wav files from phone/Ipod via usb to DAC - views, opinions, comments please??

[fatboyslimfast]

Erm, my PC has an optical out (admittedly I had to buy a new internal soundcard, but £7 delivered off fleabay? not exactly expensive...)

I've also got an iRiver iHP-120 MP3 jukebox that has optical out...

My Sky+ has optical out for use with TV and radio...

my Arcam alpha 6 also has digital out, and benefits from going through the beresford...

Need any more?

 

[John Duncan]

fatboyslimfast:Need any more?

Yes please - anything to help justify it after it's bought.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

HDNumpty:This is what baffles me n all - all these DACs - Beresford, CA, Chordette - and what do you plug into em?? I've yet to see a laptop or PC with an optical/SPDIF out as standard and no MP3 players etc. have digital outs (Wadia excepted). There seems to be only the PS3 that can rip CDs then be used as a music server via a DAC through its optical out...obviously the Sonos etc, have this but they all require your PC on all the time...

It's enough to make me want to re-purchase my minidisc player and stick to swopping discs!!!

If you have a pc anywhere in your house and it's got Media Center on it, buy a Linksys Media Center extender. This little box has hdmi connection to connect to your tv (I'm connecting it to my AV receiver). It also has coaxial. I plan to connect it straight to my new DAC. I should then be able to get my media center on my LCD and pick songs out with the remote and play it through the DAC to my 840A. The box is quite small and it's available for as little as £145. I'm busy, illegally, ripping my cds to wav and storing them on my media center in preparation.

By the way, I don't know anyone who has done this and I'm only going by what should be theoretically easy to do.

 

[John Duncan]

WAV? WAV?!?!?!??!

Actually, I'm not sure what to suggest if you're not using iTunes as a source that isn't a complete palaver. What media client do you use? WMP?

 

[fatboyslimfast]

JohnDuncan:fatboyslimfast:Need any more?

Yes please - anything to help justify it after it's bought.

Erm, freeview boxes? Airport Expresses / Apple TVs? DVD players (2.0 obviously)...

...would a toaster sound better through a Dacmagic?

 

[John Duncan]

fatboyslimfast:JohnDuncan:fatboyslimfast:Need any more?

Yes please - anything to help justify it after it's bought.

Erm, freeview boxes? Airport Expresses / Apple TVs? DVD players (2.0 obviously)...

...would a toaster sound better through a Dacmagic?

My toaster's a Dualit and doesn't even pop up, never mind have a digital out.

Airport Express it is then......

 

[Anonymous]

Most Pure digital radios have digital optical out.

At this rate you might need more than one DACmagic =)

The DAC magic can only handle two digital inputs and USB. Input one is coax or optical, input two is coax or optical, input three is USBÿ

WRT leaving computers on all the time, I leave my macs onÿpermanently, they sleep quiteÿefficiently, I last rebooted the iMac about six-eight weeks ago

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JohnDuncan:WAV? WAV?!?!?!??!

Actually, I'm not sure what to suggest if you're not using iTunes as a source that isn't a complete palaver. What media client do you use? WMP?

What's wrong with wav? I'm a mere novice when it comes to audio formats but I was under the impression that lossless is lossless.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Gerrardasnails:JohnDuncan:WAV? WAV?!?!?!??!

Actually, I'm not sure what to suggest if you're not using iTunes as a source that isn't a complete palaver. What media client do you use? WMP?

What's wrong with wav? I'm a mere novice when it comes to audio formats but I was under the impression that lossless is lossless.

I think it's WMP.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

zzgavin:
Most Pure digital radios have digital optical out.

At this rate you might need more than one DACmagic =)

The DAC magic can only handle two digital inputs and USB. Input one is coax or optical, input two is coax or optical, input three is USBÿ

WRT leaving computers on all the time, I leave my macs onÿpermanently, they sleep quiteÿefficiently, I last rebooted the iMac about six-eight weeks ago

I've been thinking about this and I reckon you are probably right but there is a small chance that you can connect both optical and coaxial into each input and then choose or let the DAC detect, which one is needed at any time. I will soon let you know when I get the DAC and can read the manual - which isn't published anywhere yet.

 

[John Duncan]

But you might be able to read it today when you go and pick it up at lunchtime, right?

As for WAV, yes it's lossless but doesn't support tags so you can't manage your library very well, and it takes up loads of space, whereas there are lossless formats which take up less - FLAC, Apple Lossless and WMA lossless for example.

Am not up on Windows Media Player any more though, so not sure what the best option is for you - WMA will be the default lossless space-saving codec available, but am not sure about it's interoperability, perhaps others can help you choose? Prime concern for me would be a format's ability to be played on other media players (Apple Airport Express or TV, Squeezebox, PS3 etc) - WMA lossless for example doesn't appear to play on a PS3 currently, though that info may be out of date with subsequent PS3 firmware upgrades.

Presumably the Media Extender will handle WMA lossless though, seeing as it seems to be pitched as a pseudo-Windows machine.

 

[John Duncan]

JohnDuncan:Presumably the Media Extender will handle WMA lossless though, seeing as it seems to be pitched as a pseudo-Windows machine.

Hm, I'm getting the impression it doesn't even do that. Am investigating.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JohnDuncan:But you might be able to read it today when you go and pick it up at lunchtime, right?

As for WAV, yes it's lossless but doesn't support tags so you can't manage your library very well, and it takes up loads of space, whereas there are lossless formats which take up less - FLAC, Apple Lossless and WMA lossless for example.

