Getting the most out of the digital era - HELP!

[admin_exported]

(Edit: After a night of staying up reading about audio equipment and then eventually falling asleep at the desk ive decided to change my post. Originally I rambled on for at least 2 pages about my life and my unsatisfactory purchase of studio monitors, not for me.)

First of all i'd like to say hello, i've finally decided to sign up on here after a year of heavy reading and lurking on here

In short, I have decided to upgrade to a separate Hi-fi set up this time round, as i've learnt this is always going to be the best way to listen to digital music over a computers onboard sound card. Ive had a problem working out the idle setup for me. I want to be able to access my very large lossless collection. Sure there alot of methods for hooking up an iPod to an amp, but many methods involve audio quality loss (im not sure how much is lost) because i hear it is converted between analog and digital, back and forth through the ipods dac etc etc. I want to actually make use of my lossless digital music bit-for-bit. Now I have seen the streaming devices out there but I don't have £1000s to spend on just transporting my files.

I was GOING to purchase Marantz PM6003, the CD6003, and a pair of Wharfedale diamond 10.1. I thought my prayers were answered when i saw the Marantz CD6003 with its iPod compatibility until I read that the Marantz doesn't utilise its main DAC for decoding files from USB but in fact uses a cheap NEC uPD63901 microcontroller (designed for use in car audio head units), and can't even output via digital outputs. Therefore the sound quality from usb devices and iPods, is apparently not close to that of CD and seeing as I wouldn't be buying the system for the cd player capability i have realised that thats probably not the best option. So that purchase is scrapped.

Then I was considering some kind of digital dock such as the Wadia system and connect my ipod to an amp but that then bought up further problems like still needing to buy a DAC, and interface not being the easiest.

I've grown up with digital and will no doubt stay using it its convenience and equality to CD with lossless (with the right setup). I just need to know the right way to use the digital lossless signal, I know that the less transcoding there is going on the better it will be, i just need to know what is the best way to do this.

Is it even neccesary to have DAC when you intend to output digitally from a source such as a computer? Is it not possible to output via digital from the PC directly to the amp?

If not would you recommend a DacMagic connected to the PC? Does the DacMagic overide the PCs DAC/soundcard proccessing (my sound card is very low end in terms of quality and i don't intend on upgrading it)

And how well does a PC + DacMagic + Amp + Speakers setup stack up against using a Wadia iTransport + DacMagic + Amp + Speakers. I don't see any real advantage in using the Wadia iTransport over a PC.



Would be great if you could help me out ladies and gentlement, cheers

 

[bay24]

I have been trying to do this over the last little while myself so these are my thoughts.
Firstly I believe that the wadia dock has its own DAC which is supposed to be good so I am not sure if you would need an external DAC unless you wanted to connect up other devices digitally. there are some ppeople on here that have them so they may be able to help more.
If you are wanting to go straight from a computer I think the general belief is that unless you have a very good soundcard a dedicated DAC is the best option sound wise.
I am not sure what budget you have but from the kit you are talking about (wadia DACmagic, amp, speakers) I am assuming about £1000-$1500.
I do not know of any amps within this range that have DACs built in but theirare some CD players which you can acsess their DAC which is what I do with my CA 740C as it essentially has the same DAC as the Dacmagic. I think this option is a good one if you still use CDs as you get a DAC and CD player in one but note it only has 2 digital outs so you can only add 2 sources.
Another option is active speakers, The AVI ADM 9.1 is a speaker which has built in amps and DAC so if you think you will just use lossless for music that would be all you need. they are £1100 but they sound very very good for the price butagain only 2 digital oouts and one RCA out.
you also may need to think about how you will get the music from your PC to the hifi can it be wired or will you need to do it wireless? if it is the later you will need to have a look at something like an airport express or squeezebox.
you can see in my sig what I settled for but I am still tempted by the AVI ADM 9.1s.

Hope this helps and des not confuse things more ;-).

 

[matengawhat]

the wadia dock does not have a dac - it passes through from the ipod

 

[bay24]

I stand corrected thank you! So is there any difference between the Wadia and the new Onkyo dock? I thought the reason it was much more expensive was that it had a DAC built in?

