why is Computer playback so expensive?
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sergeauckland
pfm Member
The SBT can be used with local storage, or more conveniently, just pulling data from a PC and HD elsewhere on the network at home. One's normal home PC can be used, with either its internal HD, or better an external HD which can be backed-up.
The cost then, is around £200 for the SBT and perhaps £50 for the external HD assuming there's already a home PC and wireless router.
S.
You can use almost anything as a 'digital transport' - even your 'phone with a suitable dock. However, everything else in the system is very sensitive to broad-spectrum interference - particularly the clock in the DAC. Timing errors and jitter produced by transports also result in characteristic differences between CD transports, computers and streamers.
So, yes: you can take a stock dock or computer, and it will play music through its headphone outputs, or via a soundcard or off-board DAC. The more serious you are about doing this properly, the more careful you need to be about the specification of the power supplies, shielding and vibration dampening, and the more choosy you have to be about clocking and everything in the local playback environment.
As the poster above notes, you can start with a basic computer and apply some common sense modifications, or follow best-practice 'recipes' such as those found at Computer Audiophile, or here:
http://www.itemaudio.co.uk/media_server_pc.html
As you start to specify higher quality components (particularly power supplies), the cost starts to rise: the CAPS machine linked above will cost you more than £700 to build using a bog-basic PSU: £1000-1500 if you want to power it cleanly.
It's perhaps easier to see now why the Aurender, which was developed from the ground up using mainly proprietary parts (not an off-the-shelf, mass-produced motherboard with its many, many problems for audio use) - and multiple bespoke power supplies - could rack up production costs.
It's exactly like buying a new car: you can get a perfectly serviceable runabout for £8-10K. You can get a very nice SUV that will do a bit of everything very well at double the speed limit for £35-40K. You can get a great used family car for less than £5K.
But a Lamborghini, which is full of massively 'over-engineered' hand-made parts, and doesn't carry more than a bag of golf clubs, or more than two people, and is as uncomfortable as heck - and will be ruined by speed bumps - costs £150K+. A Lamborghini is designed to do just one thing very, very well. The Aurender is like a Lamborghini in that regard.
So, yes: you can take a stock dock or computer, and it will play music through its headphone outputs, or via a soundcard or off-board DAC. The more serious you are about doing this properly, the more careful you need to be about the specification of the power supplies, shielding and vibration dampening, and the more choosy you have to be about clocking and everything in the local playback environment.
As the poster above notes, you can start with a basic computer and apply some common sense modifications, or follow best-practice 'recipes' such as those found at Computer Audiophile, or here:
http://www.itemaudio.co.uk/media_server_pc.html
As you start to specify higher quality components (particularly power supplies), the cost starts to rise: the CAPS machine linked above will cost you more than £700 to build using a bog-basic PSU: £1000-1500 if you want to power it cleanly.
It's perhaps easier to see now why the Aurender, which was developed from the ground up using mainly proprietary parts (not an off-the-shelf, mass-produced motherboard with its many, many problems for audio use) - and multiple bespoke power supplies - could rack up production costs.
It's exactly like buying a new car: you can get a perfectly serviceable runabout for £8-10K. You can get a very nice SUV that will do a bit of everything very well at double the speed limit for £35-40K. You can get a great used family car for less than £5K.
But a Lamborghini, which is full of massively 'over-engineered' hand-made parts, and doesn't carry more than a bag of golf clubs, or more than two people, and is as uncomfortable as heck - and will be ruined by speed bumps - costs £150K+. A Lamborghini is designed to do just one thing very, very well. The Aurender is like a Lamborghini in that regard.
Cereal Killer
432
No it isn't. they have nothing in common except both being ubber luxury ... items.
Also in a lambo I'd look cool, standing next to a computer with VU meters on it, I'd look like a cock!
Also in a lambo I'd look cool, standing next to a computer with VU meters on it, I'd look like a cock!
They have in common: a no-compromise, no expense spared production ethos and a single, pure ambition: in the case of the Lamborghini to go very fast; in the case of the Aurender to be the best possible computer transport. They're both expensive because they're made in small quantities very well.
Evidence for this can be found in the lab test and review in this month's HiFi News.
Personally, I think it's regrettable that the car is a status symbol. It's ridiculous that audio equipment is.
The VU meters are digital, incidentally, and turn-on-and-off-able.
TheDecameron
Unicorns fart glitter.
Its the latest kerchiiiing operation mounted against flush audiophools, thats why. 
How old are you?
If past 50, I'm afraid you're going to look like a cock in the Lambo too...
Sorry...
Re-Joyce
... Jason H that is.
Cereal Killer
432
Now I want a PC with VU meters... Nice fat ugly old McIntosh types: One marked
and the other
In my smegma-stained parka I would be AWESUM!
Fox -- aged 13 (and 3/8ths)
shrink
pfm Member
i use an apple TV1... and it works well.. the ipad interface to control it is sublime and is one of the nicest ways to address my music collection. But....
it doesnt sound as good as a decent cd transport into the same DAC. So its clearly not a sonically ideal solution. we're not talking night and day differences, but just a slight lack of focus and clarity that could drive you nuts after a while, when you start listening every time for what you're missing.
In this case, a humble cyrus CDXT was able to outperform the ATV1
id like to stick with a digital music collection, as I have my whole collection ripped losslessly, But need to find a better way to do it, and still have a nice interface.
it doesnt sound as good as a decent cd transport into the same DAC. So its clearly not a sonically ideal solution. we're not talking night and day differences, but just a slight lack of focus and clarity that could drive you nuts after a while, when you start listening every time for what you're missing.
In this case, a humble cyrus CDXT was able to outperform the ATV1
id like to stick with a digital music collection, as I have my whole collection ripped losslessly, But need to find a better way to do it, and still have a nice interface.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
The ATV has really high jitter, ( whether you believe it audible is another question) you would be better to place the Mac next to the amps and use an iPod/iPad as remote.
Keith.
Keith.