The quest

Kinda agree with Charles ... for now. But I am receptive to what Steve says too. If computer hi rez becomes more user friendly for oldies like me, I might dip a toe in. Right now, too many acronyms, formats and techno-babble. I'm waiting.

Nonoise wrote,

"Funny, I don't hear any of the glaring errors spoken of when doing things via CDP. I guess they've come a long way, I'm very lucky, or I'm just plain tone deaf. I don't think it's the latter."

Everything is relative, I'm not saying you should hate your sound. It's only when you remove the errors you come to appreciate the errors. Kinda like Invasion of the Body Snatchers: There's a lot of resistance to change. :-)

I'm the first to admit that i'm not fond of change, especially after quite an investment in what I like, but I've been to audio shows where the latest and greatest in PC was being touted and it didn't sound any better than the rest of the exhibits. More or less the same save for the MSB room where I thought PC audio had equaled or surpassed vinyl until I found out that they were using the CDP part, spinning a disc.

Come to think of it, when at the PC rooms, they had that look in their eyes, like they all came from Santa Mira, and there was this guy outside in the halls, who looked like that actor Kevin McCarthy, screaming something about pods and not to listen.....:-)

All the best,
Nonoise

Nonoise - Here are a couple of rooms voted best of show at RMAF 2013 that used computers or servers:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=120535.msg1267552#msg1267552

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=120535.msg1267553#msg1267553

Tyson and Jason are the most objective reviewers out there. The play multiple tracks each to compare systems in almost every room.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Someday I'm going to have to make it to an RMAF affair. I have no doubt that PC audio can sound great but there's a learning curve to it and it's in a constant state of evolution, barely out of it's infancy and yet to attain adolescence, where most things are ironed out, standardized (somewhat) and about as foolproof as plopping in a CD and pushing "play".

Laptops are considered a no-no and yet this great sound comes from several laptops that most PC savvy folk wouldn't go near. Consensus is still a ways to go as to which route is best and for those reasons, along with what my own ears heard at the last two Newport Audio Shows, I'll sit it out awhile and polish my system to my own satisfaction. I won't know better until I hear better and like I said, the best digital I've heard was that MSB CDP. Maybe I am tone deaf, but I doubt it. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise