Everyone,

I thank those who have replied to my first "spinning wheels" message
regarding volume control. I now better understand the basics, and
am leaning towards some sort of passive preamp/controller/attenuator,
if needed. At a future time I may have more specific questions on this
matter.


Anyway, let me reiterate that I am a neophyte (and admittedly
borderline clueless) in the area of high-end even though I have what
some might call the "low-end of high-end" (Rotel RB-990BX/RC-990BX
amp/preamp, Marantz CD-63SE CD player and Vandersteen 2ce speakers.)

As I continue online research on the current state of high-end audio
for my next generation system, I am having trouble understanding the
various options for the audio CD playback "subsystem".

So, what is the current "majority" recommendation for audio CD
playback in a high-end/audiophile system? Is it a CD or DVD player
with a built-in DAC, or a CD/DVD transport with separate DAC?

One of the replies to my first message implied that inexpensive DVD
players now have very good internal DACs which rival high-end outboard
DACs, something which I'm sort of dubious about, but I'll keep an open
mind.

One issue of importance to me that is steering me towards the
transport+DAC approach is the merging of PC audio with high-end
equipment. I am intrigued in using a PC whose soundcard has digital
output (I assume that the digital out is compatible with audio DACs,
SPDIF?) This way, I conceivably could use the PC's CD or DVD drive as
the "transport", as well as digitally playing WAV and MP3 files, for
input into the external high-end audio system.

The one thing which makes me pause on this route relates to jitter
(and other aspects of the "quality" of the digital output from the
soundcard.) Will a soundcard's digital out have a lot of jitter and
other artifacts? And if so, does this matter anyway with the
higher-quality DACs which supposedly have jitter correction? (I only
know some rudimentary basics of jitter anyway, so pardon me if my
cluelessness really shows through here.)

A related question is if the soundcard's digital out samples will
exactly match those of the digital source, whether a CD/DVD or a WAV
file? Since I rip a lot of audio CDs, I am aware that there can be
error in reading audio CDs, so I use "Exact Audio Copy" for ripping
which has pretty good tools to figure out the exact values of the
samples should there be any reading problems -- I surmise that once a
track has been ripped using such a high-quality tool, that playing the
resultant WAV file samples will be as close to perfect as can ever be
achieved using very high quality CD/DVD transports, another reason I
am intrigued with the PC soundcard (with digital out) route.

And finally, if a PC soundcard digital out can be used as a suitable
input to an audiophile grade DAC, can this be done remotely over a
ethernet network? Or must I use special cabling? What are my options
here?

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback on this.

regards,

Gary

buy some decent plain CD player with TDA 1541 in output,listen a while,then
learn what other ppl do with their own DAC's ,and tweak it with plain
xformer output (directly from DAC);
for me-everything more is pure money burnin'-that is still just audio,not
anything bigger than life.
I listen to more then few high end CD and Transport comby's,and believe
me-nothing impressed me more than decent TT setup; for me that is fact,not
possible discussion topic. I tell ya that just for your evaluation-try to
choose only with ears,not with eyes (disregard topology,often simpler is
better - or just better compromise)

--
.................................................. ........................
Choky
Prodanovic Aleksandar
YU

"don't use force, "don't use force,
use a larger hammer" use a larger tube
- Choky and IST"
- ZM
.................................................. ...........................
...
"Gary Jensen" wrote in message
...
Everyone,

I thank those who have replied to my first "spinning wheels" message
regarding volume control. I now better understand the basics, and
am leaning towards some sort of passive preamp/controller/attenuator,
if needed. At a future time I may have more specific questions on this
matter.


Anyway, let me reiterate that I am a neophyte (and admittedly
borderline clueless) in the area of high-end even though I have what
some might call the "low-end of high-end" (Rotel RB-990BX/RC-990BX
amp/preamp, Marantz CD-63SE CD player and Vandersteen 2ce speakers.)

As I continue online research on the current state of high-end audio
for my next generation system, I am having trouble understanding the
various options for the audio CD playback "subsystem".

So, what is the current "majority" recommendation for audio CD
playback in a high-end/audiophile system? Is it a CD or DVD player
with a built-in DAC, or a CD/DVD transport with separate DAC?

One of the replies to my first message implied that inexpensive DVD
players now have very good internal DACs which rival high-end outboard
DACs, something which I'm sort of dubious about, but I'll keep an open
mind.

One issue of importance to me that is steering me towards the
transport+DAC approach is the merging of PC audio with high-end
equipment. I am intrigued in using a PC whose soundcard has digital
output (I assume that the digital out is compatible with audio DACs,
SPDIF?) This way, I conceivably could use the PC's CD or DVD drive as
the "transport", as well as digitally playing WAV and MP3 files, for
input into the external high-end audio system.

