Computer Audiophile

Hi Turboglo - thank you very much for the professionally worded post here. This is the kind of feedback that is needed to move this wonderful hobby of ours into the next phase of great sound. This site is 100% dedicated to all levels of computer audiophiles. One of the many reasons I founded this site is because music servers can deliver such great sound quality and they actually are easy to setup & use.

You are correct about the large communication gap between those very schooled in computers and those a little less learned. I think one of the major problems causing this is the lack of civility in most Internet forums. People are so hesitant to offer much information for fear of a sophomoric attack from another reader. I think it will take people a little while to get used to the fact that we don't have any of that around here. I like to think this is the friendliest forum on the Internet. This hobby is supposed to be enjoyable and nobody likes those who take the fun out of it.

Your point about the computer savvy readers who post to show off is a good one. What I have found is those people really don't know what they are talking about. It takes a very in depth understanding of something to be able to teach someone else in terms they can understand. Most often people who claim to know a great deal, and post comments that don't really answer the question, don't know as much as they think they do.

For the most part everyone on this site who responds to questions has good intentions. I've had conversations with many of them offline and found them to be very down to earth people.

When it comes to getting a question answered I think the impetus is on both the original poster and those offering answers. For example, if someone simply asks "What is a NAS?" but they receive answers that don't really help them, they should keep asking and tell the responders what level of information they are looking for. Some people are happy with the explanation that a NAS is just a hard drive that plugs into a network. Others want to know what NAS stands for and the origin of the product. Yet both people could ask the same question "What is a NAS?"

More than one person has suggestion that we need a glossary around here and it is something I am really considering. The one thing that holds me back is that this information is readily available from places like Wikipedia. After reading your post Turboglo I now understand that the Wikipedia answer is not going to help a beginning audiophile. People need real world answers with examples of how something works in their system. I guess I have a little project on my hands :-)

Anyway, thanks again for posting such a well worded suggestion. Keep asking questions around here or feel free to email me personally if you're not getting what you are looking for.

Post it - I'll read it for sure. Sounds like a great name for a thread too!

Hi Turboglo,

Welcome to the forum.

This forum very young. There are individual threads on HeadFi that probably have more posts in them than this entire community has.

As a consequence, if you have a specific question, the chances are very good that there is no post here yet with the answer, let alone one written by someone who has that right touch of writing style and depth of knowledge that lights up a post that whispers to you "HERE is the answer you seek".

Like you, I look for answers on forums all the time and rarely ever post anything. Generally, I don't have to. Fifteen other guys have had trouble with the same #&^%& problem that I have and know exactly what kernel parameters to put in my boot loader, or whatever. In get my answer and go on my way.

This isn't that kind of forum. Here, you've got to interact with the natives, which is one of the reasons I like this forum actually. It's a bit more of a social thing, but without often degenerating into idle chat.

With that in mind, just ask - and if somebody slips into babble, just say "Dude, what ARE you saying?!"

From your post, it sounds like you are well on your way to listening to and hopefully enjoying computer-provided audio. When you get your DAC, there should be instructions, which generally boil down to "plug one end of the thing into your computer and the other into your stereo system and turn it on". Sometimes, but not always, you might have to install a driver from a disk the manufacturer gives you. Then you play music with whatever music player you feel like. It's generally that simple, and it usually (cross your fingers) actually works.

The level of maturity of this industry segment is such now that for beginners with relatively simple aspirations, stuff pretty much just works. Once your aspirations start to grow, it's uncharted territory. Then you'll be on the same slippery ground as the rest of us ;-)

I'll welcome you to the forum with some unsolicited and possible unnecessary advice about computers. (Which may come in handy here later). Free advice, mine particularly, is of course worth... well, you know.

There are basically three kinds of computer systems on the market, distinguished by the operating system software they use. There are Open Source systems like Linux and BSD, which are finicky and frustrating but are morally commendable. You may need to encounter them enventually when you advance to the point of wanting a centralized music server, but they are poor choice for a player for you now because drivers for your hardware are likely not to be available.

Then there are the commercial, proprietary systems - Windows and Macintosh. (Side note to nerds: Yeah, I know I'm glossing over the fact that Macintosh is partly open source. I'm pretty sure this guy could care less at this point.) You will use one of these systems. It really, REALLY doesn't matter which one. They both work, They both have good and bad points for audio. They both are sold by companies that do really bad things in the marketplace and they both are frustrating as hell. When you simply want them to do something, they either simply won't do it or won't do it simply.

The common thread is that all computer systems are frustrating, especially so when you are trying to do stuff that's new and groundbreaking with them. They frustrate beginners. They frustrate professionals. It's just their nature. You're not at all alone. Everybody here faces the same challenge - to beat the machinery into shape so we can listen to some music on it. And everybody needs to vent once in a while :-)

Cheers,

-Carl

Thanks Carl. I like your comments about the bad behavior of Apple and Microsoft. If I was more morally upstanding myself, I would force myself to learn Linux, but for now I'm shackled to Apple.

