xenophilic

@fand1<br /> <br /> Chris is in this for the money--he's not running this site to help folks honestly sort the wheat from the chaff in computer audio. He'll give some neutral technical advice on system setup, but there won't be any real reviews from him. He uses this site for two things, ad. income and to promote his professional consulting services. To drive ad. income he needs to a) keep site visits up and b) not upset the funding source (the manufacturers). Don't misunderstand--he isn't just worried about the people who place ads. on this site, he needs to appease the ones who send him equipment to "review" since the "reviews" attract site hits that boost his ad. revenues. There's also the freebies to consider (airfare to events, complimentary meals, lodging costs, etc.--He seems to travel a lot, and I imagine that those bills are not fully out of pocket).<br /> <br /> That's why it's remarkably ironic that this press release concluded with "Bringing audio reviews into the new decade I'll finish with my favorite phrase, "Add to cart.""<br /> <br /> There's nothing new about this old formula for writing an audio "review" such as this one.<br /> <br />

@audiozorro You say "I am using these CASH DACs as a point of reference…" Which CASH DACs do you own that you want to use the HiFace with?

@Socrates7 I had dropouts when I first set up my MacBook (long before the HiFace), and I got rid of them by doing a number of things at once (so I can't say what the issue was): 1. Erased the startup drive and reinstalled OS 10.6 with all updates from Apple. 2. Turned off WiFi (use Ethernet cable), Bluetooth, all sharing services (except screen sharing), Spotlight indexing (completely, no disks indexed), automatic update checking, time machine--I think that's about it. 3. Put all my music files on a freshly formatted external firewire drive. 4. Created a fresh iTunes library to index all those files on the external drive. The library folder (containing the index of the files) lives on my internal drive (the startup disk). 5. Only software aside from the base installation is a) the current beta version of Play from sbooth.org (sounds better than iTunes) and b) the HiFace driver. 6. I also keep an old USB drive plugged into the second USB port, but turned off. My bogus theory on this was akin to shorting caps that you can get for unused RCA plugs on a preamp. 7. As you've done, I checked under System Profiler to be sure that the DAC was using a USB port to itself (high speed). I can't recall a dropout since I did all this stuff to make the MacBook a dedicated music server. I hope that helps (and doesn't launch you on a bunch of work that fails to solve your problem!).

"one customer out over fifty plus sales who has suffered from 'clicking'" Is that total sales or sales to customers using the HiFace with Macs? "If you are unhappy with your unit return it to me and I will issue you with a refund." As I've said, I'm confident that they are working on it and respect their commitment. When it's not popping and clicking, the HiFace improves the sound I'm getting from my PS Audio DL III (with Cullen Level III mods).

1. My username is xenophilic, the opposite of xenophobic, and I do not appreciate your derogatory reversal of the meaning. 2. M2Tech has very openly acknowledged their ongoing driver problems, and attempts by self-interested dealers to mislead customers on this point are unethical. I received e-mail from Marco at M2Tech on 12/31/09: "Thank you so much for your feedback and suggestions. We're quite sure that it's not a problem of hardware…So it's a problem of driver. That's better, because it doesn't require products callback for servicing. My programmer suspects that it may be a problem with the timer which handles the operation on USB and the priority of tasks accessing USB. He's working on it right now to solve this problem. Happy new year! Marco" 3. There is no "cure" or "solution" that applies to the problem in question. Richard, apparently, had messed with the power supply on his DAC and had screwed it up. It's ridiculous to suggest that this has any relevance to the problem other folks are reporting. To be clear, I have no clicks or pops running a USB cable from my MacBook to my PS Audio DL III. I have no clicks or pops running a source through the coaxial input of the DL III. The only clicks and pops come when I put the HiFace into the system. And that is what others are experiencing as well. And what M2Tech has openly acknowledged. 4. The clicking and popping is variable in intensity: some songs consistently incite it more than others. This is consistent with a driver issue because a timing issue as M2Tech has suggested will be manifested differently as source material changes. 5. I have earlier stated that I have good confidence that M2Tech are working on the driver issue and will find a solution, even if their programmer seems to be more familiar with Windows systems. I appreciate the honesty and the friendly and supportive interactions that have come directly from M2Tech. I also appreciate Richard sharing his experience, although its relevance to others is minimal given what he describes. 6. To come back to the red herring Mac Hardware theory. A MacBook notebook is an Intel notebook inside: same CPU, RAM, integrated Intel graphics, SATA hard drive, etc. that would be found in a PC notebook. In fact, the MacBook can easily boot Windows. It's more accurate to think of the two options as Dual Boot Notebooks (sold by Apple) and Windows-only Notebooks (sold by many vendors; yes, setting aside Linux for this discussion). Furthermore, the diversity of hardware among Windows-only Notebooks is far greater than on Macs: if there's a hardware problem in the computer it would show up on the PC notebook at some point since at least some of them will use the same USB bus components as the MacBook, but apparently it doesn't. So, we're back to the driver issue that M2Tech has already confirmed.

