Viking said:
Hi everyone. I'm looking for possible alternatives to a Brennan JB7 without going down the computer route. I already own a Brennan but was thinking of a similar machine which would be an upgrade. I don't really want a machine with a built in amp as I've just bought a Nad C356BEE and feel this is good enough. I'd like to be able to copy all my CD's onto a hard disk, stream music and play music randomly via my existing amp. I'd be looking for something which gives excellent sound and good amount of storage. I've been looking at the cocktail audio x30 but again it has a built in amp and this must put up the price of the unit. Also, not sure that MP3 is the best quality. Have heard there are other options but I'm unsure of what they are. Is ripping CD's the same as copying? If so why not just say that! Hope someone has the answer to this. Thanks in advance.
Your NAD has a built-in DAC, so no matter what you use, it is going to sound the same (assuming you connect it digitally to the NAD). Your 'source' is the DAC - you are feeding it ones and zeros, free of nuance. Whether it's a CD or an exact copy of the same CD that you made on a computer or streamer, it's going to sound the same. The only differences between your different options will be user differences - size of the HD, ergonomics, remote control. etc. The sound will be the same.
If you use the analogue outputs from a streamer, its a different story - but then, why buy that amp, since it's an amp+DAC combo.
A copy of a CD means a bit-perfect duplication of all of the bits. This means that a full-length CD will take up about 700-800 MB of space on a hard drive. A 'rip' is a copy in the sense that you copied the music, but not necessarily all the bits - depending on your settings, your 'rip' might have been compressed to save space. Some types of compression (such as FLAC or Apple Lossless) is data compression designed only to save space - when uncompressed, the exact bits of the CD are replicated. This is sort of like a zip file - it's about half the size but you don't lose anything.
Other types of compression are 'lossy' methods (such as mp3 and AAC), in which a lot of the less-important bits are discarded to make it much smaller. But it isn't a copy - you actually lose some of the data. How much of the data you lose (and how much smaller it gets) depends on the sampling rate of the compression (e.g., 128k mp3, or 320k AAC). So all other things being equal, a higher sampling rate will result in better sound but larger files.
Most audiophiles keep some kind of lossless version of their music (I use Apple Lossless). But 320k AAC, for example, sounds really good and many people can't tell the difference from the CD.
So how you store your music matters to sound quality, but where you store it does not - it is the DAC and the quality of the original file that determines sound quality. In your situation I strongly suggest buying a small computer (like a Mac Mini) and hooking it up to your NAD's DAC. It does everything a streamer does, but so much more.
If you really don't want to go the computer route, I would suggest shopping for the machine that gives you the best useability features and space. As long as you are using its digital outputs, sound quality will not be much different between them.
Hope this is helpful.