My Wadia Vs hard drive

I run one of the western digital WD2500PB fluid-dynamic dearing hard disks, 250GB of fast and silent hard disk space, but no backup or redundancy.

They way I see it is we should still have the original CD's, although re-ripping does take several minutes per CD. I now take my new CD's out one to rip them, so they don't even get any finger prints on so are unlikely to get damaged at all, they are my archive backups!

regards,
Rob.

 

Lamboy

I do not know what a RAID system means. The Glyph GT308 is a hard drive module that uses 8x 250 gig firewire drives. This is where the audio is recorded to. I need at least 1500 gig for my CD collection. There is no way that I can do this on any laptop. The laptop runs i-Tunes that 'plays' the Glyph. Perhaps you can explain a little more in laymans terms what you mean if you are suggesting something different to this. Thanks

dominicT

 

It takes at least 10 minutes to rip a CD properly, no matter how fast your PC is, and if you have hundreds of CDs then I wouldnt like to re-rip them. The best way is to rip em once and back em up to CD-R or DVD-R and then copy em back on if you need em.

 

Hi Dom,

That is a serious amount of hard disc space you need!!! I am suggesting a system where your RAID storage (Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks) provides some security and fault tolerance (use a google search for RAID to get some background) is used for storage only - No actual playing should be done of audio data direct from these drives.

Use you laptop as the player - whatever audio you are playing could be copied to your laptop. This implementation ensures that you are using a cached version of whatever CD you are playing - very safe

It depends how deep you want to get into this, you may want to approach Glyph for more info (I suspect they would recommend the same implementation as me).

rgds //craig

 

That's a good point Paul about backing-up to DVD-R blanks, especially with 9GB/disk dual-layer writer upgrades apparently out over the next few months.

regards,
Rob.

 

Cheers Rob

So do you listen from your hard disk? If so is this PC or MAC, desktop or desktop, if PC which brand, and what soundcard. How does this compare to your hifi, what hifi do you have? Sorry for the questions but trying to guage others experiences.

Thanks

Dominic

 

Hi Dominic,
It's an own build PC. Intel chipset motherboard for beter timing/stability/fewer PCI card issues, Radeon 9500 graphics for DVD video playback on to a high-def projector and an m-audio Audiophile 2496 soundcard. It's in a fancy thick gold aluminium fronted DIGN case, with a two-line LCD display I've never yet used. Oh and it was a Zalman power-supply for clean, quiet volts.

It's really my only source now as I've now evacuated all kit except the DVD player and telly from the living room in to a converted garage, having a yound toddler and all that. Coax s/pdif to an m-audio CO2 optical converter on to a smooth Denon A10SE AV amp with a rather heavy torroidal transformer, driving a recent pair of Linn Keilidhs, plus a line-level feed to rather musical active SVS subwoofer.

At the moment, I've got remote control, but only track fwd/back/play/pause/volume. I don't have a good visual method of selecting albums/tracks and I tend to keep everything on the foobar200 player playlist, sorted in to year order.

I currently have to have my big projector on to see the on-screen application, because a mate is borrowing my little LCD screen. I usually prefer to have the projector off once I've decided on my 'era', I can also activate the app without screen using a remote button. In fact I often prefer to listen with the lights off too, but then again that's just me! I find it lets my mind wander more and I relax more in to the music. Trust me, you never run out of tunes and often bump in to something to enjoy that you'd forgotten you owned.

I'm looking for an album browser that I can use with left/right/up/down on my remote control and a few buttons to add tracks/albums to the playlist. The best I've seen was APEjukebox, but it was a little slow shifting pages, requires winamp and has been discontinued by it's author.

I haven't owned any truly high-end kit as I tend to prefer high performing mid-end contenders, then tweek the setup, placement, etc.

Previous to the PC, I used a Sony 725 DVD player which the late Bob Tomalski reviewed as having "incredibly low 125ns Jitter" at the time.

a good few years before that it was a Kenwood 1100SG CD player (the one down from their first transport only flagship) then in to a Deltec LittleBit delta-sigma DAC, which I think cost me about £100 in about 1992. Out through a smooth Musical Fidelity A1 amp (just about to put it on ebay tonight!).

I've heard lots of sources sound hard to my ears. This doesn't and neither did the Sony DVD.

regards,
Rob.

 

Dom, you have PM sir

 

Fluffuser, its good to see another computer audio enthusiast on the board, I've always felt heavily outnumbered on this board but now there are two of us :MILD:

 

Thanks.

The way I see it is bits-is-bits, but only as long as the analog representation is well timed and accurately presented for the DAC(s).

I think getting unbalanced optical media out of the equation changes the rules somewhat. Plus there doesn't appear to be the markup on pc gear that there is on some 'Audiophile' Hi-Fi products.

regards,
Rob.

 

Hi,

Most of this is way out of my IT know how but is certainly an area I am interested in. I have been looking at a company called Uvem. Any thoughts?


