fireone

Its a big step in dollar terms , but speakers are often cited as the first step in an upgrade. If my limited experience is any guide ,having listened to 3 Dacs in my system, there will be differences between the ones you've auditioned , its a question of how best to reveal them. Jcbenten also makes a good point in an earlier post re the software for playback. I don't have a Mac but all commercial windows based playback software allows for a trial period and some excellent software is free. Do you have access to a windows based computer for a trial? Third suggestion, can you take the preamp out of the chain ? Its not a criticism of the preamp , but you never know where the answer to finding a better sounding system lies .

Steady folks , its not like this was , like a hoax , or anything .

I agree with drewtt's thinking. It may be another component in the system ,like the speakers, that is masking the virtues of the different dacs. Can you borrow equipment, and experiment ?

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I've been using Jplay since version 4 , cost= 99 euro . Now up to version 5 cost = zero. That is 50 euro per version. Next version cost will be down to 33 euro. Etc. Thats what lifetime support does. Used it on AMD and intel version boards , different cpus going from athlon 955 , i5 2500k, amd zacate cpu on board. OS includes win7 32 and 64 and now server 2012 core. No crashes ever , in any of these systems, whilst using Jplay. Tweaking it to make it sound better ,yes. But crashes as in system hangs, BSOD , no music , other bad stuff ,never happens . Oh and no pop ups either. Forum on Jplay site is polite, useful , helpful and the developers answer q. rapidly. Can't ask for more from a software program really.

Archimago , thanks for engaging in the debate. Sometimes these discussions turn into a festival of personal invective , so much so that valuable information is lost in the smoke of battle. Its a refreshing change to see it remain civil. My analogy of the ct/pet scan stuff was to point out that once upon a time epilepsy was say, a sign the person was possesed by the devil . This was conventional wisdom but as new measuring machines came along, these honestly held beliefs , which now seem absurd,were dispatched when it became clear there were physical ( as in physics), biologic ,and structural reasons for epilepsy.

I respect the amount of effort you put into the article . The problem for me is that in spite of the measurements you have offered I can hear a difference between JPlay and others. Enough of a difference to spend the 99 euros . And whilst we are talking about the price you make the subjective observation that the cost is a bit steep , but the blog is advertised as " more objective ......". If the sentence about the cost had said " it is more expensive than other players " then there is no contradiction between you're stated aims and practice. So what do we make of this lack of difference between measurements and what our senses tell us? One is reluctant to offer this as a quote: There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know. Donald Rumsfeld I think audio falls into the last of these categories. We do not as yet have the capacity to measure everything. And I mean everything in the literal sense. Perhaps when we reach different conclusions about which player is different from another , the explanation is in something that we cannot measure. Yet. I think of this analogy: 100 years ago there was no such thing as CT scans, 30 years ago there was no such thing as an MRi, 20 years ago no Pet scans . Yet with each of these new investigative techniques we discover new phenomena and explanations for previously subjective things such as the experience of pain. None of us are omniscient. I prefer when it comes to audio to keep an open mind because it involves an interaction between what can be measured with oscilloscopes and what can't i.e whats going on with my couple of neurons. Also as a general observation , I don't understand the endless splitting of hairs when it comes to software players when they are free to try . This is a fine example of free market economics , the products are all there for us to try , nothing hidden in the fine print. I like it , I buy it. If I dont like , I spend my money elsewhere. Maybe in time I will discover that my decision to buy Jplay will have been a trick I played on myself , we'll see . I believe I am financially prudent , but maybe I'm wrong . meantime I 'm enjoying my system very much which includes my so called steeply priced bit of software.

The win7 64 bit environment is stable and more than capable of doing the sort of work you're planning. Ripping to different formats wether it be Flac or otherwise is quick easy and worth a comparison on your own system. I would strongly recommend auditioning an Nad m51 preamp/Dac as a possible replacement for the auraliti/ Metrum combo . Cables have made little difference in my setup but others experience different results.

One reason you may not be getting any replies is that mid conversation you disappeared from the thread , for my part, having spent the best part of an afternoon trying to find a solution for you. In my book that doesn't sit well . There may be good reasons why that happened but those of us who tried to help you earlier had no way of knowing what was going on when you left mid sentence. More objectively. whats also happened is that momentum is lost ,at least for me. when the thread was running hot all the facts were to hand , we had the problem mulling in our heads. Now its all gone . I've forgotten the script in other words.

Just out of curiosity I looked at your photos again and assumed the big red circle is somewhere near the cpu . Then I googled " buzzing from CPU " and low and behold there are pages of results and where a solution has been found ,its causes are manifold. I was surprised by this because to generate a sound ,something mechanical must be vibrating and there don't seem to be many parts that could potentially move or vibrate around a cpu.

Having built myself a CAPS 2 like server and very pleased with the results , if I had to do it again , I would first ask myself what playback software do I want to run and then buy/build the machine around that decision. Its not the perfect analogy but if I want to play the computer game Battlefield 3 , as I did , the gaming rig was built with that in mind. I didn't follow that logic for the music server but luckily it turned out very well anyway.

Might be worth double checking, just went to the OWC site and the 2010 models seem only upgradeable to 8gb as mwheelerk suggested. There is a link there that has a guide showing how to identify the model of mac mini.

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Hi again Michael, Backup for a music server is, I think ,essential given the amount of time it takes to setup the software especially the music files. Here is a link in which PC based setups are discussed in detail. A lot of it is beyond my understanding Specification for a high end dedicated audio PC? | Computer Audio | Forum | JPLAY - hi-end audio player for Windows I stand corrected, but I think external drives are recommended because you create physical distance between the different PC components and reduce the potential electrical noise they may create by being in close proximity

Hi Michael, In another forum this was recommended by one of the designers of playback software. OWC MEFW934FWU2 Mercury Elite Pro Oxford 934... in stock at OWC. He uses it in his system .