 

[matengawhat]

i have both the wadia just edges it for sound but really close the onkyo is the more up to date dock with computer connectivity ect - i'd say go for the onkyo

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the good response! First off i believe matengawhat is right, the Wadia doesn't have a built in DAC, it just acts as a way of accessing and transporting the digital signal from the iPod to a DAC. So just to clarify external DACs do bypass the sound card processing of a pc? As for budget, i don't have a budget as such, i'm saving my money up and i will spend as much as i see reasonably neccesary for me. Initially my thoughts were around the £900 mark but i just read about the AVI ADM 9.1 and i already want them!! Word has it they compare to £5000 separate systems. Virtually every professional audio critic and audiophile has praised them to death and to quote they 'redifine' audio. Seem like a very viable option if i could ever manage to save that much money. I would only ever need to connect my computer to them for music and the Xbox 360 (which i use regularly for DVD and streaming). I have digital out from my computer but im not really sure what type it is....don't have much knowledge with digital connections because they are always changing, so not sure if it would ever be compatible. But at least i have a few more options now.

Another question though, would a standard digital out from a PC run directly to a DacMagic? And would the output from the DacMagic be digital if using a digital cable? Or does it instantly transform the signal into analog?

 

[matengawhat]

with regard to avi by all means give them a go but don't just get sucked in to the marketing hype - compare against an equivalent system and make up your own mind

digital out prob optical or just the usb direct to dac magic then the dac converts to analogue signal to go straight to hi fi

 

[bay24]

edgarpr:
Thanks for the good response! First off i believe matengawhat is right, the Wadia doesn't have a built in DAC, it just acts as a way of accessing and transporting the digital signal from the iPod to a DAC. So just to clarify external DACs do bypass the sound card processing of a pc? As for budget, i don't have a budget as such, i'm saving my money up and i will spend as much as i see reasonably neccesary for me. Initially my thoughts were around the £900 mark but i just read about the AVI ADM 9.1 and i already want them!! Word has it they compare to £5000 separate systems. Virtually every professional audio critic and audiophile has praised them to death and to quote they 'redifine' audio. Seem like a very viable option if i could ever manage to save that much money. I would only ever need to connect my computer to them for music and the Xbox 360 (which i use regularly for DVD and streaming). I have digital out from my computer but im not really sure what type it is....don't have much knowledge with digital connections because they are always changing, so not sure if it would ever be compatible. But at least i have a few more options now.

Another question though, would a standard digital out from a PC run directly to a DacMagic? And would the output from the DacMagic be digital if using a digital cable? Or does it instantly transform the signal into analog?

The AVIs are very good for the money but I would be cautious about some of the things you read about them. if you read some recent threads on this site you will understand why I say this; it is mainly because of the alleged tactics used by the maker but I do not realy want to get into it. All I will say is that they are very revealing of the recording, the detail they dig up is amazing but they will also show up a bad recording, I can not comment on it beating £5000 of kit but there are people on here that have sold good kit for them. they are quite hard to get a demo of unless you are near London as they sell mostly direct themselves.
Computers tend to have an optical (toslink) digital out if they have one at all (looks like a train tunnel with a cover over it which pushes in as you put the cable in. Sorry for the description but I don't know how to post pictures). my computer doesn't so I stream my music via an airport express. the bonus of the Dacmagic is that it has a usb connection which pritty much all computers now have.

 

[bay24]

matengawhat:
with regard to avi by all means give them a go but don't just get sucked in to the marketing hype - compare against an equivalent system and make up your own mind

digital out prob optical or just the usb direct to dac magic then the dac converts to analogue signal to go straight to hi fi

Ha! I need to learn to be more concise, three lines to describe what I did in about 20!

 

[idc]

edgarpr:

I've grown up with digital and will no doubt stay using it its convenience and equality to CD with lossless (with the right setup). I just need to know the right way to use the digital lossless signal, I know that the less transcoding there is going on the better it will be, i just need to know what is the best way to do this.

It would help to know how you plan to phyiscally set up your hifi. Will it be a computer connected by wire to your hifi, or do you need it to be wireless? Is your computer to be your source for all of your music or will you also have a CD player, tuner etc?

edgarpr:

Is it even neccesary to have DAC when you intend to output digitally from a source such as a computer? Is it not possible to output via digital from the PC directly to the amp?