Uvem

Regards

 

Dom (T), you have a private message sir

 

Andy thanks for the tip off. Have just read about it in Stereophile and Hifi World. Seems good, has the Linn sound (which I do not like - too dry) but I am impressed that they have produced the Linn sound from a computer....until I got the price! £8000 for the drive with sound card. I can get the same system, but more flexibility for just over £4,000 with Apogee and Glyph. Of course i do not know what it sounds like yet but the basics are very similar. Very interesting stuff. Thanks.

dominicT

 

Thanks Craig. Glyph did not offer this advice but I will pick it up with them. One of the things that I want to move away from (lazy person!) is having to change CDs! If I have to copy the track that I want to listen to from the Glyph to the laptop to hear it, that would appear to be missing the point of what I am trying to do. Unless I have a 250gig drive in the laptop and copy across a whole 250 gig key from the Glyph to the laptop. Any idea how long this would take?

Can you explain what safer to do it this way means please. I do not know if you know of Glyph but they are pretty much the high end choice of recording studio multitrack audio and video storage and are considered to be very 'safe'. Being a non-technichal person I'm stuggling a bit to understand all of the issues here!

Thanks again

dominicT

 

Hi Dom,

Will you be doing any mixing on this system? This is really where the Glyph differs from just being an audio player - if you are dealing with multi tracks and lots of editing you really need a fast drive - if your just streaming music files then you dont.

Simple equation - fast drives = bloody expensive.
single room music stream = cheap as chips.

Dont let anyone sell you mega fibre channel high end 15K drives if all you want to do is listen to choons.

Looking at the Glyph web site, they seem really good - I would trust what these guys say. Just make sure you tell them your precise requirments.

hth //craig

 

Several other forums have beeen discovering the merits of using PCs with high-end pro sound cards as audiophile-quality sources for some time now. The American AVS Forum (www.avsforum.com) is the obvious one, and probably has the most information and the greatest user base. The UK AV Forums (www.avforums.com) has a fair bit on it too, as does www.avtalk.co.uk. The only tricky bit is wading through the HTPC (home theatre PC) stuff to get to the audiophile stuff. These are primarily AV forums, so most of the PC talk has to do with DVD playback and surround sound - the audiophile chatter is in the minority, but it's there. In particular, a UK chap called Branxx has done a lot of experimenting with the very best PC-based audio equipment and has come to some rather eye-opening conclusions. Search him out and I'm sure you can get a lot of info.

And I'd appreciate it if you let us know how you get on - I'm currently pondering a move from my Meridian CD player to a PC-based solution, most likely using an RME soundcard.

Dunc

 

When I first went to ripping my CD's in lossless format, the hi-fi didn't have ree space for the 3x larger files than highest quality 56Kbps MP3's I'd used before.

For a few weeks I listened to music off a networked PC on the other side of the house over 802.11b 11Mbps wireless network with no problems or ever knowing it was remote.

Oh, except I had to connect to the upstairs PC (WinXP Home to Win2000 Server in this case) before listenng (not a single remote button push!). Oh and I didn't relax because I assumed nats were getting fryed by the radio waves around thehouse and that I was slowly being made sterile.

Certainly only convenience changed when I put a big hard disk in downstairs, back to single remote button tostat the player and playback.

Lossless CD audio seems to need only 500-900Kbps (0.9Mbps) depending on the complexity of the music, so an 11Mbps or faster wireless network is fine for playback. Dire Straits and Mozart Piano seemed to be the lowest rates!

I then get fobar2000 to dither to 24-bit, apply ReplayGain and sometimes I use it's SSRC resample to 96KHz, but now usually leave it at 44.1KHz to my amp's DAC's, as 96KHz is a tiny bit smoother, but forces the amp's DIRECT mode that disables any DSP which inSTERO mode normally provide high-pass sub-bass active crossover filters for my main speakers..

You guys with swanky DAC's should be fine and may even get a lock with 88.2KHz, which is what Meridian recommend as it's a pure multiple of the source.

regards,
Rob.

 

Its nice to see PC audio getting recognition at long last, its certainly not news to me that PCs can offer a good sound, and can even do it for a reasonable cost. Be afraid, be very afraid

Be careful.

I've been a fairly active member of headfi for quite some time now, and in this time, I've seen the rise of the RME soundcards for audiophile sources. Very good they allegedly are too, but there are the beginnings of a few people coming out and addressing what they think is wrong with it. Basically, the RME is allegedly a very detailed, but also somewhat dry, unforgiving and analytical card.

It is for this reason that I personally would still recommend a good, but not too expensive card like the Audiophile 24/96 or EWX 24/96 into a good DAC. Both have good DAC chips for analogue output (in case anyone has heard of it, they share the same DAC chip as the ART DIO), forigiving and musical, and have the appropriate outputs for connection to a DAC, which gives you far many more options about how to tailor the sound.

Nevertheless, in future, I can see companies working to create some good musical sounding cards, which probably will not cost the earth.

 

If anyone has a very good CD source, DAC and playback chain near Berkshire, I'd be happy to haul an m-audio Audiphile 24/96 PC source over to listen to how it compares sometime.

regads,
Rob.

 

Aye, I will. The first step in my plan is to buy a secondhand RME soundcard and try it out in my current computer to compare it with my Meridian setup. I'll only go ahead with the rest of the plan if the RME sounds good.

Dunc