Rodster

Regarding new Classical releases in the US on the Qobuz Windows App: Has anyone noticed that with some new releases, particulary on Naxos, one or two of the tracks is greyed out and unplayable at any resolution? For example, Herbert Howells, Chamber Music, released on April 11, 2019, track 9 is greyed out; Havergal Brian, Symphonies Nos. 7 and 16, released on May 9, 2019, tracks 4 and 6 are greyed out. Is this limited to certain labels who don't want people to be able to hear the whole recording, and therefore encourage them to buy it instead? Or is something else going on? I hope Qobuz can provide some insight into this.

Thanks for the information about the 64-bit Windows app working when run as Administrator. I found the app to be unusuable on my 8 year old Windows 10 Pro PC; totally unable to navigate or play anything. But since it worked fine on a new Surface Book 2, I assumed there was some incompatibility with my system. But I tried again running it as Administrator and it works much better. It's still a little slow, but it doesn't freeze, and it is possible to use it.

+1 I don't understand what's wrong with Hyperion; you can only buy from their website at very high prices and can't stream anywhere. And when I digitized my collection, many of my Hyperion albums from the late 1980's and '90's suffered from "CD Rot" and were unplayable. But I found out about this long after they could be replaced.

I'm new to Qobuz US (very anxious to leave Tidal behind), and the same thing seems to be true for the Chandos label. I also see that you can't buy albums from BIS, Chandos and a number of other labels. It seems, although I haven't checked this, that with certain classical labels, you can only stream at 16/44 and can't buy at all. I assume this is a licensing issue; I sure hope this gets straightened out, because what I was most looking forward to with Qobuz was the ability to stream and/or buy music from those and other independent labels at a discount under the Sublime+ subscription plan.

Thanks very much for your thoughts! I tend to prefer PCM over DSD (many DSD recordings sound recessed and not as clear as PCM). And, while PCM at Prestoclassical is more expensive than DSD at NativeDSD, and both are more expensive than the 3 SACD plus 1 Blu-Ray Disc combination, it turns out that LSO live website has the 96/24 download for about the same as the discs, so I will go with that. Thanks again.

Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO's recent recording of Debussy's opera Pelleas et Melisande was "Digitized at Recorded live at DSD 128fs" according to NativeDSD.com. https://lsolive.nativedsd.com/albums/LSO0790-debussy-pelleas-et-melisande. However, NativeDSD only offers DSD 64fs, saying that "This particular recording was post processed (edited) and exported as 64 only." The recording is also available as a download from PrestoClassical in Hi-Res Flac at 96/24. It is also available on 3 SACDs and 1 Blu-Ray Audio Disc (I don't know resolution of the Blu-Ray Disc, but I'm presuming it's also 96/24). https://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/classical/products/8361561--debussy-pelleas-et-melisande Based on the assumption that music should be downloaded in the same format and resolution that it was recorded in, which is the best choice in this case: DSD64 or PCM 96/24. Although this question relates to a particular recording, I'm also curious about what people think in general about this issue. Thanks!

Hi alubis, To me, the Raspberry Pi sounds very similar to Android +UAPP; although I didn't do any A/B comparison, I'm confident they're equally as good: very clear, accurate, black background (if the source has no hiss). One of the main advantages of the Pi over the Android in the semi-portable context was I could attach an HDD extracted from a Seagate portable expansion drive directly to the Pi (without a USB hub) giving me much form storage (2 TB vs. 128 gb on an internal micro SD card, or 256 GB on SD card using an SD to Micro SD adapter. Of course I need something to act as the front end for the Pi, but I can use my phone, an iPad, or a PC, whatever is handy, and it doesn't have to be physically attached to the dac, which makes it much more convenient than the Android/DAC stack I used to use. Of course, if you want to use the Pi in a desktop context, you can attach anything to it, access a Network drive, or stream music wirelessly from a server, etc. However, you can't do anything else with the Pi running Runeaudio. It doesn't even have a GUI that you can use with the Pi attached to a monitor. The only interface other than command line is the web based Runeaudio interface, which is very easy to use, but is only for playing music, etc. Hope this helps.

Thanks very much for your reply! That's exactly what I wanted to know--the the digital stream is untouched by the internal sound card DAC on its way to the external DAC. So if I understand correctly, by selecting the ASIO driver that belongs to the external DAC as the output source, the digital stream will bypass the DAC of the internal sound card. Thanks again.

