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Nels Ferre

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  1. Hi All,<br /> <br /> Cookie hit the mail on the head as far as Walmart and iTunes. Something was missed however. Although I am aware of Cookie's work, I have never met her, or heard any of her recordings to date.<br /> <br /> HD Tracks was brought up as a pricing example. Comparing HD Tracks to Blue Coast is like comparing apples and oranges. HD Tracks is better compared to Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs or Speakers Corner. These companies license recordings from the record company that owns the master tapes. The cost of recording the music is usually borne by the artists themselves, and is deducted from royalty payments. Examining the costs, I recently downloaded The Kinks Misfits in 24/96 for $15.99. I own two other versions of this album, both on LP, the original Arista pressing that I probably paid $8 for and a Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs copy that was probably $17, purchased back when $17 for an LP was considered outrageous. It is still the best sounding version I own, with the HD Tracks version a distant second. <br /> <br /> Cookie's operation is a horse of a completely different color. She can't expect the artists to pay the costs associated with recording , which can be substantial. As Chris pointed out, quality recording gear is not inexpensive. Then there is the know how. One may have the all the "right" gear, but without the skills and talent to get the most out of it, it is useless. Look at most of the new music today- all state of the art gear, but the recordings, for the most part, sound like crap. Cookie also won't sell large numbers of these recordings, so each recording will have to cost more. It is simple economics. <br /> <br /> What gets me is that people say they want high quality (insert recordings, gear, food, whatever.) Then they see the price and go "Whoa!" As Chris said, its not like she has a MacBook in her basement. (I'm paraphrasing here.) It s simply not realistic to expect new (not reissued) high rez recordings to be anything close in cost to the MP3 quality recordings from the iTunes store.<br /> <br /> I'm putting my flame retardant suit on now.<br /> <br /> Nels<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
  2. Chris, Thanks for the reply- I was concerned that the Airport Express seems locked down to sharing printers only. If Airport Express works with Droboshare, then I am in business, at least as soon as I buy some new gear. Your comment about going to 802.11N is correct, I thought of that as well, but to correct it would mean purchasing 2 new generation AE units. I'll think on this a bit more. I may just get one current model Airport Express for now, and upgrade my existing unit later. One more question- how will iTunes work with a NAS setup (knowing where to find the files to playback or to send ripped files to the NAS?) How do I set that part up? One last thought- will my iPhone reduce the speed of the network (assuming I upgrade my existing Airport Express) when using it as a remote for iTunes? Nels
  3. Chris, Sorry to butt in here, but your idea may not work. I have a MacBook (Leopard 10.5.6) and am running my KECES DA-131 DAC via Toslink. When I tried to do what you suggested (in MIDI Setup) it said my Audio Device was not adjustable. All of the adjustments are grayed out. It seems to be totally plug and play, with no user adjustment necessary (or possible.) Nels
  4. Hi All, I got tired of worrying about constant backups and outgrowing my external hard drives, so I picked up one of the first generation Drobo units on closeout. I still have do do backups, just in case the Drobo unit itself goes bad, but I now have 1.8 TB of available space so I am not really concerned about outgrowing it any time soon. I really like it, except for one thing- fan noise. My home uses the previous generation A/B/G Airport Express for wireless connection to our MacBooks. If I purchase an additional Airport Express to use an an extender, and buy a Droboshare to plug into that (in a remote location) and plug the Drobo into the Droboshare, will this allow me to move the Drobo out of the listening room? Are there any better/less expensive solutions? Thanks, Nels
  5. This may be wrong, but I thought iTunes dropped the ability to pass an HDCD signal after Ver. 6.4?<br /> <br /> Four OS on one machine? That's flat out sick! And here I was proud that I can dual boot on my MacBook.....<br /> <br /> <br />
  6. Hi, A couple of thoughts: The reason you cannot find an Entech Number Cruncher DAC is because Monster Cable (the parent company) discontinued the line long ago. The line was manufactured IIRC from 1996-1998. I bought the upscale 205.2 on Ebay last year for $89 just to see if I would like the whole computer audio experience. I just sold it last week. My recommendation, just a few dollars out of your price range, would be a KECES DA-131.1 24.192 DAC. KECES have just upgraded from the DA-131 that I bought, by making the voltage switchable from the rear panel for international use, and by changing the output ICs (which I did do no mine- it makes a huge improvement.) It works wonderfully with my MacBook. If you are interested, do a search on Audio Circle or Ebay. (Chris, I hope it was OK to refer him elsewhere for additional information.)
