Build High-End Audio System w/ Hard Drive Storage?

nganju asks: "Hard Drives have finally reached the size where I can rip down 1000 CDs directly to WAV files, and skip the compression step (read: headache) altogether, ensuring that the audio playback is what the original CD author intended. Now the question is, how do I get that WAV data off the computer and into the amplifier with minimal distortion? Are there D/A PCI cards comparable to high-end CD players? Or is the best solution some direct digital output card (SPDIF) and a standalone D/A converter component? Specific model names would be greatly appreciated."

Comments

Of course

[b00m3rang]

MOTU, M-Audio, Digidesign, and many other companies make audio interfaces capable of 24 bit 96 Khz audio encoding and decoding, which is well above the 16 bit 44.1 Khz that CDs use. Any of them should do.

Re:Of course

[theLOUDroom]

MOTU, M-Audio, Digidesign, and many other companies make audio interfaces capable of 24 bit 96 Khz audio encoding and decoding, which is well above the 16 bit 44.1 Khz that CDs use. Any of them should do.

Exactly.
Want good sound....buy pro gear.

Consumer stuff you get at Best Buy is crap made for people who don't know what they're buying and "audiophile" stuff is snake oil. Pro audio gear from a respectable manufacturer (Mackie for example) will be much better and actually includes enough specs so that you can make informed buying desisions.

The nice thing is that pro gear really isn't that expensive any more. Sites like Musician's Friend give you a place to by gear that will might just last the rest of your life at very low prices.

Pro gear has better interfaces, better connectors, more honest specs, higher reliability and is targeted at people who have actual money riding on their audio system.

Lossless compression does exist.

[fatty bimble]

You really should consider some type of lossless compression. The "headache" is minimal, and although it isn't the 10x compression of its lossy brethern, 2x is nothing to completely ignore. http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Re:Lossless compression does exist.

[crow]

Have you compared the prices of 200GB drives with 400GB drives? The higher capacity drives cost more than double. Now if you happen to have more storage space than you know what to do with right now, then fine, but sooner or later you'll find that running a script overnight to compress your files is less painful than the cost and effort of a hardware upgrade.

And if you're doing backup by syncing over the network with another system, then you cut in half the storage cost on the other system, as well as the network time.

If you have enough computing power to manage a file system on a hard drive, then you have enough power to uncompress a file as you play it--that's why they put MP3 players into DVD players; it didn't increase the hardware cost.

Re:Lossless compression does exist.

[Matt Perry]

right, and at a 1000 cds, compresseion time certainly is a factor. even with lossless.

Write a script or use one of the many existing tools to mass convert the files for you. That way the computer is working, not you. There are scripts already written to do this. I'm doing this with my music. I re-ripped everything to FLAC when I noticed that one of my oldest CDs was developing cracks inside of the plastic. I used the script to convert all of the FLAC files to MP3 files. If the format de jour changes I can update the script and reconvert and let my CDs rot away (which they appear to be doing anyway).

Re:Lossless compression does exist.

[fm6]

Somebody needs to explain the difference between lossless compression and lossy compression, since nganju seems to be under the impression that all compression is lossy.

Lossless compression does not discard any data; when you decompress the data, you get back exactly the bits you compressed. The trick here is to represent common values with short bit strings, so you can represent the same data in less space.

Lossy data compression discards data that (theoretically) won't be noticed. The theory is that people tend not to notice the missing data, because the human brain is very good at interpolation. If you don't trust this theory, then you should avoid lossy compression. But not lossless compression.

Wikipedia, as usual, has a lot of good material.

Re:Lossless compression does exist.

[Fweeky]

Samba VFS Module, as linked from FLAC website.

Airtunes?

[2nd Post!]

Here, though it does use lossless compression, if you care.

And it's only $129.

Re:Airtunes?

[2nd Post!]

Where's the low end FM transmitter?

