Let's get digital

So here I am wondering if I could afford to upgrade my CD player would £9k really be sensible way to waste money. There again I could keep things as they are and just change formats completely. So my current thinking (?) is to put the whole lot on to an HDD and create a high end iPod. But how to go about this?

• Basic PC with the merest hint of an OS, no need for internet or Office
• Some control software like Winamp or Roxio to create play lists
• A couple of 400gb HDD
• A sound card. Presumably enough to get the music out but nothing more
• A DAC of a high order
• some leads

And low, a jukebox that comes in around £4k.

The only questions are a) have I forgotton anything, b) what components to get and c) will it sound as good as what I already have?

 

musical fidelity a5cd, at £1499 the finest cd player at any price, really, why? because it measures the best

 

Loading 800 CDs onto it is going to get very boring very quickly. IMO.

Paul

 

Get some kid to do it for you, they are very apt at it.

 

Or one could copy one or two at a time when you sit down in the evening to listen to our collection slowly all over again. By the time you finish the hardisk will start to play up and there is another excuse to buy a new toy.

Come to think about it here is a question for everyone. How long did your computer last so far. My present one is about 3 years old and it seems to be coming to the last leg any moment now.

 

Tom,

I would PM julian about as HDD system, his is nicely sorted, and your'll get an honest answer.
WM answer to the £9k for a better cdp, cobblers, if you can make a trip I'll happily demostrate against a cds3 anyday sir. Wm

 

tom,
i use a very old pentium 2 400mhz with 320mb ram and 2 x 250 gig hard drives as my server machine. this runs a programme calles slim server which streams out music to my squeezebox.
the squeezebox is a little network device that can connect either over traditional cat 5 wiring or via wireless 'b' protocol to its server (my pII machine)
the squeezebox allows remote control selection through your entire music collection without touching a mouse or keyboard (although you can use the slimserver web interface to select music from any connected computer in the house if you have a home network)
the squeezebox can output straight into your pre if you want but it's dac and psu are mediochre and an external dac is advised.
my dac of choice is the audio synthesis dax-2. this has enough punch to keep my naim nature happy but also some round earth qualities that i also enjoy however the dac will be the part that really determines the 'sound' of your 'frontend' and is therefore a personal choice.
all in it cost me about 1000ukp to put that lot together however i had the pc already. if you had a potential budget of 9k you could put together a decent 1 terrabyte server for about 800 ukp the squeezebox and server software is about 200 and i'm sure you could find a decent dac and some interconnects for under 3k at the outside (reimyo, weiss, wadia, a/s discreete, etc - go wild) so for 4k you've got a killer front end and with the remaining 5k you can buy lots of new music and go on a cruise!
oh, one of the big factors in the quality of this kind of front end is the compression format you use. i chose flac as it's lossless and totally open source so is free and has none of that copy protection rubbish just waiting to bite you in the arse as i suspect apples lossless format has. i use exact audio copy to rip and have only had problems with 1 or 2 cd's which i believe were more to do with cd manufacturing problems than deliberate copy protection measures.
if you want to come and have a listen you're more than welcome - see the link in my sig for the full run down of my kit and a picture.
cheers


julian

 

To those who think I'll get bored, don't worry. a) I'm a Virgo b) I have far too much time on my hands c) I can't cope with anything too complicated so repetitive input will suit me fine, especially if I get to catalogue it at the same time.

WM - Don't worry, I won't be getting a CDS3. What I have is just fine.

I'm just curious at how far technology has moved on and away from the traditional hunting grounds. If I can build a serious highend jukebox for less than £4k what hope is there for the really expensive CD/DVD/SACD/etc players coming onto the market. Especially if the new machines don't allow the flexibility that self compiled playlists offer.

 

Julian

Thanks for that excellent reply. The budget thing was based on the current cost of a CDS3 and just to highlight the extreme difference in costs between the two camps. I used to work in Data Management but on the traditional Archival/Records side rather than the IT side. It never ceased to amaze me that neither party where aware of the other and both were trying to reinvent the wheel as the technologies evolved. The IT guys where trying to "Archive" data without understanding anything of the subject and the Archivists were trying to apply outmoded ideas to a fast changing technology without any concept as to the opportunities being presented.

