John Duncan
Well-known member
Try Linn Records or B&W's Society of Sound. If your musical tastes veer towards mainstream rock and pop (as opposed to classical, jazz and folk), however, hdtracks is still your best bet.
acalex said:
Hi Acalex
In my opinion itunes is as good as any player, can't really see how any software can be ‘better’ SQ wise than another TBH and itunes is by far the best 'easy' option for editing tags and organising your collection.
In which case you should rip your cds to ALAC, don't concern yourself too much with 24/96 files, I got some out of curiosity, doubt you'll notice much difference - unless your listening room is an acoustically treated studio!
Persevere with DB poweranp too though as its a great program for ripping your files and converting them all into FLAC from ALAC later on if you change your mind about formats
In case youre interested, I have all digital music on a NAS playing through various SONOS stuff (which incidentally doesnt support 24/96 files AFAIK?) and am planning one day to add a turntable for when I want to immerse myself in a fully uncompressed analogue sound on special occasions - ie: when the wife, kids, pets and neighbours are far enough away for me to appreciate it!
BillDay66 said:
Hi, thanks a lot for your advice! Indeed I have decided to use Itunes as player and I am now converting everything in FLAC/ALAC (just to make sure
). I am surely interested in appreciating digital music as well... Thanks again
Steve, thanks for your opinion on cables!
Unfortunately I am not in a position to use equal cables because for now I am renting an appartment and can't start modifying the walls to fit my hi-fi system nicely...I am planning to buy next year and will do all the modification needed to use equal lenght cable and not keeping pc too close to my amp (that's tough since I am anyway playing 100% from my pc)...
Unfortunately I am not in a position to use equal cables because for now I am renting an appartment and can't start modifying the walls to fit my hi-fi system nicely...I am planning to buy next year and will do all the modification needed to use equal lenght cable and not keeping pc too close to my amp (that's tough since I am anyway playing 100% from my pc)...
steve_1979
Well-known member
acalex said:I have decided to use Itunes as player and I am now converting everything in FLAC/ALAC (just to make sure
If your going to use iTunes then there's no point using FLAC because iTunes isn't compatible and won't be able to play it. If you rip to ALAC you'll be able to use these with iTunes. The sound quality of ALAC is identical to FLAC because they're both lossless.
acalex said:
I wouldn't worry about it TBH.
steve_1979 said:acalex said:I have decided to use Itunes as player and I am now converting everything in FLAC/ALAC (just to make sure
If your going to use iTunes then there's no point using FLAC because iTunes isn't compatible and won't be able to play it. If you rip to ALAC you'll be able to use these with iTunes. The sound quality of ALAC is identical to FLAC because they're both lossless.
acalex said:
I wouldn't worry about it TBH.
Just to close the subject about cables, as interconnect (DAC to AMP) I took the Hama ProClass Audio RCA-RCA, 1,5m 5 stars...
I didn't go for the cheapest stuff...I think it costed around 27 euro for 1,5mt
steve_1979
Well-known member
steve_1979 said:
Just found out, same producer than the speakers cable, HAMA ProClass, Made in germany
Ah...another doubt...how far should my speaker by from the wall? Because mine are placed pretty close to the wall (20 cm). This has something to do with the bass right? The closer to the wall the deeper are the basses, correct?
steve_1979
Well-known member
Generally if you have a speaker too close to a wall or corner you'll get more bass but it'll sound less controlled and more 'boomy'. As you move the speakers away from the walls and corners you'll get less bass but it's likely to sound 'tighter' and more controlled. You'll have to use a bit of trial and error to find the optimum position though - try moving them around a bit to find a position that sounds the best to you.
The way a speaker reacts with the rooms acoustics will have a massive effect on how it sounds, even moving furniture around the room is likely to have an effect. This varys a lot but as generalisation small speakers with the ports at the front will sound better close to a wall and big speakers with ports at the back will sound best with plenty of space around them.
The way a speaker reacts with the rooms acoustics will have a massive effect on how it sounds, even moving furniture around the room is likely to have an effect. This varys a lot but as generalisation small speakers with the ports at the front will sound better close to a wall and big speakers with ports at the back will sound best with plenty of space around them.
I download the Asio plugin as per your instruction ,but it says,script failure,and i coudnt find the DSP output to 24 bit underOptions->Preferences->Plugins->Output..
I am using window 7 64bit and winamp pro..
pls advise me..
#
I am using window 7 64bit and winamp pro..
pls advise me..
#
AnotherJoe said:
Use ASIO.
Step1
Download and install the winamp asio plugin - http://www.winamp.com/plugin/asio-output-plugin/156466
Step2
Download and install ASIO4ALL - http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asio4all/downloads_1/ASIO4ALL_2_10_E...
Step3
Run winamp & select Options->Preferences->Plugins->Output & change the output plugin to be ASIO and select configure. Select ASIO4ALL V2 as the driver, and click on control panel. Make sure your output device is the one highlighted.
Close the config panel, and then the plugins window.