I have tried an android smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S4 running USB Audio Player Pro), a Raspberry Pi running Runeaudio, and a Windows Tablet (Dell Venue 8 running either JRiver or Foobar), each out to an ifi iDSD Dac with Sennheiser HD-800 headphones as a semi-portable rig, and I found that the smartphone and the Raspberry Pi sounded better than the Windows Tablet. (I listen almost exclusively to classical music). I don't know why, and I didn't do the kind of rigorous testing to be able to give a more detailed explanation, other than that both the Pi and the Android sounded more alive, more clear, than the Windows Tablet running those particular programs. I also found that, at least in that scenario, the Android and the Pi were easier to use and had better battery life than the Windows tablet. (For the Pi, I have to add a standard cellphone portable battery pack to power it.) I've also tried JRiver on the Pi, and I also found the I liked RuneAudio better. For my desktop system, I have always used Windows PCs, and recently switched to an Intel Nuc set up exclusively for audio running Foobar with the music files accessed from a Synology Diskstation. I access the NUC using either Remote Desktop or Splashtop. I would like to try Raspberry Pi in that scenario too, but I haven't yet because I'm not sure my Mytek Dac will work without special linux drivers, and I'm just so familiar with using Windows in that context. Also, the Windows PC gives me the ability to upsample (although I don't do it much anymore), which I don't know if I can do with the Pi. I also have a Surface 3 Pro, and while it is the best Windows Tablet I have ever used, when under heavy load the fan does make quite a bit of noise. (I put the NUC in a fanless case.) I'm not quite sure what you were planning in terms of a usage scenario for the Windows tablet. If you wanted it to remotely access a music computer located across the room or in another location, then the Windows tablet should work fine using Remote Desktop (provided your main computer is a Windows Pro version) or if you use Splashtop or any one of a number of remote access programs. If you're running JRiver then you already know about all the ways to access it remotely. But you also talk about a 2 PC setup, and I'm not really familiar with that. Would the Pipeline act as a file server to the Surface 3, which would run JRiver or whatever? To which PC would the DAC physically be attached in that scenario--the CAPs Pipeline or the Surface 3? If the latter, I find that operating tablets with wires coming out of them is a bit ungainly, and sort of defeats the purpose of the tablet form factor; and if you want just a small PC exclusively for audio that you can access remotely, there are a number of mini- and micro-PCs out now (including PCs on a stick with similar specs to a Dell Venue 8, only without the screen), with more coming out everyday (besides the NUC, and much cheaper) that could serve exclusively as an audio PC running JRiver, foobar, or whatever. They are limited in processing power of course, and don't have a lot of RAM, so I don't think they would be very useful if you like to do a lot of processing to your files before they get to the DAC, such as EQ or upsampling with HQ Player, JRiver, etc., but if you just send the files in their native format, these mini-computers should be able to the do the job. I know the Raspberry Pi has no trouble with Hi Res music, including DSD, streamed natively.

I have perhaps what is a very stupid question, but here goes. For years I output music from my Windows via a sound card, which contained a DAC chip. At first I used Creative Soundblaster cards, and later when I dabbled with Computer music creation I upgraded to M-Audio sound cards, and finally I got a RME Hammerfall sound card. This card has analog and digital out, and its DAC can handle 24/196 samples. Fine. Recently I got interested in outboard DACs for listening to music through headphones. I've done a lot of research on these DACs and have used a couple. Now, I understand outputting digital music through USB 2.0 to these DACS from my PC or other sources, such as an Android phone or Raspberry Pi, and that is what I have been doing up to now because USB was the only input to the DAC that handles DSD and sample rates greater than 192. Lately I'eve been considering using my DAC as a substitute for my sound card in the PC I use for dabbling in music creation. And I've seen some people on various forums saying that with such-a-such DAC, the digital (be it coaxial or optical) input was (for whatever reason particular to that DAC) superior to its USB input. And I further see that many people use a digital output from a DAP such as a Astell & Kerns 120 or similar unit to stream music to a standalone DAC, such as the Chord HUGO, through a coaxial digital cable. Now the point of my post is not to open up any debate about the relative merits of USB vs. coaxial or optical digital inputs or cables, but rather is a more basic question. To my knowledge, most computers or other front-ends for computer music do not come with coaxial or toslink outputs in and of themselves--these outputs are associated with some kind of sound reproducing system -- in other words, with a DAC. (Contrasted, of course, to USB which does exist independently of any particular function in the PC). So, here is my question: Whenever you use a coaxial or toslink digital output from a PC or a DAP or whatever to send a music stream to a outboard DAC, is that stream going through the DAC of the PC or DAP before it goes to the external DAC? Or is it just a pure digital stream (akin to the stream that goes through the PC's USB output) that is in no way processed or affected by the DAC belonging to the PC's sound card (in my case the RME Hammerfall) or the DAP's DAC? In any event, when using the coaxial or optical output of a PC's sound card, are there settings in the sound card software or in Windows that need to be set to avoid any conflict with the external DAC in terms of sample rate or the clock settings (forgive my ignorance, before now I've never had to worry about syncing with external clocks or the like, because the PC sound card was the only digital input or output in my system). I hope this question makes sense. I'm basically trying to understand the different pathways that can be used between a PC and an external DAC, and what I need to worry about when using any of them. USB seems pretty straightforward, since I can simply bypass the PC sound card and output through the external DAC drivers. But when using a coaxial output, I have to send the stream through my sound card, and I want to make sure I do it so that the sound card really doesn't affect the stream in any meaningful way or in any way conflicts with it. Thanks very much. Rod

I recently tried to put together a NUC and I put paste on the GPU. I take it that was a bad thing to do! In fact, I have been getting quite a few BSODs. Could that be the problem? Thanks.

I am very excited about the Bundoran, but Chris's article doesn't say anything about a heat sink or other cooling for the Logic Supply ML320 case. Their website says "Installation of the mainboard with a heat sink/heat pipe combination is required," but doesn't give any instructions or recommendations. I guess I thought all I had to do was swap out the mainboard from the NUC Kit into the ML320. I've put together several normal-sized PCs in the past, so I'm not a complete novice with sort of thing, but I sure could use some help on how to install the NUC in the the ML320. Thanks very much.