jf4828

Hi All, I'm moving from an Oppo BDP-105 to Emotiva XMC-1 as the center of my main system for 50% movies 50% music. I'm going to sell the Oppo but have a Buffalo 3 SE DAC with Amanero USB input that I will connect to the XMC-1 direct input. Up until now, I've been using Tidal and a directly connected hard drive on the BDP-105 and have been happy with the sound quality and remote access applications. I've been very happy with the Buffalo 3 SE DAC/Oppo HA-2 and Audirvana on my MacBook for headphone use but would like a setup that works well in the living room that doesn't involve my MacBook pro but can reach the same quality. I'm trying to minimize cost by using an existing PC as the source for the Buffalo DAC. However, the following things are important to me and I'm not sure what will work best for me: 1. Sound quality 2. Access to streaming services (Tidal) 3. Remote control via smartphone/tablet app As far as what I have to play with: i3 laptop with 1TB storage ePC with maybe 128GB drive and external USB 750GB drive Squeeze Box Classic The Buffalo 3 SE DAC I have supports SPDIF or USB. I do like my DSD so I'm leaning away from squeeze box... Any suggestions that are software based. Any additional thoughts on hardware streamers that will interface with Amanero via usb and provide excellent sound quality at low cost? Life has been busy and I feel like I haven't kept up with the latest and greatest.... Not totally against getting a Mac Mini but I'm not sure I want to spend the money without a justified improvement over something I have on hand with software. BTW, I'm a programmer and very well versed in Linux so I'm not against those suggestions. That said, I don't have much time to contribute to a half baked project, I'm looking for something that already works well. Thanks for any help!

Audiophilleo is interesting. What differences did you notice going that route vs W4S direct usb? The DAC2 was such a huge improvement for me that I can't imagine it getting much better:)

Hi, I moved from Squeezebox to Audirvana after noticing a huge sq improvement using W4S DAC2/Linkwitz Orions. Being new to Audirvana, I have a few questions: 1. Why does Direct Mode fail on my system? BTW, W4S has a proprietary USB driver..... 2. I've tried some DSD files using Audirvana's built in PCM->DSD conversion. What is the recommended algorithm? The 3 options don't have any meaning to me. Why are there 3 there anyways? I know answers may be in the thread, but I couldn't read any more to find my answers:) Thanks, Joel