marcie

Just my 2 cents: I had really wished for an upgraded DAC chip in a product like the Black. To my mind and ears at least, the BB DSD1792 is far superior to the 1793, not just in specification but sonically as well. Perhaps it is too expensive for the retail price of the Black, particularly as there are two of them, but still. Really, it is much better than the 1793, not just with PCM, with DSD it is absolute heaven! So, how about it Mr. Loesch et al, please create the iFi "Micro Black REF" DAC featuring the DSD1792!

Interesting, but archimago doesn't mention that NOS exhibits little or no pre/post ringing which supposedly has the biggest subjective impact on sound quality. Furthermore, the TEAC's filter options (incl. NOS) all appear to be functions of BB's PCM1795 DAC chip.

@wolwgang: With your Esoteric DAC, I don't think any music streamer will better it. Only if you want network streaming would you need one, and even then I would still use the Esoteric as DAC. I'll presume you installed the Esoteric's USB driver on your computer. In foobar click on Library and then on Configure. In the next window you'll get a list on the left side. In this list click on Output. Then on the right you have a pulldown list called Device. If you click on this list you get a further list with audio devices on your system. If you have WASAPI installed, there should be an entry called "WASAPI: USB HS Esoteric" or something similar. Select this to activate it. Further down, you need to set Output Format to 24 bit. Now you will have bitperfect playback. Restart foobar and enjoy! If there isn´t an entry for WASAPI you can download it at www.foobar2000.org/components. Search for WASAPI there, download it, unzip it, and place the unzipped file called foo_out_wasapi.dll in the folder /program files/foobar/components (or wherever else you´ve installed foobar). Then start or restart foobar and activate it as described above. All this is based on your PC having either Vista or Windows 7.

It's really quite simple: if your DAC does NOT have a so-called asynchronous USB input, then sound quality is affected negatively. That's because the computer controls the digital data flow to your DAC; the digital clock of the PC is not very precise when it comes to audio (partly because it's doing many other things at the same time and partly because it has to derive the clock rate of its cpu to audio clock rates). A non-asynchronous USB input is called isochronous or adaptive USB input. These isochronous USB inputs have very high jitter levels due to timing errors. An asynchronous DAC is the reverse: here the DAC controls the digital data stream. As the DAC's clock is much more precise for audio purposes than the PC's clock, the result is very low jitter (with a good DAC, of course). Now, most DAC's (and some network music players) that have been coming on the market over the last year or so, have an asynchronous DAC. The Pioneer's DAC is an asynchronous DAC and has indeed very low jitter. I'm not sure but I don't think the Marantz has such a USB input. Now, comparing the USB input with the Ethernet input is comparing DAC mode with network mode, like comparing apples with oranges. Some network streamers that use the network interface will sound much better compared to the combination of isochronous USB and netbook. But only if the network interface has far superior jitter characteristics. Network interfaces (including those of Pioneer and Marantz although the Pio can avoid that by using the 32bit Hi-bit processing) tend to have more jitter than asynchronous USB but not as much as isochronous USB. Apart from this there's another issue, which I explained before. Assuming you're using Windows (something similar is happening with Macs), you really do need to bypass the kernel mixer that resamples all audio data before sending it to the DAC. Depending on your operating system (XP, Vista or 7), you need to install AND activate an additional plugin for foobar to bypass the kernel mixer (also kernel streamer/streaming). For XP, it's "Kernel Streaming support (foo out ks)", for Vista/7 it's WASAPI. Conclusion 1: if your Esoteric DAC does not have an asynchronous USB input, sound quality can be improved considerably. Conclusion 2: if your foobar is not bypassing the Windows Kernel Mixer, sound quality can be improved considerably.

@David&Richard: The Squeezeboxes are wonderful machines! The Touch has one of the best user interfaces ever. But... they need at least a powerful NAS to run the squeeze server properly. Sound quality is really good (the Touch and the old Tranporter) for the money but really, not in any way comparable to the Pio and such. They don't do 192KHz either, though I'm pretty sure future models will. Unfortunately, the digital output is very unstable (so much so that some DACs have trouble locking on to its digital signal), but there are add-on products and mods (for external word clocks) that fix this. By that time, though, you'll have spent as much as more upmarket machines. Still, they are quite unique and are tremendous fun, I still want one as a second machine! And I just adore the Logitech Controller remote...

@Wolwgang: You will hear a slight pause (usually a second or less) between files (tracks) if playback is not gapless. A NAS is Network Attached Storage, simply said one or more hard drives with an Ethernet connection. A NAS has its own CPU, so can work without a computer. Configuration is done through a web brower. As a NAS has its own CPU and RAM, it can run programs like mediaservers, some of which do the same as iTunes, and are in fact compatible with iTunes. The best brands with really fabulous user support are Synology and Qnap; of course there are other brands that make good NAS machines too. The advantage is clear: these machines are specialized in hard drive access through networks. You can access your music (or video) from all over the house (via Ethernet or WiFi) and even from all over the world through a NAS. You can also hook up surveillance cameras so you can monitor your house or shop from all over the world using certain types of IP cameras (a bit more sophisticated than webcams). Check out www.synology.com or www.qnap.com. So yes, you can play your music in their original folder if you transfer them to your NAS, just drag 'n' drop them from anywhere to the music directory of your NAS, using Windows or the Finder on the Mac. It's easy. Then you need to configure the iTunes server on your NAS through a web page and off you go! A NAS consumes much less power than a PC and is really specialized in hard disk network access. The programs running on the NAS are included in the price, and they can be even added just by installing them. They can be bought with one to twelve bays in which you (or your dealer) install as many hard disks as the number of bays allow. With two bays, you can use one drive for access and the other for backup, for instance. A two bay NAS, such as the Synology DS-212, can hold up to 6 Terabyte (6,000 GB). Most NAS machines have USB ports so you can hook up an external USB drive for backup or transfer of files. The Synology NAS has a separate iTunes server which supports Airplay and Smart Playlists. It has free apps for Android and Apple phones and tablets so you can control the whole thing: the music server, playback etc. Essentially with such an app you can access your music files, but also Internet Radio, choose a file to play to the Pioneer N-50 or other DLNA compatible devices (Marantz, Denon, Onkyo for instance). Pioneer has its own free mobile phone/tablet app but you can use any UPNP or DLNA compatible app to do it. This is what many computer audiophiles on this forum do! Finally, a NAS can do so much more: stream audio, video, photo to basically anywhere to any compatible device, and be a web server, an FTP server, a blog server, surveillance station, an email server etc etc. It works with PC's, Mac's, Linux, basically any networked device.

@Miska: I answered that question already in response to the first query from Wolwgang. The N-50 does not play WMA lossless, nor ALAC. I'm not aware of any that do in this price range, except for Audio/Video mediaplayers like Popcorn Hour and ACRyan etc. But they are not exactly audiophile (or Hi-Fi) players. The N-50 is a network music player first and foremost; its digital inputs is a tremendous additional facility, as it sounds really as good (and often even better) as many DAC-only devices at the same price, although this is subjective. The Pio has a high-end AKM DAC-chip, which is the same as the Esoteric's D/A converter, according to Wolwgang. Mind you, there's more to it than just the D/A chip, but still. If you don't want the DAC functionality of the N-50, I would suggest that you take a look at the Pioneer N-30 which is basically the same as the N-50 minus the DAC functionality, and significantly cheaper. FLAC is rapidly becoming THE standard for lossless storage and playback. There are many more formats (Ape, Wavpack, Apple lossless, MLP PCM, WAV 32/64, Broadcast Wav, even DTS HD, Dolby TrueHD etc etc) but only FLAC has gained universal acceptance so far. There is really no practical sonic difference between all those lossless formats apart from bit rates and multichannel capability. So, most brands go for the defacto standard that FLAC is becoming (or already is).