You cannot ouput a digital signal for amplification without the signal being converted to analogue by a DAC. Some amps have DACs, more common is a stand a lone DAC. You can take an analogue signal from your PC to an amp using a minijack to phono cable where the minjack connects to the headphone socket on the computer. Your computer with its own DAC in its soundcard is then doing the digital to analogue conversion. The latter is the worst way to get music off your computer.

edgarpr:

If not would you recommend a DacMagic connected to the PC? Does the DacMagic overide the PCs DAC/soundcard proccessing (my sound card is very low end in terms of quality and i don't intend on upgrading it)

An external DAC such as the DACmagic is an excellent way to get quality sound from your PC. Such DACs bypass the computers soundcard and take a digital signal from the computer. Depending on the DAC you connect it to the computer by a USB or digital coax or optical cable.

edgarpr:

And how well does a PC + DacMagic + Amp + Speakers setup stack up against using a Wadia iTransport + DacMagic + Amp + Speakers. I don't see any real advantage in using the Wadia iTransport over a PC.



A Wadia or the Onkyo are only of use if you want to use an ipod as your source and not have a computer on for that.

 

[Andrew Everard]

edgarpr:Virtually every professional audio critic and audiophile has praised them to death

Really?

edgarpr:and to quote they 'redifine' audio.

...Though presumably whoever you're quoting could spell 'redefine'

 

[the record spot]

If you're looking at active speakers such as the AVI, you need to widen your scope and include other active monitors too. See also (in that case) Acoustic Energy's AE22 Actives, a whole of bunch of speakers from Genelec whose 8000 series starts from around £520 for the 8020s up to the 8040s at £1700 a pair, JBL LSR 4328s, Yamaha do various active speakers and so on. You will need to add a DAC of your own choosing, my pick for the kind of price you're looking at - and to do justice - would be from Stello and their SA100 at around £750 or so.

I fail to see the point comapring AVI 9.1s with a passive speaker when the presentation is going to be entirely different. Compare apples and oranges by all means, but the result will be different.

The supposed "better than systems costing £5000" is an oft-trotted out line which I suspect is the subjective comment of one buyer that's been bandied around often. Basis in fact, across all £5k type kit and the near myriad variations thereof? I will throw my hat in the ring and suggest this is so close to "none" as makes no difference.

EdIT: Incidentally, welcome to the forum edgarpr. Hope you like it here. Be interested to hear of your tests between various active monitors and not just AVI.

 

[bay24]

the record spot:If you're looking at active speakers such as the AVI, you need to widen your scope and include other active monitors too. See also (in that case) Acoustic Energy's AE22 Actives, a whole of bunch of speakers from Genelec whose 8000 series starts from around £520 for the 8020s up to the 8040s at £1700 a pair, JBL LSR 4328s, Yamaha do various active speakers and so on. You will need to add a DAC of your own choosing, my pick for the kind of price you're looking at - and to do justice - would be from Stello and their SA100 at around £750 or so.

I fail to see the point comapring AVI 9.1s with a passive speaker when the presentation is going to be entirely different. Compare apples and oranges by all means, but the result will be different.

The supposed "better than systems costing £5000" is an oft-trotted out line which I suspect is the subjective comment of one buyer that's been bandied around often. Basis in fact, across all £5k type kit and the near myriad variations thereof? I will throw my hat in the ring and suggest this is so close to "none" as makes no difference.

EdIT: Incidentally, welcome to the forum edgarpr. Hope you like it here. Be interested to hear of your tests between various active monitors and not just AVI.

Record spot: sounds like you have a good knowledge of active speakers, do you know of any alternatives to the AVIs which have a built in DAC at around the £1000 mark?
Not sure I agree that there is no point comparing the 9.1s to passive speakers though as in the end they both have the same function of playing music. Just because they sound different does not mean they should not be compared does it?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi here is my take on the Avi's and how I use them! I use a Cyrus discmaster 8 dvd that is connected by phono leads as the dac in the cyrus sounds slightly better than the Avi's ( 9.1's dac seems to sound less full and lighter in the bass) I hooked up the cyrus with a Toslink and phono and swapped between the 2 inputs to discover this. 1 optical input is fed by my Sky+ and the other will be taking a feed from an Onkyo NDs-I when I get one in the near future.
My wife and I really are enjoying these speakers they sound fantastic for the money,they have a good amount of bass and are really lovely playing acoustic and female vocal style music. I would like to get a sub in the future to underpin the bass especially for films,24 and other progs.
I hope this is usefull to you.
Nick

 

[the record spot]

bay24:the record spot:If you're looking at active speakers such as the AVI, you need to widen your scope and include other active monitors too. See also (in that case) Acoustic Energy's AE22 Actives, a whole of bunch of speakers from Genelec whose 8000 series starts from around £520 for the 8020s up to the 8040s at £1700 a pair, JBL LSR 4328s, Yamaha do various active speakers and so on. You will need to add a DAC of your own choosing, my pick for the kind of price you're looking at - and to do justice - would be from Stello and their SA100 at around £750 or so.

