patrickwang288

Thanks for your input, Eloise. However, I am not a savvy on computer and probably need some time to figure it out how to do these settings, particularly on the aspects of window setting to match quicktime setting things. So far, I couldn't tell the difference between the CD player (A stereophile A rating player) and the Airport to the DAC, and both sound OK to me. But I am always wondering that I may be able to achive better sound quality by using differenct ways to send the signal to the DAC. I also tried foobar and J river. Both sounded no particularly superior than Itunes via wireless transmitting but their interface not as good as Itunes. Patrick

Hello, Chris and everyone I am looking for help and advises. I have two laptops with Vista and Window 7 respectively. I ripped all my cds to itunes because itunes has the best interface as a music server. I also use an Airport Express to wirelessly transmit the music to a DAC. In order to get better sound quality, I have following questions: 1. Can I output the digital signal from my laptops to a DAC through a USB? If it can be done, how do I do it? I don't see any sound output options on itunes. I do have a USB to digital converter (Musiland Monitor 2). 2. I am not sure these laptops have optical output through the earphone output but they don't have coxial output for sure (one is Toshiba and the other is Dell). I tried plugging a optical wire into the earphone output and connect it to the optical input of a DAC, there is no any sound at all. Do I need to adjust something on Itunes in order having it work? 3. If Itunes does have digital output, is it a bit perfect or better sound quality than the wireless playback on Airport Express? I guess Chris or someone else might post some threads on the site already regarding this issue already but I don't know how I can locate them in a quick way (there are thousands of posts on the site). Your help is highly appreciated. Patrick

Hi, Chris: thanks for your explanation of my questions. Now I know: 1. It's not an esay job to put a digital input for both manufactures and the CD player's owners, particularily the owners. It is not as I thought that digital connection was something like analog signal path--in and out can be connceted via a jumper--as in many integrated amplifier. If digital path uses the same algorithm as analog, we just need to remove the internal jumper and we will have input and output right away. 2. Your explanation of my question 2 raises another question of mine: Is it that the computer can't process the signal from a CD player's digital output because the player decos the data on CD discs to PCM signal and the computer only handles the digital data of CD discs? If this is the case, then we have no any residual value for our expensive CD players we purchaed before--we can't use their good internal DAC (Mayber not as good as I assume. With today's technology, a dedicated external DAC costing several hundrad bucks may surpass the internal DAC performance of my $3,000 player). And we can't use their digital output to transfer data to a computer. Even we can do so it does not make any good because a computer processor handles the data in several paths and recalculates them again and again till a "perfect" bit achieved regardless the data coming from a very expensive Esoteric VRDS or a cheap $50 cd or dvd rom drive. If this is the case, I guess all hi-end transporters will be phased out of market very soon except for a very small nitch market to the people who refuse to accept computers as a source. As for me, I still can't decide which is superior: computer or a cd player because I don't have the resources to do a comparison--I don't have good separates to input the signal from a computer and a transporter (the DAC I am using is a cheap one which can't distingish anything from a computer or cd player.) Patrick

Thanks, Oystein for your suggestion. However, it's too much for me to do such a project. Also I don't understand why you need DIY another DAC (inside the SPIDF receiver) since you are going to use the DAC in your CD player. And through where the SPIDF receiver connect to the CD player--the CD player digital output? Besides, if we try to use a CD player internal DAC worth several grand, it might be worthwhile to try the receiver as long as the receiver does not degrade the sound quality. If talking about the CD player costing couple hundred, it may not be worth for the cost of parts, time spend and labor. But your opinion and suggestion are valuable for all these who want to MOD their players and use the internal DAC of the players. Patrick

Hi, Cris: there are two questions bothering me for sometime but I never really got the right answer. 1. I consider some CD players should have very good DACs since they are sold at very high price. Why did the manufactures never think of having a digital input to use the DAC inside the players? Is it very difficult to do that or just a pre-set plan for manufactures to sell their separates of transporter and DAC in the later phase? Is it possible to DIY to install an input of optical or digital? It seems not very difficult thereotically. 2. Now we are using computer CD or DVD drive to rip CD to our computers and most of these drives are considered crappy for an audiophile stand point of view. If there is no any substantial difference in regard of sound quality between computer CD drive and a high end transporter, what is the point for these high end manufactures to invest big money to perfect and sell their separates or players? Maybe it's their selling point or marketing strategy, whatever. My point here is that if there is really a difference, can we output the digital signal through an expensive player to a computer to rip the cd content? Looking for your input and thanks for such inspiring web site. Patrick