soundbridge and such

a couple of questions...

I saw the thread on usb connections...

Anyone tried one of these? It connects to your computer or directly to internet radio via a wifi router.

Is any information lost in ripping cds into music files like mp3? If not, wouldn't connecting to music files on the computer blow any transport or cdp out of the water? no moving parts, etc...

Cheers

 

Information is lost in MP3 format, thats how they get it so small.

But you can rip to a lossless format like FLAC or MonkeyAudio which get it to about half normal size.

I think the main differences in transports are not the reading device like the CD-rom (most use an off the shelf unit) or the hard disk, though. It is more to do with the accuracy of the 'clock' (times the read out of the data) and how clean the power supply to each component is.

In a computer the PSU is pretty noisy. Not just that but the entire environment of a computer is electrically noisy. The solution to this is to use an external sound card or 'audio interface' with an external PSU. But most are still not on the level of a dedicated high end CD transport designed for the job from scratch.

I have considered modifying my Edirol FA-101 by adding a better 'clock' and a highly filtered and regulated power supply(s) for the important components.

 

Thanks Tenson. Sry if my questions seem obtuse, I'm still new to all this.

So FLAC for example +not supported by the product I named, but anyway+ in the wifi setup, the digital info should be passed to the router, the router passes the signal wirelessly to the soundbridge, which converts the signal to analogue directly or passes it on to a DAC. When does computer noise become a problem, in ripping the cd or in transferring info to the router?

 

I think the Roku now supports FLAC with its latest software, but not natively.

Have a look at the Squeezebox: http://www.slimdevices.com

I have reviewed other alternatives here: http://www.audiofi.co.uk

 

The computer noise in that case would be the SoundBridge itself. It is basically a little computer. It also has a wireless transmitter and receiver that will put noise out and it must get in to the audio related components / signal to some degree. If you put a sensitive radio near a squeezebox you can often pick up a bit of hubble-bubble noise.

The main issue with this sort of thing, like with an external sound card, is the power supply where in a relatively cheap product they don't put much effort in to separating the lines for the analogue audio components, digital ones and the computer related side.

There is something called an SB+ which is available in a 'digital only' option where there is a lot more attention paid to this sort of thing and I think that is probably the best thing to go for if you are using the computer as a wireless transport.

Like I said though, I think the main differences between transports are from the PSU and clock. So assuming that is all the same, I don't see why a computer or CD transport should sound very different just because one uses a hard disk and the other a CD drive.