Hi to all,
What a fabulous forum. Thanks Chris for all your hard work and the Academy in particular. Thanks to everybody else for all the great participation and sharing.
I am just entering the world of Computer Audiophile and have a few questions that I hope some of you can help me with. Some background first...
I am using a Logitech Squeezebox Duet to stream music from iTunes on a MacPro to my Musical Fidelit NuVista M3 Amp and/or xCan v3 Headphone Amp. The sound is reasonable but not as good as that from my Musical Fidelity NuVista 3D CD Player. No surprise here given the cheap DAC in the Duet. I intend on purchasing either a Grace Design m902 or Benchmark DAC1 Pre to better this situation. A couple of questions I have are:
1) Will the existing setup (pre new DAC) sound better by using Ethernet cable rather than WiFi? Is there any difference?
2) Am I correct in understanding that this setup is actually not using iTunes to play the file, and that the Logitech SqueezeCenter is playing the file. If so, what does this actually mean for sound quality? How does this affect the file being sent? Does iTunes sound better?
3) If I buy a Lynx AES16 card and connect using a HD26 - XLR cable to either the Benchmark or Grace Design DAC this will obviously be a major improvement. My question is - what is the Lynx Card doing - is the signal being sent still the same music file? How does it differ to what my Mac is now sending over WiFi. This is a point I have not been able to really understand reading the site. Also why do I need 16 channels - is there a card that is as good but only for only two channels? Probably a basic question - but I don't get what the Lynx card is all about.
And while I am at it...
I have just finished ripping my 1500 odd CD's onto the MacPro in Apple Lossless Codec. I did this without the Error Correction Preference on! Read this site too late! My CD's are all in very good condition. Do I need to redo this step or will it only affect any damaged CD's?
Thanks.
Regards, David Doerfer.
