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Up to the Minute: Streaming Bits to Audiophile DAC

I have some unanswered questions from another thread, and also some new ones despite searching the archives. So I hope this thread might be a good place for all of us who are interested in state of the art audio quality from hard disk drive based files.

Kublakhan in another thread suggested using the Sweetwater Creation Stations as hardware for a PC based audio solution and so far this gear looks pretty good to me.

My questions, however, arise from the fact that there may be some disconnect between the conventions for "pro audio" and "audiophile" audio.

So as of this writing, can anyone please explain:

Why does every pro audio person seem confused when I tell them I want to use an external DAC?

What is the BEST way to extract bit for bit data from a hard drive, to export to an audiophile DAC?

Why oh why do expensive $$$ music or media servers, which are supposedly configured to optimize audio use, nonetheless require some sort of cheapo "interface" to stream the data into an audiophile DAC?

Why on earth would I want to buy an audiophile "sound card", which I presume (in addition to an "interface") also has its own DAC?

Given the options which are available for "sound card" and/or "interface" type devices, what is the BEST way to tap the bitstream and/or maximize performance of the audiophile DAC? Optical? TOSLINK? Spdif?

Given the choices I might have for the "interface" between the computer and the DAC, what is the BEST way to minimized "jitter" or other audiophile nasties? Or is that phenomenon more of a downstream issue AFTER the bitstream hits the DAC?

There is a lot of great information in the other threads about ripping, tagging, Foobar vs Itunes and a million other complications of hard drive based audio.

But for now, I would really appreciate just some basic, conclusive opinions on the best way to get bits off the hard drive and safely on their way to my speakers from an audiophile DAC.

Please advise.

THANK YOU.
cwlondon

Showing 2 responses by mikeyla

mikeyla
14 posts
 
I wanted to post a quick update. I'm sending the WiFi-OffRamp to Steve for a minor mod and had to setup the Airport Express / Monarchy DIP as a transport. This gave me a chance to perform a little a/b comparison.

The WiFi-OffRamp definitely sounded better. I'm not familiar with all the audiophile terms, but there is definitely a notable difference, better bass, instrument separation and sound stage.
mikeyla
14 posts
 
I'll give it a shot. Here is what I'm doing, and by no means am I an expert - started less than a year ago.

My setup from the bottom up, PS Audio P500 for power, Accustic Arts MKIII DAC, SinglePower Supra Headphone Amp and Sony Qualia 010 headphones.

I use iTunes for Windows sending wireless digital data (Ethernet) to a WiFi OffRamp with battery supply (this is a modded Airport Express, with superclock 4 etc...) which is connected to the RCA input of the Accustic Arts DAC. I’ve also used a stock Airport Express toslink connection to a Monarchy DIP Upsampler (to reduce jitter) then BNC to the DAC. This also sounded very good, but I haven’t really sat down to perform an A/B test. I could also be the Accustic Arts DAC is forgiving when it comes to transports – I don’t know.

I rip CD's using a Plextor PX-716UF USB external drive. It's my understanding the ripping process is the important piece. Plextor drives seem to have a good reputation. I upgraded to the PlexTools Professional XL software to rip CD's. I rip to WAV files with error-correction set to the highest level. I don’t believe WAV files have tags. I then make a copy of the WAV files and convert this copy to Apple Lossless using dBpower Amp Music Converter and then use Tag&Rename to retrieve tag information and CD art.

iTunes is set not to copy files when importing. All the Apple Lossless files are in one folder. I tell iTunes to import from that folder and within seconds the new tagged songs appear in the music library ready to play.

Foobar for playback and EAC for ripping are two open source programs that seem to have a strong following and good reputation, but their setups were a bit to complex for me.
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