So now that I've got everyone's attention, and I've gotten everyone's permission, I'm going to try to get some questions answered. Here goes:

I've ordered an Altmann Attraction DAC. It's a funky contraption that's basically an electronic board glued to a piece of wood, connected to a car battery. Not pretty, but it's gotten rave reviews from some audiophiles I trust.

My plan is to start out using my MacBook to run iTunes. I will connect to the DAC via Toslink. I know that some people find the optical connection to be inferior, but Charles Altmann says that through his DAC, it sounds great. So that's how I'm going to start. (If I want to experiment later, I'll probably go the USB route and buy something like the Empirical Audio Off-Ramp Turbo2, because the Altmann does not have a USB input.)

Right now I have a dedicated home theater in my basement and a Lynksys wireless router hooked up to a DSL modem in a different room in the house.

The issue of storage and backup is where I start getting really confused. What kind of storage (what the heck is RAID?), where to place it, how to rip CD's and upload them onto the external hard drive, and how to later access the files?

Eventually, I'll probably get a dedicated Mini for the music room, but for now I'll be using my MacBook. So let's say I'll be using the MacBook and iTunes to rip CD's in AIFF format or Apple Lossless. So now the file is sitting in my iTunes library that's located on my internal hard drive. Now what!? Can I have my external hard drive(s) located in another room and upload the file through my home network? How would I hook all that up? Would it be best to just have the hard drives sitting in my music room connected directly to the MacBook (via Firewire or USB?) What about backup? Can I have something like Time Machine/Time Capsule do it automatically? Is there a reason to get rid of the Lynksys and buy an Airport Extreme base station?

Please be gentle on me.

P. S. As I was writing this, I got Airdronian's latest post. Thanks. It's nice to know that there are some merciful IT folks out there!

Alright it's time for some answers, or maybe just opinions based on experience and knowledge.

Your choice of DAC and using the Toslink input is a great start. Who knows you may be totally satisfied with the sound and won't need an upgrade. You will need a mini-Toslink to standard Toslink cable to use the optical output on your MacBook. That's what I use when I am testing optical DACs. Here is a link to the product page, the bottom two are the mini to standard cables http://www.monstercable.com/productdisplay.asp?pin=790 .

The issue of storage and backup is a huge one that many audiophiles don't research enough. If you haven't read the articles I wrote on the audiophile music servers (CA01 - CA04) I recommend them. There are storage options listed in each one. A better article to start with is my article about storage from simple to grand. Here is the link http://www.computeraudiophile.com/node/178 . I'm sure it won't answer all your questions, but may help a little.

There are so many options when it comes to storage that one simple recommendation is impossible. Let's start with some basic audiophile concerns. Sound produced by the disks is a major issue for some people, including myself. If sound isn't that big of a deal storage becomes much easier. You can attach an external hard drive solution directly to your MacBook and be done with it. What you do then is move your iTunes Music Folder location through the iTunes preferences to this new external disk. The music just resides on this disk as if it was internal, no real difference.

I opt to have my storage outside of my listening room so I don't really care if my storage is as loud as a Gulfstream Jet (little exaggeration). There are a few ways to accomplish this. If your router has a USB port that works with disk, you can take that same external drive discussed above and connect it to the router. Then just change your iTunes Music Folder location to this location and you have what is called a NAS drive. Network Attached Storage. I use more of a traditional NAS system. My external drives have an enclosure with a network port. I just connect a network cable from my NAS enclosure to an open Ethernet port on my router. I think I get better performance this and I am not tied to a router with a USB port.

In my opinion RAID is the way to go if you are serious about this. Redundant Array of Independent Disks. You can use anywhere from two to "a lot" of disks with RAID. RAID1 is the simplest to understand. You have an external hard drive enclosure like the Western Digital MyBook. Inside it has two disks. With this in a RAID1 configuration you would only see this as one disk and be able to use the capacity of only one disk. Internally the disks are mirrored so losing one of them is no big deal. You can replace the bad drive and they will synchronize once again. RAID5 is what I use on my NAS. This requires three or more disks. I use a five disk enclosure and have my RAID5 array use all five disks. The disk appears as one huge drive on my Mac. Internally the NAS unit stripes the data across all five drives, but does so in a redundant way (parity). If I lose one of the five drives, the other four drives contain the information that as on the lost drive and my music plays on like nothing happened. When I replace the bad drive the data that was on that drive is copied back to the new drive automatically. RAID5 allows you to use more of your disk space than RAID1. RAID1 use half of your disk to create the mirror. RAID5 only consumes one-third of your disk in this three disk scenario.

Backup - To be honest with my RAID5 array I don't use any backup. I will take the risk of losing two drives at once or losing the whole NAS unit. I have the physical CDs for much of my music anyway. The downloaded albums I have I try to make copied on my internal drive which is backed up with Time Machine. When the number of downloaded albums becomes very large I may burn DVD data discs of everything or look into something additional for backup. I'm really not that concerned about it though.

I will stop here for now. I'm sure I missed a few questions and answered a few you didn't ask, but we'll keep the discussion going until you don't have any questions left in the tank :-)