  7. Hi All, I have spent a lot of time listening to my music collection through my wife's Macbook (as opposed to by Dell PC) and I far prefer the sound with the MacBook. My Dell works correctly, but is aging, and My wife's office was supposed to be furnishing her with a new Macbook Pro, but that looks like it is still a good bit in the future. There was a good deal last night at the Apple refurbished store, so I took the plunge and bought my own. What I bought was a 2.16 processor 1 Gb RAM, 160 GB Hard drive Black Macbook for $999. (I hate the white ones.) I already found a great deal on ram, so I am upgrading that myself to 4 Gb. I also bought a Mini Toslink to Toslink cable to connect to my KECES DA-131 DAC. This brings up a couple of questions. I'll still need to use Windows XP for a couple of applications, one for work (logging into the office software from home) and also for streaming movies from Netflix. I was going to get Parallels, but then I remembered that Bootcamp comes included with Leopard (my wife has Tiger.) If I boot into XP (once everything is set up) will the optical audio output work? I would hate to have to switch back and forth between optical and USB depending on if I am listening to music or watching a movie. I want to use the optical connection to take advantage of higher resolution music files as the KECES will decode up to 24/192, but if I have to throw my Trends in the mix for USB/SPDIF conversion, that knocks me down to 24/48. Also, is it worth the money to buy Parallels, or will Bootcamp work just fine? I figure I'll have enough memory to go the virtual machine route if it is that much better. This computer will be used for more than just music and movies. It will be used for word processing (reviews) and I will need some sort of financial program (the reviews on Quicken for Mac are bad) I have been using Microsoft Money 2005 and it works fine. Any advice or opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Nels
  8. Hi Paul, Tri Vista..nice. It is, as you know, tubes and solid state both, a hybrid. My preamplifier is a Sonic Fontiers SFL1 Signature, also a hybrid. This week a totally tricked out all tube preamp will be showing up. We will see how it fares. I totally understand what you are saying about the sound quality differences in your comparison tests. I experienced basically the same thing, but I think there is more going on. With Foobar, I found I was experiencing listening fatugue and could not listen to digitally stored music for long periods of time. I would listen for a bit and turn to vinyl to get my fix. I did not realize what was going on, but downloaded iTunes on a whim, and heard the difference right off. I did some A/B stuff with my wife, and she preferred iTunes as well. I can, and often do, have my PC Audio front end running for 12+ hours now, something I could not do with Foobar. My experience concerning connection methods mirrors yours: coax is the way to go. Nels
  9. Paul, A couple of comments: 1. If you are running with the Trends unmapped in Foobar, Steve Nugent recommends Direct Sound instead of ASIO. 2. As far as your comments re: the sound of the Trends unmapped in iTunes vs. Foobar and ASIO, you have added strength to my belief that there is more difference in sound quality between players than there is in WAV/AIFF vs. lossless ripping and storage. I found that the Foobar (and J River Media Center) sounded a bit cold and sterile as opposed to the iTunes, which has a bit more body. I also plan to ditch the Windows setup in a few months and go to a MacBook anyway, so iTunes makes far more sense for my situation. iTunes is bit perfect on a Mac without all the fuss with plugins, settings, etc. The other thought came to me on your description of the sound quality differences...."I'll bet you are running a solid state system." Not trying to start a flame war or anything, but well over 50% of solid state systems that I have heard sound that way to me. 3. I would keep the Trends in the system indefinitely. I have a couple of DACS here (the review is being finished today) and I ran into an interesting situation. The DACS are both from the same manufacturer. One is USB, one is not. My initial thought before the units arrived was that the USB DAC was going to be an asset, as it allows the removal of one unit from the signal path. What I found was the USB unit was very noisy, unless my Dell laptop was running on battery power. The USB unit was fine on my wife's MacBook on wall current or battery. The non USB unit, used with the Trends was quiet as a church mouse With the Dell, regardless of how it was powered. My thought now is that PC wise, stay with the Trends until you can afford the Emperical Audio unit, which will pass a 24/96 signal. The Trends is limited to 16/48. A Mac has optical as well as SPDIF output, so it can feed a non USB dac directly. Nels