Airtunes is using 802.11b/g, which has respectively 11 or 54 mb/s; or something like 1mb/s or 6mb/s, so even if you were transmitting uncompressed audio (which you can't), you're only transmitting 176kb/s; since the device uses Apple Lossless Encoding, you're sending the WAV file at something like 90kb/s

Which means, technically, you can still use the thing as a wireless base station (which is what it is).

So why do you think there's an FM transmitter in this thing? It has support for 5.1 DTS encoded audio!

Very simple!

[Pig Hogger]

Kitbash yourself a computer with an AOPEN AX4B-533 Tube motherboard (picture here).

simple

[Keruo]

Just use optical output at the soundcard such as sb audigy.
The signal will be in totally digital form, until your amplifier D/A converts it back to audio.
That way your computer/soundcard won't affect the sound quality at all.

Wrong forum to ask this question in.

[Murphy Murph]

You really should be asking this over at Hydrogenaudio:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php
The signal to noise ratio is much better there for this kind of question.

flac

[SanityInAnarchy]

No, you want compression -- lossless compression. Oh, and just grab an Audigy if it's a Linux box.

Otherwise, be warned that Creative will not give you free Windows driver downloads, only updates.

Er????

[brunes69]

Seems braindead to me.

Just rip to uncompressed PCM AC3 and pump directly to the receiver via the SPDIF jack.

Or get a receiver with a USB Audio jack, like I do, and your receiver itself becomes the sound card.

Try these:

[tvadakia]

http://www.zzounds.com/cat--PCI-Audio-Interfaces-- 2421

or

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=rec/s=comput er/search?c=9132

Choices galore.

ABX test.

[Murphy Murph]

Do an ABX test (http://www.bostonaudiosociety.org/bas_speaker/abx _testing.htm) comparing a MP3 extracted with EAC and encoded with Lame 3.93 --alt preset standard and a wav file.
Come back to me with the results.
I think you will be suprised.
99% of the population can't tell a difference.

http://www.chrismyden.com/nuke/modules.php?op=modl oad&name=Elite_DAE&file=painless for an easy guide.

MP3s are not only smaller, they work on portables, and they have great metadata.
Regardless of your decision regarding encoding or not - EAC is a must for a quality extraction!

Re:ABX test.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do an ABX test.
Anecdotal stories do nothing to convince me.
Besides: A 256Kbit CBR MP3 is crap. The --alt preset settings are very high quality CQ VBR settings.

Comparing video artifacts to audio ones is apples to oranges.

Simply do an ABX test and _then_ let's talk.

Hifi-Link

[PurpleFloyd]

A company called Xitel makes the "Hi-Fi Link," a USB-based audio-out gadget. I haven't used it, but it looks like a good solution: USB has several major advantages when outputting analog data. First, it lives outside the electromagnetic noise storm that is the typical computer case. Second, it acts as a second audio device: this means you can, if you wish, hook up cheap speakers to your soundcard for system sounds, and output nothing but music to your hi-fi system (I use this system, with two soundcards, and it is far better than having Windows or Gnome intersperse your music with noises).

Another solution is to get a card with S/PDIF digital output and an amp which supports it. This is a good solution if you already have such a soundcard, but the soundcard upgrade can be expensive. On the whole, if you're starting from scratch, I'd go with USB.

Simple solution here.

[QuietRiot]

Here's one way.... Get a small computer, big harddrive.

Get an M-Audio Audiophile 2496 (~$100) and maybe a right-angle PCI adapter to fit it into your little BTX box or whatever. Load your OS of choice. You've already got plans for the rest - that way should be just fine. Rip your stuff onto the drive (encode with FLAC), hook it up to an amplifier, and you're all set.

The 2496 has already got RCA IN/OUT and Digital connectors (read the specifics on compatibility and what you can and cannot use at the same time) making hookup easy. It will also record at impressive rates and resolutions (playback too if you've got fancy hi-res sources). You can find drivers for most of the following at OSS (these are commercial drivers that run ~$50 for the most common OSs that include free tech support and upgrades for 2 years).