The one thing which makes me pause on this route relates to jitter
(and other aspects of the "quality" of the digital output from the
soundcard.) Will a soundcard's digital out have a lot of jitter and
other artifacts? And if so, does this matter anyway with the
higher-quality DACs which supposedly have jitter correction? (I only
know some rudimentary basics of jitter anyway, so pardon me if my
cluelessness really shows through here.)

A related question is if the soundcard's digital out samples will
exactly match those of the digital source, whether a CD/DVD or a WAV
file? Since I rip a lot of audio CDs, I am aware that there can be
error in reading audio CDs, so I use "Exact Audio Copy" for ripping
which has pretty good tools to figure out the exact values of the
samples should there be any reading problems -- I surmise that once a
track has been ripped using such a high-quality tool, that playing the
resultant WAV file samples will be as close to perfect as can ever be
achieved using very high quality CD/DVD transports, another reason I
am intrigued with the PC soundcard (with digital out) route.

And finally, if a PC soundcard digital out can be used as a suitable
input to an audiophile grade DAC, can this be done remotely over a
ethernet network? Or must I use special cabling? What are my options
here?

Anyway, I appreciate your feedback on this.

regards,

Gary

"Gary Jensen" wrote in message


So, what is the current "majority" recommendation for audio CD
playback in a high-end/audiophile system? Is it a CD or DVD player
with a built-in DAC, or a CD/DVD transport with separate DAC?

You can't find truth by means of a popularity contest.

However, integrated CD Player/DAC designs have the greatest potential for
high quality performance because they avoid the potentially troublesome
interface between the transport and the DAC.

One of the replies to my first message implied that inexpensive DVD
players now have very good internal DACs which rival high-end outboard
DACs, something which I'm sort of dubious about, but I'll keep an open
mind.

It's true. DAC quality isn't the issue it once was. DAC technology has
become increasingly digital which means that its cost will drop and
performance at a given cost will increase.

One issue of importance to me that is steering me towards the
transport+DAC approach is the merging of PC audio with high-end
equipment. I am intrigued in using a PC whose soundcard has digital
output (I assume that the digital out is compatible with audio DACs,
SPDIF?)

Been there, done that many times. It works very well, thank you.

This way, I conceivably could use the PC's CD or DVD drive as
the "transport", as well as digitally playing WAV and MP3 files, for
input into the external high-end audio system.

Been there, done that many times. It works very well, thank you.

The one thing which makes me pause on this route relates to jitter
(and other aspects of the "quality" of the digital output from the
soundcard.) Will a soundcard's digital out have a lot of jitter and
other artifacts?

That depends on the quality of the sound card. Sound cards with digital
outputs can be *very* cheap, and IME the quality of their internal clocks is
highly variable. OTOH there are some very fine sound cards with excellent
digital outputs.

OTOH, a good DAC is supposed to be able to reject jitter and provide high
quality sound even if the digital input is jitterey.

And if so, does this matter anyway with the
higher-quality DACs which supposedly have jitter correction? (I only
know some rudimentary basics of jitter anyway, so pardon me if my
cluelessness really shows through here.)

Yes, a good DAC will do an outstanding job of rejecting jitter.

A related question is if the soundcard's digital out samples will
exactly match those of the digital source, whether a CD/DVD or a WAV
file?

Again it depends on the specific sound card. Some popular consumer sound
cards resample any input to 48 KHz. The quality of the resampling is again
variable, depending on which card you're talking about.

Since I rip a lot of audio CDs, I am aware that there can be
error in reading audio CDs, so I use "Exact Audio Copy" for ripping
which has pretty good tools to figure out the exact values of the
samples should there be any reading problems -- I surmise that once a
track has been ripped using such a high-quality tool, that playing the
resultant WAV file samples will be as close to perfect as can ever be
achieved using very high quality CD/DVD transports, another reason I
am intrigued with the PC soundcard (with digital out) route.

IME EAC does an outstanding job of extracting digital wav files from audio
CDs. As does the competitive and equally-free CDEX program. The way to test
a digital extraction program is to process the same CD twice and compare the
results. Any errors will be random, so if you get the exact same results
twice, there's an excellent chance its a perfect copy of the original.

And finally, if a PC soundcard digital out can be used as a suitable
input to an audiophile grade DAC, can this be done remotely over a
Ethernet network?

Not very easily, simply or inexpensively. There are products that do this,
but frankly, dedicated digital wiring for SP/DIF is a simple, cheap
alternative.