I fail to see the point comapring AVI 9.1s with a passive speaker when the presentation is going to be entirely different. Compare apples and oranges by all means, but the result will be different.

The supposed "better than systems costing £5000" is an oft-trotted out line which I suspect is the subjective comment of one buyer that's been bandied around often. Basis in fact, across all £5k type kit and the near myriad variations thereof? I will throw my hat in the ring and suggest this is so close to "none" as makes no difference.

EdIT: Incidentally, welcome to the forum edgarpr. Hope you like it here. Be interested to hear of your tests between various active monitors and not just AVI.

Record spot: sounds like you have a good knowledge of active speakers, do you know of any alternatives to the AVIs which have a built in DAC at around the £1000 mark?
Not sure I agree that there is no point comparing the 9.1s to passive speakers though as in the end they both have the same function of playing music. Just because they sound different does not mean they should not be compared does it?

I doubt there are any, but you could try the pro-kit out there (Yamaha, JBL, etc). You're going to get more of a studio monitor there though, but the AE22 and the DacMagic might work and still be around your budget. Note: "might". Can't help you with how these bits would work together in practice. Good luck with the search though.

 

[Anonymous]

the record spot:If you're looking at active speakers such as the AVI, you need to widen your scope and include other active monitors too. See also (in that case) Acoustic Energy's AE22 Actives, a whole of bunch of speakers from Genelec whose 8000 series starts from around £520 for the 8020s up to the 8040s at £1700 a pair, JBL LSR 4328s, Yamaha do various active speakers and so on. You will need to add a DAC of your own choosing, my pick for the kind of price you're looking at - and to do justice - would be from Stello and their SA100 at around £750 or so.I fail to see the point comapring AVI 9.1s with a passive speaker when the presentation is going to be entirely different. Compare apples and oranges by all means, but the result will be different.The supposed "better than systems costing £5000" is an oft-trotted out line which I suspect is the subjective comment of one buyer that's been bandied around often. Basis in fact, across all £5k type kit and the near myriad variations thereof? I will throw my hat in the ring and suggest this is so close to "none" as makes no difference.EdIT: Incidentally, welcome to the forum edgarpr. Hope you like it here. Be interested to hear of your tests between various active monitors and not just AVI.

Aww good reply. For everyones information I wasn't instantly going to buy them. It was a spur of the moment comment based on 5 seconds of reading that pretty much proves that they know how to market to the needy and impatient haha...oh and that they are fuelled with hype. At first it did see like a dream item for the price, but im obviously going to do my research before hand and try to listen to them if I can. Plus to be fair its quite a way out of the reasonable budget I had in mind before I start hitting myself for spending so much for a good setup at my age (i'm 19).

 

[Anonymous]

bay24:edgarpr:
Thanks for the good response! First off i believe matengawhat is right, the Wadia doesn't have a built in DAC, it just acts as a way of accessing and transporting the digital signal from the iPod to a DAC. So just to clarify external DACs do bypass the sound card processing of a pc? As for budget, i don't have a budget as such, i'm saving my money up and i will spend as much as i see reasonably neccesary for me. Initially my thoughts were around the £900 mark but i just read about the AVI ADM 9.1 and i already want them!! Word has it they compare to £5000 separate systems. Virtually every professional audio critic and audiophile has praised them to death and to quote they 'redifine' audio. Seem like a very viable option if i could ever manage to save that much money. I would only ever need to connect my computer to them for music and the Xbox 360 (which i use regularly for DVD and streaming). I have digital out from my computer but im not really sure what type it is....don't have much knowledge with digital connections because they are always changing, so not sure if it would ever be compatible. But at least i have a few more options now.

Another question though, would a standard digital out from a PC run directly to a DacMagic? And would the output from the DacMagic be digital if using a digital cable? Or does it instantly transform the signal into analog?

The AVIs are very good for the money but I would be cautious about some of the things you read about them. if you read some recent threads on this site you will understand why I say this; it is mainly because of the alleged tactics used by the maker but I do not realy want to get into it. All I will say is that they are very revealing of the recording, the detail they dig up is amazing but they will also show up a bad recording, I can not comment on it beating £5000 of kit but there are people on here that have sold good kit for them. they are quite hard to get a demo of unless you are near London as they sell mostly direct themselves. Computers tend to have an optical (toslink) digital out if they have one at all (looks like a train tunnel with a cover over it which pushes in as you put the cable in. Sorry for the description but I don't know how to post pictures). my computer doesn't so I stream my music via an airport express. the bonus of the Dacmagic is that it has a usb connection which pritty much all computers now have.

