Music from hard drive better than CD?

I have a MAC G4 that I've used for audio. There are several issues. If you have a high end system and you compress your music, you will notice and it will not sound good. If you take your signal from the computer's headphone jack, it will not sound good. Worse, when you increase volume, you'll hear a hum that is coming from the computer. However, if you use the computer as TRANSPORT and take the signal out of the computer through the USB or Firewire port, bypassing the computer's internal DAC, and play it through a high quality outboard DAC, you can get sound that will compete with CD players costing thousands of dollars AND you will get the convenience of having hundreds of CD's available at the click of a mouse. At first, I tried USB soundcards that cost a few hundred dollars, but it only offered a slight increase in quality over the headphone jack. But, when I invested $1,000 in an Apogee USB Mini-Dac, it was a home run. Amazing sound. Natural, musical, detailed, deep, wide soundstage -- everything. Will it compete with the BEST digital players? That will be a matter of opinion, but in my opinion, players like Wadia offer impressive sound and may give you a tiny bit more detail, but to my ears, the sound is a little digital for my taste. I don't want this to turn into a flame war and I am not trying to diss anyone's gear. But, to my ears, the hard drive plus Apogee sounds more natural and involving. I admire it a little less, but enjoy it more -- if you know what I mean.

Finally, to my ears, based on my taste, my Emm Labs gear is the best digital gear. My computer plus Apogee isn't in that league -- and the Emm Labs also offers SACD playback -- but, what the Apogee has in common with Emm Labs is a natural sound. The Apogee USB Mini-DAC costs $1,000 and the Emm Labs DAC costs $10,000, so I don't want to oversell the Apogee Mini-Dac -- it isn't in the same league with the Emm Labs. But, after listening to Emm Labs, I have become spoiled and find it hard to listen to other gear. But, I enjoy the Apogee Mini-Dac. If you have the budget for Emm Labs gear, IMO, nothing is going to touch it. That's my opinion, based on my taste. But, if you are looking for a system that can compete with players costing 3,000 to 5,000 while offering convenience, put this on your list of things to consider.

The Cosecant tubed USB DAC is also intriguing. Given my eye and ear opening experience with the Hard Drive plus Apogee, I am prepared to believe that it is possible to get amazing sound from a computer Hard Drive given the proper outbord DAC.

I have not heard the Cosecant, so I cannot offer any opinion on its sound versus Apogee.

Off topic, sorry

I have been playing around with these FLAC and SHN lossless music downloads for a while...some are better than most cd's.

In the last week I have downloaded 4 complete live shows of top quality music.

{url]http://www.archive.org/audio/[/url]

FLAC and SHN files can be converted to WAV...very nice!

Dave

Good thread. This is also what I wanted to achieve. Thanks.

Rsbeck,
have you evaluated the G4 with a spdif output into the EMM?

i am curious to know if better results can be obtained using a PC HD based transport as a source for a good audio DAC like my Wadia.

AudioEng,
curious to know which transports you aare comparing the PC to (not everyone's idea of high end is the same). would a HD and USB to SPDIF converter outperform or compete with something like a dCS Verdi?

I'm about to delve into this stuff as well so am very interested in this thread. From what I understand you can run your lossless digital file (WAV or AIFF) from your hard drive via a USB to SPDIF convertor into virtually any DAC with an S/PDIF input. Assuming it was recorded as a lossless file at the appropriate sample rate (or greater), it would seem to me that the quality of the output signal will then be solely dependent upon the DAC and not at all on the hard drive. Am I incorrect in assuming this? By the way, You could further convert the signal from S/PDIF to Toslink with yet another simple converter if your DAC only has a Toslink input. All these converters are available through RAM Electronics, or some other favorite electronics retailer or etailer. I would like to put the most listened-to part of my CD collection on an external drive that I can bring from home to work. Anyone figure out how big a drive you'd need to hold, say, 200 CD's as WAV files? Are those files indeed "lossless"?

Marco