* Linux (x86, Alpha, PowerPC)
* VxWorks (Tornado)
* LynxOS (x86, PowerPC)
* SCO Open Server
* SCO UnixWare
* Solaris (x86, Sparc)
* IBM AIX
* FreeBSD
* BSD/OS
* OpenBSD
* NetBSD
* HP-UX

You could buy a mixer and some mics to do some high quality recordings too. (I've picked up a 10 channel Yamaha mixer [MG10/2] w/ 4 mic inputs (phantom capable) for $99 and a Samson CO2 matched pair of small condensers for ~$120 at Sam Ash to do recordings with a setup very similar to that above and it worked quite well.) No experience with the OSS drivers but they seem to be responsive to email inquirys about specifics and have a free trial available.

I dream of a portable custom BSD based solution that has easy controls (serial keypad and LCD - "real" buttons and switches), could be setup for automated recordings, has a builtin mixer, microphone inputs (phantom powered for my dream large condenser pair), and speaker/headphone driver, AND is powerful enough to run baudline for use in the field. Background processes could compress material as I was recording (incremental, selectively, to be sure you could grab the entire recording - even if your quality had to suffer - but you'd get the highest possible of any given event). The network interface could stream audio at selectable bitrates (.ogg peeling) OR amplify a stream like an internet radio station. AND it could do my laundry for me and fit in a backpack. If anybody else would be interesed in something like this please contact me and I'd love to collaborate. [ bricoleur !AT! 80d !DOT! org ]

Re:The difference is clear on high end hardware.

[croddy]

high end car stereo

i stopped reading here.

Easy.

[adolf]

Buy an Xbox, an SP/DIF dongle for it, and install XBMC. Plug it into a good outboard converter or your surround reciever, as dictated by taste and equipment. It will play whatever audio format you decide on, either from its own (upgradable) hard drive or across a network.

To my ears, with my system, it sounds indistinguishable from the Carver TL-3300 CD player that I've used as a reference for the past decade. And the organizational features of XBMC are second to none for any system capable of being operated sans mouse/keyboard.

Note, however, that listening to music isn't as much fun once it becomes computer-based and completely intangible, even if it does sound the same. There's nothing tactile or visual about it. It's just a sterile index of music. The disparity is not unlike a flipping through a card catalog instead walking through a gallery.

XBMC's relatively slick handling of cover art and biographical information helps a bit, but it's still very impersonal.

Keep your CDs around.

mnb Re:The difference is clear on high end hardwar

[Anonymous Coward]

Lower frequencies are where MP3 excels - but I will assume you are uninformed, and not a cheap troll.

Besides - there is a HUGE difference between an insanely high bitrate MP3 and a quality MP3.
Encoder and settings make a large difference.

Once again - I challange you to use EAC & Lame with --alt preset standard. ABX test against source and let's talk about your results.
Don't let your bad experience with shit MP3s cloud your judgement. Do the scientific test and THEN talk.

Re:Lossless compression does exist.-not

[br0ck]

Take a 10 Mb text file and zip it. You'll get a much smaller file. Unzip it and you get exactly the same file. Now zip a .wav file and you'll get a file about 20-40% smaller. Unzip and you get the same .wav file. Now heavily optimize zipping specifically for audio data you'll get a file 30-70% of the originial size. Now optimize that zipping routine to allow unpacking on the fly for convenience. Now unzip the FLAC audio on the fly giving you the original .wav data and then send that audio stream to the hardware exactly as you would have if you had just sent the .wav file. (This is very simplified just to get the gist of it. For a more comprehensive overview try this.)

Re:Lossless compression does exist.-not

[Malor]

To put as nice a face on this as I can.... you, sir, are an idiot.

Of COURSE the losslessly compressed files are different on disk... they take half as much space! When you uncompress them, you get back exactly what you started with. That's why it's lossless compression. Bits are bits are bits... as long as the bits that go to the DAC are the same, how they're stored doesn't really matter.