I see a similar situation developing here. The old hi-fi bunch insisting on buying more expensive (or cheap) boxes and denying the existence of newer, more flexible and cheaper media.

From my brief forays into this, the technology is out there for us to use, yet it is hidden from view.

I can see my self going down this route as soon as I have an income again and I might even sell the CDS2 to pay for it. I'm not selling the TT however

 

you party animal!

 

Tom,

Julians Squeezebox/Audio synthesis front end sounds excellent and I would definately recommend you having a go. I'm tempted to sort something out myself

Robbo

 

Another project for the new year then.

 

much simpler study setup here, stuck an extra 80 gig hard drive in my existing pc, ripped lots of mp3's (currently @ 6.39 gig, and that's 2,200 songs), itunes is the controlling software, soundcard is sonicfury, not bad, profigold i/c into cyrus 3 into pair of indigo monitors, very happy with it. not too fussed over ultimate sound quality, just background music while i work / we have dinner / we party.

1st thing when u start archiving - choose your format, and stick with it. i started with mp3's and didn't want to redo them all. having said that, i tried a flac vs mp3 vs aac, and the difference was irrelevant (at least on this setup) so have stayed with mp3's. your archive can easily be ported to another setup and mirror something more like julian's "slim server", where the file format may be more critical (the soundcard / dac is undoubtedly better than just soundcard).

 

robert,
i'd agree that there is little to call between well ripped high bitrate lossy codecs and lossless however i still went for flac as there are transcoders out there (slimserver will even do it on the fly) so if you want to convert from flac to mp3 or flac to aac you don;t loose anything. yes it means more hdd space but to be honest with 250gig for 100 quid without even looking hard it's not going to break the bank for a 1000 album system. as i wanted my jukebox to be my main source i wanted to make sure i wasn;t loosing anything at all.
cheers


julian

 

Do you think this need to catalogue one collection is an exclusively male trait? Nothing pleases as much as sorting out my private CD/DVD collection on the shelves into a nice classification. However, with the advent of electronic means it is just heaven on earth.

 

Try for a low power PC - integrated graphics so no fan noise from that, strip out all the unnecessary bits internally and in the BIOS (serial ports/printer ports). An old Celeron PC (about 400mhz+) wouldnt be bad as some of those just used a large passive heatsink on on the CPU so less noise and electrics there. Maybe just spend some cash on a good quality powersupply (reliability/noise and clean power) and sound card to push out a decent signal.
The less fancy/powerful then (usually) the less heat so you can close up the box as much as possible. If you cant find a good low Mhz solution, you could try underclocking a CPU so that it runs much cooler than its standard spec (would help longevity etc. too)

Plenty of stuff on Ebay. Socket370 stuff. Good quality PSU's from some of the overclocking specialists like QuietPC/Overclockers.co.uk

 

Does the squeezebox use tcip/ip? sounds interesting if you want the PC in another room.

Tom, If I were you I would really go OTT and get the PSU outside the box where the sound card is (or use a good external USB soundcard?) - I would do both. So you probably may want to provide some power conditioning, plus maybe a rewire of the power cables to the inside of the PC box.

Use SATA drives (far better signal integrity and way less susceptable to ineternal EMI).

Use Passive cooling where possible and also go for soft mounts for the hard disc drive cage - you are not looking at a cheap chassis! Maybe something DIY would be better. The gaming fraternity have some good ideas for passive cooling (or high end fan solutions).

Use a good optical drive (not an el cheapo from a computer fair) for reading your CDs.

Use the best motherboard you can get - I would recommend an Intel own board preferably something with a 925 chipset (for really good SATA hardware and drivers).

