audiophile

I believe my Meridian gear will upsample and I also have a Meridian DVD/CD transport that outputs 96/24 DVD-A to the processor and speakers. So I think I'm all set in the upsampling department!

Upsampling 16/44.1 audio from my computer to feed the Meridian gear might be unnecessary - some Meridian processors and Digital Speakers actual do the upsampling internally. I have a question posted in the Meridian Forum and hope to get an answer soon if my gear does upsampling. Ofcourse it might be interesting to try to convert 16/44.1 to 24/88.2 on my computer and see if it sounds any better.I cringe at the thought of converting my entire collection, unless J.River Media Center has a way to do this in a batch processing mode! Interesting that you went back to the native 16/44.1 as the one that suits your taste. There is intense debate about upsamplimg and apparently some processor manufacturers do a very poor job of this, so the actual implementation is flawed and sounds worse than the native mode.

Hi Chris, Many thanks for your quick response. I also posted my question on the Meridian Unplugged website and heard that the M-Audio drivers were sometimes "buggy" The recommendation was to look at E-MU® 0404 PCI Digital Audio System Card which costs $200. This is apparently stable under Windows XP and has solid ASIO drivers. I might try that and if it doesn't sound good enough I could upgrade to the Lynx. Is it possible to get digital coax s/pidf output from the Lynx? Thank You for your help!

Hello, I'm a newbie here, so please excuse any neophyte questions that have been covered before. Chris' excellent write up on putting together a Dell PC based music server for about $1000 inspired me to look into some similar options. First - let me describe my music setup. I have a Meridian Audio system in my home / office : Meridian 561 Digital Processor that can take 96/24 digital s/pidf inputs and has 96/24 digital s/pidf outputs that feed directly into the Meridian digital 96/24 speakers (DSP 5000's front and center, DSP 33's rear). The digital processor is excellent and provides DTS, THX, Ambisonic and other processing modes. 1. Now to my first question. I'd like to set up a low cost audiophile quality, PC based music server that can feed this set up in hi resolution 96/24 format. Can I use the Dell PC based music server but instead of the expensive Lynx Studio AES16 card for $700 and Lynx HD26 cable $60; can I use a high end sound card like the M-Studio Audiophile 192 with 24/192 digital coax I/O for only $176? I don't have AES input on my Meridian gear, so I probably will have to stay with digital coax. What are some of the possible shortcomings of this proposed set up? 2. And the second question - can I use software like the J. River Media Center to upsample lossless 16/44.1 files ripped from CDs to 24/88.2 and output this to the Meridian Processor to get better quality sound than just the direct 16/44.1 quality from a CD player? Many thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Like many others on this forum, I live on a budget and have to get value for money!