THERE IS NOTHING LOST WITH LOSSLESS COMPRESSION. That's why it is 'lossless' compression. The files just take less space. You route the compressed bits through an uncompression program and you get a bit-for-bit identical copy to what you started with.

And I love your 'don't give me the math' line. "Don't confuse me with facts!"

Some hardware tips

[Myself]

You know that you want to keep the signal digital until it's as close to your amp as possible. Assuming your amplifier has an optical input, simply running fiber from a soundcard's optical output is the best choice. This puts the burden of clarity on the amplifier's internal DAC and power supply. Optical SPDIF seems capable of 15 meters on standard cable with normal drivers. Since the PC end is all digital, component choice is essentially irrelevant. PCI soundcards with optical outputs are common, so let reputation and support be your guide.

If your amp only accepts analog inputs, things get more complicated. A standalone SPDIF-analog converter seems obvious (and leaves a simple amplifier upgrade path in the future) but consider that such gizmos, while overpriced, usually include a heinously noisy wall-wart power supply. Ripple on the DAC's inputs translates to noise in your audio. Careful design can filter this crap, but caveat emptor. Do listening tests.

This can also be a problem with many of the USB audio devices available. Since they're powered from the USB, a bit of digital noise is inevitably coupled to the analog side. Component choice and careful design are essential here. I'd trust any of the big names to get this right. M-Audio and Edirol both make some slick little USB audio dongles with excellent analog stages. A plethora of USB and firewire audio interfaces are avilable.

If your PC is just a few meters from your stereo, then USB is probably the way to go. My first question would be about ground potential differences, between the USB signal and the amplifier's idea of analog signal ground. Feeding the whole mess from the same branch circuit is an easy way to sidestep the question, but I'm sure someone has tackled it. (Clueful? Please reply!)

If you're dealing with a longer distance, real networking may be the way to go. The idea here is to let your PC in the next room serve the files, but put enough intelligence in the hifi rack to do the decoding as well as the DAC step locally. This usually includes a display and interface of some sort, so you don't need to mess with wireless keyboards or whatever. Various network music players are available, with varying levels of software sophistication and hardware quality. I don't believe any of them include audiophile-quality components in the outputs, and power supply noise is usually an issue in these cheapie designs done by digital engineers without an analog bone in their bodies. If you can find one that supports raw WAV file input, give it a try and see if the audio quality suits you.

Most such players rely heavily on the ID3 tag info for database and display purposes, so tagless WAVs might be awkward at best. Alternately, "tune" the network player to an "internet radio station" which is really a stream running from your desktop's player software. The stream server can then stuff tag information into the stream's metadata, which will appear on the display.

Someone mentioned using the Airport Express as an output device that iTunes could throw digitized audio at. Cute, but I'd be skeptical of any analog components sitting so close to a power supply. Anyone done SNR measurements on this sucker? If it worked with software besides iTunes, it wouldn't suck so hard.

Re:Lossless compression does exist.-not

[LWATCDR]

You sir a idiot.
"The very notion of "lossless compression" is faulty." No it really is not. Take a 200k text file and compress it with Zip. Rename the original. Unzip the compressed file and now compare them. Wow it just be magic. They are the same.

" If you compress, you lose. I don't get lossless compression. "
Then how do explain the text file?
"How can you substitute one thing for another and then get it back the same way?" Gee I do not know lets try. How about I write five. And then I write it 5. Gee I just got a five to one compression! The number 5 and the word five have the same meaning but one is smaller than the other.
"Don't give me the math". Of course not since you would never understand it to start with. If you take a digital file and compress it using lossless compression when the file is decompressed it will be identical to the compressed version. This has been used since the days of ARC and Zoo and is still true with FLAC, ZIP, and gz today.

MOD PARENT UP!

[josh3736]

You're also probably one of those assholes who claim that vacuum tubes have a "warmer" sound and that LP sounds better than CD.

The guy's username is "tubeguy"!

He is one of those asshats!