Revealing is the whole reason I dislike my studio monitors. Im currently setup with M-AUDIO Studiophile A-40s, connected via a heavy insulated RCA cable + RCA to 3.5mm Stereo Jack straight to my not so great PC (stock onboard sound card on a rather old pc = rubbish). I recently decided i'm not satisfied with my setup one bit, I have all this lovely lossless music, yet I'm never satisfied with my listening experience. I made a major mistake buying studio monitors. In idiocy, after reading about them being 'revealing' and showing lots of detail, I thought GREAT, I'd love to have the sound as accurate as possible. Well turned out i was very wrong. Studio monitors are designed for people who create music all day, listening to fine details, adjusting them perfectly, picking out any mistakes in a recording, and most importantly for close listening. They sound very bright and for most music way too harsh, defiantly not a pleasant listening experience. And dare I move a few centimetres away from the computer or not have them perfectly aligned in a triangle to me then everything starts sounding to sound very distant and tiny and not very nice. This is particularly a problem once I hook up my Xbox 360 to them aswell for watching films or playing games and am sat a distance away from them. So i've learnt from my mistake, studio monitors are best kept in the studio!

Edit: And yeah I know you will say the computer isn't really making the most of them due to rubbish sound card, well i've connected them to my Xbox 360, plugging my iPod in directly via usb, then the Xbox 360 reads the iPod as a harddrive similar to devices such as a Wadia, and i outputted directly via RCA to the speakers and the same problems were prominent, even though i've heard the Xbox 360 has a surprisingly good DAC and it is definetly better than my PC.

 

[Anonymous]

Andrew Everard:
edgarpr:Virtually every professional audio critic and audiophile has praised them to death

Really?

edgarpr:and to quote they 'redifine' audio.

...Though presumably whoever you're quoting could spell 'redefine'

Okay, confession......I quoted a forum member on that, as for the reviews I only read 3 and checked out a few forums and they were worshipping them like a God.

 

[idc]

edgarpr:

I was GOING to purchase Marantz PM6003, the CD6003, and a pair of Wharfedale diamond 10.1.

Get the PM6003 and the Wharfedales and use the £180 the CDP costs (on Amazon) to buy a DAC.

 

[Anonymous]

idc:edgarpr:
I was GOING to purchase Marantz PM6003, the CD6003, and a pair of Wharfedale diamond 10.1.

Get the PM6003 and the Wharfedales and use the £180 the CDP costs (on Amazon) to buy a DAC.

Thanks for that advice! Well it seemed like a good well priced option but then I read that the B&W 685's are quite a step up. What priced amp would you need for them to get the most out of the extra buck you spend on them? I know the PM6003 recieved a good review on here but anyone have any personal experience with them?

 

[Andrew Everard]

edgarpr:Okay, confession......I quoted a forum member on that, as for the reviews I only read 3 and checked out a few forums and they were worshipping them like a God.

So the statement was really pretty much nonsensical, then?

 

[Anonymous]

Who is going to believe the AVI 9.1 hype when they say - to quote

because
Active Amps are only driving drive units, so don't need high current,
only high voltage, which means much less distortion and no need for big
power supplies and heatsinks. Though they say 75W + 250W

for more amusement

 

[Anonymous]

Just to add to my post above.

A couple of quotes from "the boss" at AVI.

I never really liked FM, it had that phasey spitting noise that
turntables do.

I got rid of my turntable more than twenty years ago and was glad to see
the back of it as was everyone except highly resistant to change
audiophools. It's junk and it distorts - end of story.

an iPod is better than most hi fi, I certainly speak to quite a few who
believe that and I agree with them.

 

[manicm]

Stumpy21:

Just to add to my post above.

A couple of quotes from "the boss" at AVI.

I never really liked FM, it had that phasey spitting noise that turntables do.

I got rid of my turntable more than twenty years ago and was glad to see the back of it as was everyone except highly resistant to change audiophools. It's junk and it distorts - end of story.

an iPod is better than most hi fi, I certainly speak to quite a few who believe that and I agree with them.

He obviously hasn't heard the latest iPods which, besides the Nano, sound p**s poor - and I have the 64gb Touch so I know. And it horrified me on another forum that someone wanted to spend over 300 quid on buds on this thing.