Or must I use special cabling? What are my options here?

A good grade of copper-core RG-59 or RG-6 coax cable, particularly that
which has an excellent shield, does a wonderful job. I use Belden 1694 for
critical applications and long runs.

Everyone,

I thank Arny for his informative reply to my message. I've been doing
a lot of research of the rec.audio.* archives at Google, and have
found his many messages to be very informative and helpful. Now to
reply to his comments:


Arny Krueger wrote:
Gary Jensen wrote:

However, integrated CD Player/DAC designs have the greatest
potential for high quality performance because they avoid the
potentially troublesome interface between the transport and the DAC.

Later in your reply you mention that good DACs will have good jitter
control, so that aspect of the interface appears to be ameliorated.
Also, you mention that if high-quality shielded RG-6 coax is used for
the interface cabling, then this helps even more.

It thus seems to me that the advantage of a combined transport/DAC
appears to not be that important, so long as the separate components
(the transport or PC soundcard, and the DAC) are of good quality.


That depends on the quality of the sound card. Sound cards with
digital outputs can be *very* cheap, and IME the quality of their
internal clocks is highly variable. OTOH there are some very fine
sound cards with excellent digital outputs.

What PC soundcards (both internal and the newer external models) are
noted to have excellent digital output? What features should I look
for in a PC soundcard vis-a-vis the digital output? (Such features
would include chipsets that are used, certain specifications, etc.)


Again it depends on the specific sound card. Some popular consumer
sound cards resample any input to 48 KHz. The quality of the
resampling is again variable, depending on which card you're talking
about.

I would think that better sound cards should preserve the sampling and
bit-depth of the digital source at output, unless the user
specifically wants the signal to be resampled to something different.

So, are there any better quality pc sound cards which will digitally
output the same as the digital input without resampling (I suppose so
long as the digital input is one of the typical standards, such as
44.1K/16-bit or 96K/24-bit)?


IME EAC does an outstanding job of extracting digital wav files from
audio CDs. As does the competitive and equally-free CDEX program.
The way to test a digital extraction program is to process the same
CD twice and compare the results. Any errors will be random, so if
you get the exact same results twice, there's an excellent chance
its a perfect copy of the original.

Thanks for this advice. I never thought of twice ripping and comparing
the WAV files for errors (e.g., by comparing CRC values.)


And finally, if a PC soundcard digital out can be used as a suitable
input to an audiophile grade DAC, can this be done remotely over a
Ethernet network?

Not very easily, simply or inexpensively. There are products that do
this, but frankly, dedicated digital wiring for SP/DIF is a simple,
cheap alternative.

A good grade of copper-core RG-59 or RG-6 coax cable, particularly
that which has an excellent shield, does a wonderful job. I use
Belden 1694 for critical applications and long runs.

Fortunately, I ran professional-grade Belden RG-6 coax throughout our
house a few years ago, with two cables per room, all coming to a
central box in the basement. Since the "runs" between any two rooms
are not the shortest they could possibly be, how long of a run, with
a total of 10 connectors in the full path, can one use for connecting
a good-quality PC soundcard to a good-quality DAC before attenuation
and timing problems get to be significant? (Currently I run our analog
satellite tv signal through the house via the same system and it works
fine, so attenuation does not seem to be a problem.)


Anyway, Arny, thanks again for your reply. I look forward to yours
and others replies. I plan to separately post a reply on recommended
equipment.

regards,

Gary

So, what is the current "majority" recommendation for audio CD
playback in a high-end/audiophile system? Is it a CD or DVD player
with a built-in DAC, or a CD/DVD transport with separate DAC?

I'd wager that the majority of audiophiles haven't had opportunity to really
compare the two. The benefits of a DVD player's high-resolution DAC came
along without much fanfare. Without a doubt, a DVD player is by far the
most cost-effective solution. I like my Toshiba SD-2900, but I'll admit I
haven't A/B'ed it against other DVD players, only various CD decks in the
range of yours, some Rotels, NAD's, and Arcams, smoked them all. Not bad
for $60. If I were to upgrade I'd look at the Cambridge Audio DVD player,
although it's irritating that they only offer a model with a 5.1 channel
processor, around $350 iirc, which I would not pay unless it had a digital
input for hooking up the computer like you talk about below.

One of the replies to my first message implied that inexpensive DVD
players now have very good internal DACs which rival high-end outboard
DACs, something which I'm sort of dubious about, but I'll keep an open
mind.

I was too, but the Pepsi challenge convinced me in prompt fashion.

