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Digital music help please

J

Jim

pfm Member
I have looked at dacs, music servers and all manner of things and still can't make my mind up what to do. What i want is to rip some cd's and download some high res. files and play them back bit perfect. Want to make sure it can at least output to 24/192 (when they become available) and possibly have asynchronous usb. I prefer it all to be in one position with my hifi and not from another computer in another room.
 
I use a Mac-mini, along with a DAC, with my iPad as a remote control. The mac & dac live in the hifi rack in my listening room. One of the good points of the Mac is that it is pretty near silent in operation so no fan noise etc to interfere with the listening. I ripped my cd collection in AIFF & have downloaded a few hi res albums. All pretty easy to use & manage, even for a mac- newbie.
I have a Young DAC which I think is blooming great which has asynchronous USB.
I have the Mac hdmi'd to the tv so I can use it as a monitor when needed.
I'd say that's a reasonable place to start. I used to have a Naim CDX2 but since going to a Mac/DAC I haven't missed it at all.
Matt.
 
I have HP laptop running Win 7. I use JRiver 16 with a hi face into a Musical Fidelity M1 Dac. I play up to 24/192 resolution. It's a fairly modest set up but the sound can be stunning. I've recently downloaded the JPlay plug in as a trial and it has further improved the sound quality.
 
Thanks for the replies. What do you use as storage? Do you play from your laptops hard drive?
 
Del monaco what is the Hifacefor ? The laptop will have usb to connect to the M1 dac won't it.
 
Hi,
I use a powered USB hard drive for storage. The hi face is to convert the USB to spdif in order to play high res music. The USB input on the Dac only plays up to 16/48.
 
manicatel said:
I use a Mac-mini, along with a DAC, with my iPad as a remote control. The mac & dac live in the hifi rack in my listening room. One of the good points of the Mac is that it is pretty near silent in operation so no fan noise etc to interfere with the listening. I ripped my cd collection in AIFF & have downloaded a few hi res albums. All pretty easy to use & manage, even for a mac- newbie.
I have a Young DAC which I think is blooming great which has asynchronous USB.
I have the Mac hdmi'd to the tv so I can use it as a monitor when needed.
I'd say that's a reasonable place to start. I used to have a Naim CDX2 but since going to a Mac/DAC I haven't missed it at all.
Matt.
Click to expand...

Glad your enjoying the Young DAC
 
Dedicated netbook (£160) into DAC (£600 for MDAC) using mediamonkey (free) to play the tunes and dbpoweramp (free for 30 days?) to rip the CDs. Use FLAC files at low compression and store it on the netbook with an external drive for backup
 
NAS to squeezebox to DAC.

NAS: Potentially unlimited storage, in RAID for safety (though best to keep a nack up HDD off-site). QNAP & Netgear allow software from Logitech etc, or UPnp via Twonky.

Squeezebox: simple, straight forward to use. Great sound as transport, pretty good with inbuilt (24/96) DAC

DAC: The choice is yours, though I wonder about the more expensive firms using the same chipsets as Cambrisge Audio etc..
 
Jim said:
I have looked at dacs, music servers and all manner of things and still can't make my mind up what to do. What i want is to rip some cd's and download some high res. files and play them back bit perfect. Want to make sure it can at least output to 24/192 (when they become available) and possibly have asynchronous usb. I prefer it all to be in one position with my hifi and not from another computer in another room.
Click to expand...

Start with a basic iMac, - cheaper than a laptop, less clutter than a mini, can have a huge hard disk fitted internally, nice and simple to use, and with a high re-sale value.

Go on from there.

JC
 
The dac of course is important and with so many about its very difficult to choose. Found this one which looks promising and not a bad price too. What do you think of the specs?
 
I am not keen on running a computer laptop as a server as they are fundamentally weaker than desktop systems. A desktop can use two hard drives, one for the system and the other for the music or films. The data hard drive can be easily backed up.
 
The dac looks very interesting, though there seem to be teething problems with the usb input. The dacmagic plus may be a good alternative and HRT seems to have a good rep.
 
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