I've run at least four USB DACs from my MacBook. The only thing that produces the pops and crackling is the HiFace. The only device that requires its own drivers is the HiFace. It's the driver not the hardware. Period. If M2Tech is saying it's the hardware then their programmer is following the usual pattern of developers who are ignorant about Mac programming. They tell their clients that its not them, it's the Mac hardware. Funny how the multi-thousand dollar audio software used in professional studios running on Macs does not have these problems. M2Tech needs to get a new programmer, because it sounds like the person they've hired has hit a dead end and is giving them the run around.

The posts in the forum on this site reflect the overwhelming interest of the community here to set up high fidelity systems with computer audio components (DACs, software, storage media, and computer systems) that range in individual costs from $500 to $3000 (with few outliers). There is not a large population of threads on the topic of "I have $60K to spend on some loudspeakers--what do you recommend?"<br /> <br /> Furthermore, what happens forward of the DAC is much more comprehensively and competently covered in other parts of the Internet and even print media. Statements such as "There isn't a single product on the market today that's capable of this level of performance." are at face value absurd. Speaker performance is inherently a subjective matter, so in the absence of objective measurements (which don't yet exist to capture the full scope of what people perceive as qualitative differences among loudspeakers), it would be much more plausible to say that these speakers are, in his personal opinion, the best that he has heard.<br /> <br /> The majority of the home page stories here since the end of November that were not simply press releases from vendors have been for products that are irrelevant to the community here. A DAC system for >$30K, a robot for ripping CDs, a $12K sound card, and something entirely beyond the scope of value on this sight, some speakers for Kuwaiti royals.<br /> <br /> There seems to be some money flowing into Chris's hands from somewhere to fund his airfare, lodging, and per diem to do all the traveling that he tweets about, so why not put some of those resources into adding solid information to the topics that dominate the commuity's interests.<br /> <br /> This has been done, for example, in promulgating guidelines on ripping CDs, configuring some music servers, and setting up wireless music distribution networks. But there are major gaps in knowledge that remain and could be addressed by the effort that seems to go into rhapsodizing about esoteric components that only a handful of people will ever afford or own (lot's of wealthy people are actually frugal with their money, after all).<br /> <br /> The following features would be of infinitely greater service to the community here than organizing trade exhibitions or more reviews of things like the dCS front end:<br /> <br /> 1. A series of DAC shootouts at various price points judged by a panel of 8-10 listeners in a double blind setting. A well organized shootout that highlights the particular strengths of the DACs (in addition to picking an overall winner based on the stated criteria) would be infinitely more valuable to everyone here than another opinion about a $20,000 anything.<br /> <br /> 2. A series of USB cable shootouts modeled on the above.<br /> <br /> 3. An objective analysis (perhaps via interviews with audio engineers who are innovators in the industry and know something about the topic) of all of the variables that go into the quality of sound produced by a computer source. There's a lot of assumption that control of jitter is the main issue and maybe RF interference in the system. There's a lot of skepticism about the possibility that there is a physical explanation for benefit from different hard drives or cables or playback software. It would be a real service if the front page stories sought out expert insight into these matters to help raise the level of discussion and put misconceptions to rest.<br /> <br /> Those things, if done effectively, could constitute a full program for CA in 2010, and perhaps get the site back on track after having lost the plot.