Am not up on Windows Media Player any more though, so not sure what the best option is for you - WMA will be the default lossless space-saving codec available, but am not sure about it's interoperability, perhaps others can help you choose? Prime concern for me would be a format's ability to be played on other media players (Apple Airport Express or TV, Squeezebox, PS3 etc) - WMA lossless for example doesn't appear to play on a PS3 currently, though that info may be out of date with subsequent PS3 firmware upgrades.

Presumably the Media Extender will handle WMA lossless though, seeing as it seems to be pitched as a pseudo-Windows machine.

I've emailed you a picture of how my media center looks. When I ripped wavs using EAC, I couldn't get any tags - but now I use dBpoweramp and it does.

Space is not much of an issue for me. I don't plan on putting all my cds on to my pc. And I won't be using the media elsewhere. I could use wma lossless - if it is quicker than I will.

 

[HDNumpty]

Gerrardasnails:HDNumpty:This is what baffles me n all - all these DACs - Beresford, CA, Chordette - and what do you plug into em?? I've yet to see a laptop or PC with an optical/SPDIF out as standard and no MP3 players etc. have digital outs (Wadia excepted). There seems to be only the PS3 that can rip CDs then be used as a music server via a DAC through its optical out...obviously the Sonos etc, have this but they all require your PC on all the time...

It's enough to make me want to re-purchase my minidisc player and stick to swopping discs!!!

If you have a pc anywhere in your house and it's got Media Center on it, buy a Linksys Media Center extender. This little box has hdmi connection to connect to your tv (I'm connecting it to my AV receiver). It also has coaxial. I plan to connect it straight to my new DAC. I should then be able to get my media center on my LCD and pick songs out with the remote and play it through the DAC to my 840A. The box is quite small and it's available for as little as £145. I'm busy, illegally, ripping my cds to wav and storing them on my media center in preparation.

By the way, I don't know anyone who has done this and I'm only going by what should be theoretically easy to do.

Hmm...at the moment my only options are to plug in my Sony MP3 player. No-one has really nswered my question about how you stream music straight from a USB (say from a laptop) to one of the new DACs - an how easy is it to change the soundcard in your laptop? not as easy as with a destop PC I would imagine? I understand perfectly how a DAC can improve the sound from a CD/DVD/Paure DAB, my question related solely to MP3 players and laptops in particular

 

[Gerrardasnails]

HDNumpty:Gerrardasnails:HDNumpty:This is what baffles me n all - all these DACs - Beresford, CA, Chordette - and what do you plug into em?? I've yet to see a laptop or PC with an optical/SPDIF out as standard and no MP3 players etc. have digital outs (Wadia excepted). There seems to be only the PS3 that can rip CDs then be used as a music server via a DAC through its optical out...obviously the Sonos etc, have this but they all require your PC on all the time...

It's enough to make me want to re-purchase my minidisc player and stick to swopping discs!!!

If you have a pc anywhere in your house and it's got Media Center on it, buy a Linksys Media Center extender. This little box has hdmi connection to connect to your tv (I'm connecting it to my AV receiver). It also has coaxial. I plan to connect it straight to my new DAC. I should then be able to get my media center on my LCD and pick songs out with the remote and play it through the DAC to my 840A. The box is quite small and it's available for as little as £145. I'm busy, illegally, ripping my cds to wav and storing them on my media center in preparation.

By the way, I don't know anyone who has done this and I'm only going by what should be theoretically easy to do.

Hmm...at the moment my only options are to plug in my Sony MP3 player. No-one has really nswered my question about how you stream music straight from a USB (say from a laptop) to one of the new DACs - an how easy is it to change the soundcard in your laptop? not as easy as with a destop PC I would imagine? I understand perfectly how a DAC can improve the sound from a CD/DVD/Paure DAB, my question related solely to MP3 players and laptops in particular

If you have songs on your laptop in ITunes or similar, you can feed a digital or usb connection (if the DAC has usb like the CA one) to the DAC and analogue cables to your amp. Your soundcard is not involved, unless I'm mistaken here. The signal is sent to the DAC and it does the rest. Basically press shuffle or play on your laptop and you get sound from your amp.

 

[John Duncan]

HDNumpty:I've yet to see a laptop or PC with an optical/SPDIF out as standard

On the contrary, most laptops have them now - usually in the headphone socket, but more unusually (cf Dell) coming from the s-video socket (I think). As for mp3 players - nope on the whole, apart from one of Archos or iRiver (I forget which).

USB DACs circumvent this anyway by acting as an external soundcard and often offer digital out, though note that there are plenty of other USB sound cards short of a full offboard DAC which would most likely improve upon your built-in one, which is probably built into the motherboard and therefore not replaceable. Google "M-Audio USB" for examples.

 

[daveh75]

JohnDuncan:HDNumpty:I've yet to see a laptop or PC with an optical/SPDIF out as standard On the contrary, most laptops have them now - usually in the headphone socket, but more unusually (cf Dell) coming from the s-video socket (I think). As for mp3 players - nope on the whole, apart from one of Archos or iRiver (I forget which). USB DACs circumvent this anyway by acting as an external soundcard and often offer digital out, though note that there are plenty of other USB sound cards short of a full offboard DAC which would most likely improve upon your built-in one, which is probably built into the motherboard and therefore not replaceable. Google "M-Audio USB" for examples.yep john, your right about dell and there unusual(to say the least) s-video adaptor solution, which i discovered by accident a few weeks back,while playing around with my sound settings.

 

[John Duncan]

Nnnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

I trust that the DACMagic is so addictive that you haven't made it to the PC tonight..........

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JohnDuncan:Nnnnnnnggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

I trust that the DACMagic is so addictive that you haven't made it to the PC tonight..........

I've posted an early review of the DM on the Hifi section. Please excuse my lack of audiophile waffle/spiel.