  10. Hi, I tried doing the passthrough, and it did not work for me either. I wish it had, because the I Tunes GUI running the Foobar "guts" would have been a nice option for XP users. Steve at Emperical Audio and I have been cooredppnding for some weeks and he suggested I unmap my Trends. You can do this easily: From the desktop- start,control panel, sounds and audio devices, hardware, USB audio device, properties, properties again, audio devices, USB audio device, add a check mark at the box that says "do not map through this device" hit OK. Back out of all the screens and reboot. This seems to be an improvement. Nels
  11. Hi All, My old wireless router was going south, so I purchased a refurbished Airport Express from Apple. I was originally thinking of the Airport Extreme but I have a small place and no devices that support wireless N, so for $69, I didn't think I could beat it. After a frustrating time setting it up (an odd thing given my other experiences with Apple products) I am up and running. The router is in my listening room. Is there any advantage at all in plugging my WD USB hard drive (where all of my digital music is stored) into the AE instead of of my Dell PC? Thanks, Nels
  12. I am not trying to jump in the middle of an argument here, I am just trying to understand how all the gear ties together. Since Steve is around, and I highly respect his opinion, here goes.<br /> <br /> Currently, my PC front end looks like this:<br /> Dell inspiron 2200 feeding a Trends Audio 10.1 USB to SPDIF converter to the DAC (varies). I understand that USB only passes 24/48. I'd like to be able to get 24/96 capability but am unsure how to get there. The DACs I have here have 24/96 capability, but as I understand it, the USB connection is the bottleneck.<br /> <br /> I am an iTunes for Windows user and understand that the only way I can get bit perfect playback is with the Airport Express. How does that tie in- I already have a wireless router.<br /> <br /> I also realize the Dell is getting long in the tooth, and have my eye on a Macbook Pro. I don't get how Steve's gear and the AE all tie in to what I already have.<br /> <br /> Thanks in advance.<br /> <br /> Nels<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />
  13. I bought Signals.....it rocks!! Thanks for the promotion.
  14. That's a good idea Chris, but for a different reason. I was worried when I was ripping everything with the Dell that I would end up killing the drive. As you are aware, laptop parts aren't cheap. I know someone who killed his internal drive in a Mac laptop.
  15. When I finally started my journey into PC Audio, I went FLAC, because I wanted to save drive space (otherwise I would have needed 1TB drives.) I used Foobar for playback. This, after all, is the preferred playback option for the "Audiophile Gang", at least for Windows users. It was OK. On a whim, I tried iTunes. I liked the Radio function, much to my wife's chagrin. Ask her about the "Beatlerama" channel- all things Beatle, all the time. Better yet, don't ask her. So I grabbed a couple of discs and did the A/B thing. Damn if I didn't prefer iTunes for that as well. ITunes is warmer, less sterile, and more lifelike, at least to my ears. But iTunes won't read FLAC, so I re-ripped everything (900 plus discs.) I also tried JRiver Media Center, which I intially thought was an improvement playing ALAC files, but I found that I was experiencing listening fatigue, something that never happens with iTunes. In the end, I believe there is far more difference between playback programs than between WAV/AIFF vs. ALAC/FLAC.
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