One issue of importance to me that is steering me towards the
transport+DAC approach is the merging of PC audio with high-end
equipment. I am intrigued in using a PC whose soundcard has digital
output (I assume that the digital out is compatible with audio DACs,
SPDIF?) This way, I conceivably could use the PC's CD or DVD drive as
the "transport", as well as digitally playing WAV and MP3 files, for
input into the external high-end audio system.

Just get a CD burner, most DVD players will play MP3's and now WMA off a
burned CD, and it saves drive space, cables strewn throughout your home, and
having to either move the computer or go back and forth every time you want
to change what's playing.

The one thing which makes me pause on this route relates to jitter
(and other aspects of the "quality" of the digital output from the
soundcard.) Will a soundcard's digital out have a lot of jitter and
other artifacts? And if so, does this matter anyway with the
higher-quality DACs which supposedly have jitter correction? (I only
know some rudimentary basics of jitter anyway, so pardon me if my
cluelessness really shows through here.)

I've got a Nomad Jukebox 3 which I use for location recording, and it's
optical input is considered "not bit-perfect" so many tapers have rejected
it as a reliable recorder. In the comparisons I made, it was off by a
sample value of one (-90dB) at an average frequency of 5Hz, well below
audible level and pitch. Jitter, which is when the pulses are in the
correct order but are not arriving at the exact time dictated by the DAC's
digital clock, is eliminated by sending the data to a buffer where it is
then sent to the DAC on a first-in-first-out basis using the same clock as
reference. It still requires a good stable clock, and the higher frequency
of DVD player DAC's (192kHz in the SD-2900, over 4x the rate of CD) offers a
major advantage towards clock stability. I suspect DVD players also
up-sample to twice the sample rate (or possibly 4x the sample rate with the
SD-2900) which minimizes the impact of any errors and enables the DAC to
render a more precise analog signal, an advantage similar to half-speed
mastering of LP's.

A related question is if the soundcard's digital out samples will
exactly match those of the digital source, whether a CD/DVD or a WAV
file? Since I rip a lot of audio CDs, I am aware that there can be
error in reading audio CDs, so I use "Exact Audio Copy" for ripping
which has pretty good tools to figure out the exact values of the
samples should there be any reading problems -- I surmise that once a
track has been ripped using such a high-quality tool, that playing the
resultant WAV file samples will be as close to perfect as can ever be
achieved using very high quality CD/DVD transports, another reason I
am intrigued with the PC soundcard (with digital out) route.

The buffering described above pretty much eliminates the need for a high-end
transport, and is present in *every* DVD player since it's a necessary
component for playing compressed audio formats such as those found on DVD's.
Generally DVD player transports are pretty beefy to begin with, since DVD's
require a higher rotational speed. Laserdisc players were known to be good
CD transpors for the same reason.

And finally, if a PC soundcard digital out can be used as a suitable
input to an audiophile grade DAC, can this be done remotely over a
ethernet network? Or must I use special cabling? What are my options
here?

Internet-grade TV cable makes great S/PDIF cable, just put RCA plugs on them
(same goes for composite and component video cables). The spec says not to
exceed about 30 feet, but I wouldn't hesitate to try up to 50' especially
with the heavy cable and the fact that the digital output on the PCI card
will probably exceed the S/PDIF voltage specs. For longer runs, repeaters
are about $35 at Radio Shack.

But like I said, I highly recommend the DVD player over a separate DAC.
Considering you can buy the SD-2900 for $60 and move it to a bedroom if it's
not up to the task or sell it for $40 even if you hate it, how convinced do
you really have to be to try it out?

Oh, and it plays DVD's too...

"Gary Jensen" wrote in message


What PC soundcards (both internal and the newer external models) are
noted to have excellent digital output?

Cards like the M-Audio Audiophile 2496, Echo Mia, Card Deluxe, LynxTWO.

What features should I look
for in a PC soundcard vis-a-vis the digital output? (Such features
would include chipsets that are used, certain specifications, etc.)

I think the major digital output sound card feature is the ability to do
"Bit perfect" output. All the cards I just mentioned qualify.

Again it depends on the specific sound card. Some popular consumer
sound cards resample any input to 48 KHz. The quality of the
resampling is again variable, depending on which card you're talking
about.

I would think that better sound cards should preserve the sampling and
bit-depth of the digital source at output, unless the user
specifically wants the signal to be resampled to something different.

Right.

So, are there any better quality pc sound cards which will digitally
output the same as the digital input without resampling (I suppose so
long as the digital input is one of the typical standards, such as
44.1K/16-bit or 96K/24-bit)?

See my previous list of recommended alternatives.