other etc.) cut the $5,000 by half at least. Same goes if you live in an apartment and you can't turn the knob on your 400W RMS amp higher than 1 without your neighbours threatening to evict you.