Step1
Download and install the winamp asio plugin - http://www.winamp.com/plugin/asio-output-plugin/156466
Step2
Download and install ASIO4ALL - http://tippach.business.t-online.de/asio4all/downloads_1/ASIO4ALL_2_10_E...
Step3
Run winamp & select Options->Preferences->Plugins->Output & change the output plugin to be ASIO and select configure. Select ASIO4ALL V2 as the driver, and click on control panel. Make sure your output device is the one highlighted.
Close the config panel, and then the plugins window.
AnotherJoe said:
Thank you very much bro.. ANOTHER JOE ..Last two lines of the step 3 i tried now,everything good now,and i changed the dsp effect to none otherwise i couldn't hear any sound from winamp..Thank you so much..bro..
There's a lot that can be done to improve what your PC is doing - in software and hardware terms - the noise floor of your computer, and the resultant jitter will be imparting a 'signature' to the sound of your other components. A perfect transport (CD or PC) adds and subtracts nothing to the signal path. Sadly, the perfect transport doesn't exist.
But before you go there, as others have suggested, it's vital to get the quality of the source files right. Be far sighted: if you're going to spend time ripping/unbundling the music you love, why degrade it with lossy compression? Do it once, do it right. I remember the vicious disappointment when I realised that I'd wasted months effectively ruining my CD collection by 'Brennan-ising' it to MP3! The two months that followed were not amusing, as I re-ripped everything properly. Storage is cheap: why compress?
Down the line, there's a whole other interesting discussion to be had about whether/how software sounds different, and if FLAC sounds worse than WAV, and if Mac is better than PC, and why USB cables matter, but the bottom line, on Windows the Gold Standard is: JRiver + JPlay + XP + ASIO > USB on the cleanest, quietest, best-behaved computer you can muster.
But before you go there, as others have suggested, it's vital to get the quality of the source files right. Be far sighted: if you're going to spend time ripping/unbundling the music you love, why degrade it with lossy compression? Do it once, do it right. I remember the vicious disappointment when I realised that I'd wasted months effectively ruining my CD collection by 'Brennan-ising' it to MP3! The two months that followed were not amusing, as I re-ripped everything properly. Storage is cheap: why compress?
Down the line, there's a whole other interesting discussion to be had about whether/how software sounds different, and if FLAC sounds worse than WAV, and if Mac is better than PC, and why USB cables matter, but the bottom line, on Windows the Gold Standard is: JRiver + JPlay + XP + ASIO > USB on the cleanest, quietest, best-behaved computer you can muster.
Gerrardasnails
Well-known member
My tuppence worth; bit perfect does make a difference, on my system an obvious one. I use XBMC which not only has the best looking and easiest UI out there, it's free, easily tweaked and WASAPI is already installed.
And I've used J River before seeing the light and have used Foobar and Winamp also.
And I've used J River before seeing the light and have used Foobar and Winamp also.
Gerrardasnails
Well-known member
steve_1979 said:MajorFubar said:Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop it!!!! You'll have the worms crawling out of the can again after it took AGES to get them all back in!! :rofl:
Hehe. :silenced:
MajorFubar's quite right though - A well recorded 320kbps MP3 has exellent sound quality and you probably won't notice any improvement by using ultra hi-rez lossless music files. Even if you can hear a difference it'll only be a very very very small improvement.
I disagree strongly. Recently I tried a cdrip in wav of Band on the run against the 24bit version that was brought out last year. The difference is staggering.
Overdose
Well-known member
Gerrardasnails said:
Probably down to the remastering process rather than the 24bit treatment. If you really want a direct comparison try downsampling the 24bit version to CD quality.
SteveR750
Well-known member
Gerrardasnails said:
Gerrard, what made you change from J River - I know you were a big fan as I went with it on your advice. How does XBMC improve (apart from being free?) over MC? I've got MC17 set up with the cambride audio ASIO driver using a USB connection which is a slightly more open sound than the WASAPI Event Style via Optical. The difference is much more noticeable than the difference between the different filter settings on the DAC.
The beauty of these soaftware programmes is they can transform a PC into a high end audio source, and you can tweak your PC at a very low cost.
I do now believe thast the PC does have an influence on the SQ, even if it's mains ripple from the psu. I can live with external fan noise, as I rarely listen to tracks with very quiet passages, plus the ambient noise of my house / outside is no less interfering or distracting and there is not much I cvan do about that. At some point, the PC has to clock the data, though I understood WASAP Event to bypass the influence of the source clock timing.
XBMC's inclusion of WASAPI Event style is a real plus, and the app is relatively lean: you'll notice that all the most highly regarded players are low-overhead: aiming to reduce the computer's activity to a minimum during playback. However, JRiver's library management is much better, and it does permit memory-caching for audio (which is another plus), integrates with JPlay (plus again) and fully supports ASIO - which may be the biggest plus of all, depending on which DAC you use.
On the downside, it's not free. Broadly speaking, the hardware presents bigger obstacles to high quality sound than the software when it comes to computer transports.
On the downside, it's not free. Broadly speaking, the hardware presents bigger obstacles to high quality sound than the software when it comes to computer transports.
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