Are you still playing CDs after, comp based syst?

"It seems that some kind of reconstructing of the data has to be done AFTER going through a DAC. If this is so, then all bets are off and folk here are merely settling for something incrementally better."

There are a lot of designers that have tried to do this, but all so far have failed. There are technical reasons why this will probably never achieve the optimum jitter result.

The best solution IME is still a low-jitter digital source, whether CD transport or computer interface, feeding a DAC with no reclocking in it.

There are lots of poor digital sources out there, both CD transports and computer interfaces. The trick is to cut through the BS and find the best ones.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Tune - Synchro-Mesh requires a DAC, SS proc. or SS receiver to work. It is strictly digital in to digital out. It comes with no cables. The input cable can be anything, unimportant. The output S/PDIF coax cable should be a very good one and 1.5m long. I have heard good things about the "Green Hornet" from Music Direct.

The Metrum Octave is a good choice if you are on a budget for a DAC. Big step-up from the DAC inside the SBT.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Akg - The compressed formats are not as good as .wav for sure, however AIFF comes pretty close to .wav on a Mac, and retains all of the tags and album art.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Not sure I want to convert out of Qsonix into the world of MAC, transport, ipad, and other stuff...but I'm glad I'm not alone in preferring the sonic quality of a good disc spinner vs computer audio...usb vs firewire, expensive dacs and usb cables; upgraded power supplies and tweaks, and which software to use"

You can still keep the Qsonix and get better SQ from it. I have been adding reclockers to customers Qsonix for years. Originally I added the Pace-Car, but that required mods to the Qsonix output board.

Now, I have the Synchro-Mesh to lower jitter of the Qsonix. No mods needed. May be all you need:

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/empirical4/1.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

"Can anyone tell me why I would want to buy an expensive music server or even use another program to hold my library?"

Sure. Its all about sound quality. If you have a $100K system then this type of source will limit the performance. If you have $150 receiver, maybe you cannot hear it anyway.

You can make improvements to what you already have by first doing software changes.

Why dont you try this: rip a CD that you have ripped before with WMP, but this time rip it with DBPOWERAMP with Accurate-Rip enabled. you can download a free trial version here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

Then play this on a decent player: Foobar2000 and use memory mode for playback. you can download this free app here:

http://www.foobar2000.org/download

If you have a decent system, the dbpoweramp ripped track will sound better when played back on WMP and Foobar2000 will sound better than WMP.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Reclock the SB Touch, use a good 1.5m long coax cable and power supply and it may actually pass-up your transport. This is just jitter.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio