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Chippy_boy

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  1. I suppose it doesn't hurt to stop unnecessary background processes from running - especially if it's a low powered music server. Although I have never heard a click mid-track anyway, ever, so it's not really that much of a big deal with something like a Mac Mini. And regards me saying I don't like the dac2 just because of the clicks, that's really not true. There was much about it to like and I think perhaps it did sound ever so slightly better. But overally I just didn't think it offered a £1700 improvement over what I had already. And I didn't like the clicks ;-)
  2. Depends what you do with it I guess. I used the analogue inputs on mine and would always get clicks and pops switching between digital and analogue sources. The relays are supposed to stop that, but for whatever reason whereas the DAC1 is silent in operation (after the initial switch on) the DAC2 is not. Disappointed as I was, I queried it with Benchmark who confirmed that mine was not defective and this is just how they are - rather disappointing really. Maybe they fixed it in later point revisions (I got quite an early one). Well, I use Channel D Pure Music or Audirvarna - for convenience rather than sound quality, since they allow convenient sample rate switching. Other than that, no "optimisations". All this crap that somehow by magic, you can make a digital source like a Mac or Windows server sound better by "optimising" it, is complete and utter delusion. I hope you aren't one of the deluded ones, for your sake. As I say, I didn't find any "improvement" to be worth it personally. Like many things hifi, I found the differences to be marginal, as opposed to the ENORMOUS difference the various vested interests would have us believe.
  3. I don't agree personally. I found the DAC2 slightly different yes. Not much, but perhaps a little smoother. And I liked the improved features of async USB, HT Bypass, visible word length and sample-rate display etc. But ultimately I didn't enjoy the sound any more than I enjoyed the DAC1-HDR. It was different, but not "better", so I sold it a couple of weeks back. Now back on the DAC1, I find I don't miss the DAC2 at all. And I certainly do NOT miss the horrible clicks and pops when changing inputs or switching on or off. My DAC1 does none of that, thankfully.
  4. Yes indeed. I had assumed that you were referring to the 3.5" drives since much of the discussion on this thread was about 3.5" enclosures. Apologies for the confusion.
  5. WD Black is the more performance oriented drive, compared to WD Blue or Green. WD Black 2TB and above draw around 8.1w on idle and over 10w on access. Even the smaller black drives draw over 6w minimum. The lowest power drives WD Green drives draw over 5w.
  6. So I don't understand? Really. Oh well, my mistake then. I'll resign from work on Monday.
  7. OK, not quite a flame, but borderline. I expected no better. But since I am a hifi fan of 30 years+, a physics grad and have been in IT since 82, I think I probably understand what's involved and am qualified to make my post above. But the thing is you see, it doesn't matter how much I explain to you about how computers work and how jitter is introduced and at what levels and what affects it and what does not and how DAC's remove it. It matters not at all, because your belief is a religion, like it is for countless others. So I shall say no more. It will only degenerate into a slanging match. Keep on wasting your money on useless upgrades, by all means.
  8. It isn't.. I can understand that. The cold hard truth is that since the world has very largely moved from analogue to digital as a means of recording, storing and reproducing music (prior to the amplification stage that is) the world of hifi has changed very significantly. Digital brings a new set of technical challenges. But at the same time, it eliminates a whole bunch of issues associated with analogue. One of these is variability. Digital brings - for better or worse - a consistency of reproduction, immune to the myriad of factors and external influences that affect reproduction in an analogue world. For many a hifi "buff", this is an unfortunate truth. The endless debate about whether component A sounds more "woody" than component B is, in many cases rendered null and void in the digital world. Understandably, many have a problem dealing with this. It would be a bit like all tennis rackets suddenly being identical. Tennis players used to debating which racket had more feel, or a larger sweet-spot or whatever would suddenly have a whole world or debate removed from the locker room. As well as impacting individuals, the hifi industry is similarly adversely affected. How do manufacturers now differentiate their products, traditionally sold on the quality of their sound vs that of their competitors, when all now sound identical? It's a real problem. The result is that some people, and some manufacturer even, cling to differences that are simply not there. They invent quack science to try to justify imaginary differences. And they fight tooth and nail to defend their position, often branding skeptics as being in some way inferior, or of having irrational views. "Trust your own ears!" will often be the cry, which is an irony given how poor human ears are when it comes to measuring and objective comparison. Not often will you hear "trust double blind, controlled testing". Funny that. Might it be because again and again under such test conditions, no differences can be discerned? Just maybe ;-) So my advice would be, rather than "trust your own ears", "trust your own brain". Instead of letting men with beards brainwash you into thinking that one brand of computer ram can incredibly sound better than another (don't laugh, I have genuinely heard someone suggesting that), sit down, engage your own brain and consider for yourself whether an error-checked and corrected stream of digital data can *possibly* sound better than another identical set of error checked and corrected digital data. Of course it cannot. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it if they are honest with themselves. That the two could sound different does stand stand up to even elementary scrutiny. I urge you to take the red pill. You do not have to conform to the matrix and accept the brainwashing. I expect flames and abuse for this post. That's often what happens. But people should not react like I have called their child ugly. I am simply trying to shine a ray of light, a ray of truth in fact, and get the debate back to things that actually *do* make a difference, like recording, amps, speakers etc. We don't need to debate differences in sound when no such differences exist.
  9. Thanks for the tip. I doubt it, but worth a shot - I will unplug my HT processor (that's what's plugged in to the analogues) and see how it is with no input attached. FWIW though, the point of the relays is often to avoid clicks and thumps! For Benchmark to say the relays cause the noise is pretty incredible. And as I say, the DAC1-HDR make no noise whatsoever when switching inputs (with the same HT processor attached). I think I will record the noises and send Benchmark a video to see what they think. For a £1800 DAC I am not very impressed to be honest. Sonically great, funtionally great. But not the clicks.
  10. The worst noise is powering on when the selected input is analogue. A dreadful crack comes through the speakers. It's not much better when simply switching from digital to analogue input. Basically I think Benchmark have ****ed it right up when it comes to handling of clicks, pops and other unwanted noises. They tell me my DAC2 is normal, and that the analogue input pops are caused by the relays. Well my DAC1-HDR never made any such abhorrent noises. And neither when it was switched on either. I think we are on DAC2 version 1.0 and I strongly suspect version 1.1 won't do this. Which concerns me because I feel in a few months I will have a dinosaur worth only a fraction of its purchase price. I love the features, build quality and sound. But I *hate* the clocks and pops!
  11. I prefer to look at it from a different perspective. Given that the digital output from a media player is ONLY bits and timing, anything that is going to affect the sound has to alter either the bits or the timing. Timing distortions, i.e. jitter, are not software related. They are a function of the hardware - the accuracy of the crystal oscillator, the quality of the sp-dif or USB interface etc. Nothing the software is doing or not doing can affect this. (And if you run asynch USB, or a jitter-tolerant DAC) then it doesn't matter anyway. So coming on to the bits then, the data itself. If you had bits being corrupted, a copy to a USB stick would have errors on it all the time. USB backups wouldn't work, they'd be corrupted. i.e. corruption at a data level isn't happening either. So IMHO, there is nothing any software process that are running on your media server can do, that will affect the resulting sound in any way. Pure Music and the like would probably beg to differ, but they have revenue at stake. They are hardly likely to say "our product makes no difference to the sound and you should not waste your money". And actually, they do have some nice features, like fully dithered 32-bit volume control and high quality upsampling, so there is value in what they offer. But shutting down processes, playing from memory instead of disk etc etc is a complete waste of time in my view. If you have a machine with very low hardware spec that just can't cope, then OK perhaps. But otherwise, no.
  12. The crystal itself is probably a bit shabby. And I would be surprised if they had bothered much in terms of optimising the PCB layout to minimise jitter. It's probably just thrown together I would imagine... at that price point. As an aside, quite a number of hifi DAC manufacturers (the complete DAC, not the chip) are a bit sneaky with their marketing literature. They will often wax lyrical about the wonderful jitter rejection technologies they have implemented in their latest $$$$ hifi wonder box. But when you drill down into it, often what they are referring to is what the DAC *chip* itself is doing regards jitter reduction, which would be just as valid in any old cheapy DAC with the same chipset. The Benchmark DAC2 is slightly unusual in that they have implemented their patented UltraLock, as well as the proprietary ESS Sabre 9018 internal jitter removal.
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