Looks like the Plextor 880U is the current model--$99. Link if you want to go this route: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827249056&cm_re=plextor_external-_-27-249-056-_-Product

I started ripping my collection via iTunes on a PowerBook about three years ago, and I gave that up when I ended up with too many rips that had little dropouts in them. Even with all the settings optimized (including "use error correction…") iTunes would skip a troublesome spot and leave me with a dropout in the file. I now use XLD and rip to AIFF with maximum paranoia. With a 1 Gb firewire hard drive going for $179, I can store my whole music collection without compression. In my own listening tests, AIFF sounds a bit more smooth and a bit more open than Apple Lossless. Folks will certainly debate this, but the computer is definitely doing less to handle the file if it doesn't have to uncompress it on the fly for playback. I don't know that you'll wear out your internal drive, but the internal drives on a notebook are pretty cheap devices. Things may go more smoothly and confidently with an external drive--they aren't too pricey. Even an excellent drive like a Plextor PXQ840u is only $80 from B&H Photo (among others).

@cfmsp Foobar2000 is freeware--why the hostility? Nobody's making any money off of this port, and if it is useful for someone then what's the problem? I've seen a number of useful programs start out pretty rocky in the early stages of moving to the Mac. If they are useful and receive support, they can become more polished and be rewritten as native code. I don't know what Foobar2000 might offer on the Mac side beyond what is already available for free, but I would give it a try if saw a reason.

Thanks for the info. iTunes and Play both handle high-resolution files on the Mac (and maybe VLC as well). Play also handles FLAC (and maybe VLC, again I haven't tried). I know that Foobar has a good reputation on the Windows side, but what sets it apart?

Perhaps my unusual experience will help someone out there. I found that music files that I copied from a USB flash drive onto the hard drive of my music server were developing defects about 5% of time. About 1 of 20 files would play back with a glitch--not a dropout but a brief staticky "zzzkrt" at one (or sometimes more) spots in the song. These glitches would reproducibly occur at the the same spot in an affected track. I verified that the issue was in the file itself by verifying that the glitch happened using both iTunes and Play, and that was true whether I used either my Macbook or Macbook Pro as the source (connected to the same hard drive containing the affected file). I also played the file from the flash drive and found the glitch there as well. However, I always rip my CDs to an archive drive in another room before using the USB flash drive to move the new arrivals over to the music server hard drive. If a music file randomly develops one of these glitches through copying using the flash drive, I found I could recopy the good original and then it's ok (since there seems to be a 95% chance that any given transfer is glitch free.) To flush the whole problem from my system, I cloned the music folder from the archive drive to the music server drive. In the future I will not use USB flash drives to make these transfers. It may be that I have a defective USB flash drive (PQI 16 Gb), but once bitten twice shy. Most of you are probably scratching your heads at this, but it may help someone with a similar and irritating problem.

The screen in a notebook is a source of RF noise in the computer. A music server without a screen will provide better sound quality (all else being equal). You also want you music on an external drive, not the internal hard drive. You don't want your music player and system operations competing to pull data from the same disk as the music files. The best way to do this is to connect the external drive via Firewire since you also don't want your USB bus trying to receive data and at the same time send it out to your DAC. There are other ways to avoid I/O bottlenecks (e.g. something like a Lynx card) but for a cost-effective solution that addresses the major problem areas, a Mac Mini is hard to beat. The Mac Mini also has a significant size advantage over a PC tower or mini tower (there are some PCs as compact as the mini, but then you still have the more complicated Windows setup to deal with.) Finally (almost), on the Mac side you can get Play (from sbooth.org). It sounds as good as Amarra, it's free, and it doesn't load spyware onto your computer that compromises system security. Finally (really), with hard drives so cheap now, you may as well store everything as AIFF. The decompression from FLAC or Apple Lossless can affect the sound (in some systems maybe not, but there are a lot of variables). See posts from vanderdm here documenting his Mac Mini system: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/Mac-Mini-and-Ayre-QB-9-Amarra-noticeably-improving-sound Good luck!

PCs are not affected by the pops and clicks issue. It's a Mac driver issue and M2Tech is working on it.

@johnmarsh Yes, I am connecting the HiFace to a USB port that is not shared with any other device. This is confirmed via About This Mac (more info) where the devices on each bus are listed. @Richard Yes, M2Tech has formally acknowledged that they have many Mac users with clicking and popping occurring. Here's a snip from Marco's e-mail to me yesterday which I don't think he would mind me sharing here: "it's a problem of driver. That's better, because it doesn't require products callback for servicing. My programmer suspects that it may be a problem with the timer which handles the operation on USB and the priority of tasks accessing USB. He's working on it right now to solve this problem." They are much earlier in the development process on the Mac drivers, and it may be that their programmer had a lot more experience on all the workarounds needed to get Windows to sound good but not so much experience with Macs which have a highly developed set of Core Audio protocols.