I can only recommend Seagate HDD's (I have my reasons)

Go with the best codec that suits you - expeirment with known recordings and dont use any compression. Dont listen to the hand held mp3 bods - they know nothing about hifi //dons flame suit//

in a nutshell - good drives- good mobo - good soundcard - maximise against EMI (even to getting the PSU as far away from the mobo as poss) - experiment with codecs. Use 2 drives (wait until after xmas and you can get 2 X 500Gb internal drives (a terrabte!) and even daisy chain 500Gb external drives !!!! (all seagate of course). Partner with relevant DAC/Amps/Spkrs.

I would be very interested in listening to the results

 

lamboy,
yup, the squeezebox uses tcp/ip so i just plug it into my router assign it an ip address and away it goes. i could put the pc in another room if i wanted to but just can;t be bothered.
one advantage you get from this is 1/2 a dac 64 - i.e. the data is read into a ram buffer and then clocked out - mainly to prevent network lag, etc. but it can;t hurt the sound either
the other advantage is that the music goes nowhere near the soundcard in my pc. as with all that electrical whirring and buzzing going on it can;t be good for the signal. also i now have zero moving components on my hi-fi racks so no vibration from spinning cd's etc...
having lived with my solution for 6 or so months i just can;t see the point of traditional cd players any more. if i want to upgrade i'll put my money into a better dac but to be honest i've not heard much that can live with the dax-2 for the money i'm willing to pay - i'm looking forward to hearing the nos dac in the new year though. although i'm dubious about passive outputs but we'll see.

lamboy - if you want to have a listen sometime pm me and we'll sort something out.

cheers


julian.

 

Tom, I have been doing the PC audio thing for years now. Initially there is inconvenience, but it doesnt have to be a sentence loading discs on to it. You can do that as you listen. Just rip a couple of dozen CDs at first and then while your playing those you can go through the rest at your leisure.

Some soundcards have very good D/A converters for not much money, but I dont know how "high end" you want, so if you do want that then I guess an external DAC will give you much more flexible options. Something like a cheapish soundcard like an M-Audio would do fine as a transport.

Then theres the choice of lossless or lossy formats. I guess if you are into real high end stuff again you would probably choose lossless. However, lossy formats are very good and can save dramatic amounts of disk space with no audible loss in quality. I am not going to try and swing you one way or another on that issue so I'll say no more about it.

Then theres software, iTunes is probably most peoples favourite for ease of use but personally I prefer Foobar - the interface is not as pretty but it sounds slightly better than iTunes and I think Foobar has most of the features most people will ever want - but it comes with a learning curve, again your choice. For ripping music, you'll want EAC for most drives, or Plextools if you get a Plextor. Speaking of optical drives, a DVD burner is probably the best bet so you can back up your ripped music. Take it from me, copying ripped CDs back to a hard drive after a crash is MUCH quicker than re-ripping them.

If your building yourself, go for a system with full passive cooling. That means going for one of those cheap Via chips or an underclocked CPU with a passive heatsink on (i.e. no fan). If you are going to underclock, then you will need a motherboard that allows you to reduce the core voltage (vcore). Then, ensure you get a motherboard with passive cooling too (no fans), a silent PSU, passively cooled video card, enclosures for the hard drive(s) and a steel case that has been damped with dynamat. You may wish to look into small form factor cases or AV HTPC cases for this use. For a music system, a small flat panel LCD monitor will be most suitable, and should be connected using a wireless keyboard and mouse. Specwise the PC needs only a modest speed CPU and probably only 256 Mb if you wish to use XP. You might want to get a bit more on the basis its so cheap though. Main thing is hard drives... big and quiet are the keys here. 250 Gb hard disks are not much more than £100 these days.

 

Yep, and try for 5400 rpm drives, if possible as they tend to run cooler and mostly quieter too. May be hard to find them at such large sizes.

Fluid bearings are the way!

The main thing I'd say is dont spend thousands to start with. You dont have to and you dont get such a good second hand trade in on PC kit if you find you dont like it. Start cheap and cheerful and go from there.

Dont get carried away.