@Wolwgang: no, it is not limited to iTunes and you don't need any Apple hardware. I use a Synology NAS which supports Airplay through its own mediaserver. To use Airplay with the N-50, I use the Synology Nas and a control app on my Android phone and tablet (also available on iphone/ipad). There are probably more NAS brands that support Airplay. I think the Marantz can also only do gapless with Airplay. There are two things to consider here: 1. when you rip your music from CD, you'll have to rip it Gapless. If you haven't done the rips gapless, then no music player will play these files gapless. Gapless ripping is not automatic. 2. the music player has to be capable of gapless playback. Though it seems easy, it is actually not trivial at all. Many (most, in fact) network music players don't. A workaround is that you combine the separate files of a CD or download into one big file. Or use Airplay. Playback from an external hard drive is only problematic if you have a lot of files in a higher resolution than 24bit/96KHz. I would be really surprised if you have over 700 GB of 192KHz music files. Network music players that are capable of gapless playback include players from Linn, T+A and Naim, all are a good deal more expensive than the Pio. The new Stream Magic 6 from Cambridge Audio is not capable of gapless playback, but they are saying that they're working on it (not sure if they will succeed, though). EDIT: Oops, forgot. Some of the TEAC WAPs are capable of gapless playback, for instance the WAP-8600SMR. The problem with those is that it's limited to 24bit/96KHz (digital out only, analog out is 16/44.1) and jitter is generally so high that no method of jitter reduction in the following DAC would be enough. Same goes for the Logitech stuff.

@wolwgang: Music played through USB Host on the Pio is NOT output from Pio digital coax out. Lan and other sources is. Gapless can be achieved with Airplay, even if you´re using a wired LAN.

@Wolwgang: As the datastream is different between USB Host and digital coax, it could very well be that the USB host output is not transmitted to digital coax out. I will try later and report back.

@Miska: WMA lossless is PCM already, but packed like FLAC, APE, Apple lossless etc. So there´s no difference between sending FLAC, WMA lossless, or any other format for that matter. The format of the datastream over USB host is always the same.

Wolwgang: no, USB host is NOT the USB connector on the front. USB host is the SQUARE connector on the BACK. It's the same connector on a printer to connect a printer to a computer. The USB connector on the front is a FLAT connector used for memory sticks and external hard disks (but not a NAS I hasten to add). The flat USB connector on the front is limited to 24bit/96KHz whereas the square USB Host connector on the back goes up to 32bit/192KHz.

Wolwgang, the Esoteric can´t bypass the Windows kernel mixer, as it´s an internal Windows ´feature´. This always resamples the sound, but in a really bad way, hence NOT bitperfect. Normally everything goes through it, unless special software is installed typically with software players like foobar or JRiver. Even then, you´ll have to activate and/or even install (ASIO or WASAPI)it manually. The network interface of the Pio exhibits significantly higher jitter (on the Marantz and many others too, BTW). S/P-DIF and USB async (USB host on the back, it´s the square USB connector also found on printers, not the flat one on the front!) have very low jitter. Now, the Pio has a "Hi-bit processing" function that upsamples all signals to 32 bits/192KHz. This effectively reduces jitter significantly. Hi-bit can be switched off. With the Esoteric you can go two ways: NAS or PC ---> LAN on PIO ---> Pio digital coax out ---> Esoteric digital coax in **OR** PC USB ---> Pio USB Host ---> Pio digital coax out ---> Esoteric digital coax in Gapless is playing files without any interruption between files (tracks on CDs), for instance Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, live CDs and classical CDs. The Pio can do that in two ways: using Airplay or by using a PC via the USB host connection.

Wolwgang: I tried and it works fine. What you need to do is just install the N-50 USB driver, hook up your computer to the USB host of the Pio, select the Pio as your default audio device (Pioneer USB HS) and play the file. I would recommend foobar however, as it can bypass Windows kernel mixer for bitperfect results (I use the WASAPI plugin with foobar). The Pio sounds best through async USB anyway!

@david The audiostream review doesn't strike me as particularly audiophile or even hi-fi (regarding the "auto sound retriever"). Furthermore, the 32-bits hi-bit processing is not for "crappy CD's" but rather it typically reduces jitter and provides a different filter characteristic: it's a bit like an apodizing filter and sounds akin to Cambridge Audio's "minimum phase" filter or Audiolab's "Optimal Transient" filter.