dainapoo

Hi, A little late to this party, but, also right on time. Haven't been checking in, in awhile. I'll just start by saying that I've been streaming in some form since about 2000. Without going through all the girations, I'll just say that my first real venture into streaming was in 2007, when I bought a Squeezebox. I've tried many different things over the years, staying with one for several years before moving on. I had a PC with an expensive Lynx AES 16 audio inferface going out through SPDIF, until my son in law told me about these things called Raspberry Pi's. Eventually I settled on running Pi's or Pi like devices through 3 different zones in my house and using Diet Pi and Squeezebox's own/old Logitech Media Server software. When my Squeezebox died, I just bought another Pi and used my phone for control of all the zones. It's worked just fine. . Meanwhile, my main "Audiophile" system had a Pi-like streamer from Allo, and I had separate everythings - meaning DAC, Phono preamp, headphone amp, main preamp and streamer, all of these connected in some fashion to an ancient slightly modified Dynaco PAS 3 preamp. I also have a tuner, and a turntable all feeding a Quad power amp. This drives Magnepans with a pair of Vandersteen subwoofers. Over the years, there has been many devices in and out of my system - this was just the latest, but at 66, I'm fairly happy. Then I moved about 6 months ago. And during that time, I got the urge to simplify. I had been following different Swiss army knife-like devices. I purposely didn't set up my system, I kept looking, thinking, reading, and one day, I revisited something I'd looked at, but didn't really consider before, again. Of all the products in the world, it turned out to be the C658 from NAD. I only knew about it from reading reviews of the C298 amp - my Quad amp needed a little work, and I was considering the simple C298. I sold and owned NAD stuff back when I was in the business, but it had been awhile. Then I read or re-read one of the C658 reviews, and almost like a lightning bolt, I thought, "what am I waiting for?"- this thing has all the things I own separately now AND it has DIRAC!! Which I had been following for several years. And it was not going to break the bank - I could keep everything and try this out and if it didn't work out, I'd just sell it! It was almost over night. But, what about this Blu OS? The only thing I had not been able to verify regarding Blu OS was that "FOLDER MODE" you mentioned. I'd organized my files going back to the beginning and over time, I developed my own genres and I have everything right where I want them. About 27,000 files worth plus Qobuz. For me, without it, It's a dealbreaker. I tried Roon, but I couldn't find any of my files. I just assumed there was a "native mode", that would allow me to browse my hard drive, because I had used players going all the way back to Winamp, on a PC, coming out straight to an integrated amp, before DACs were even known, or maybe even existed as a separate audio product. But, NO! It didn't. I talked to a few people at Roon and they explained why they didn't offer it and explained all the things I got because of their extensive system, with all the metadata etc. All I could say was great, but right now, I can't even find most of my music. I don't "just search", because at my age, I forget what the artist is even called sometimes! But I know it's somewhere in a genre that I call Indie (including synth)-Pop-Rock-Folk (makes perfect sense to me!) and from there it's in alphabetical order.... ahh, there they are! - The XX. I found an answer to the Folder mode question in a BluOS forum, so armed only with that, I pulled the trigger. Anyway, two weeks ago I set up the system I had in my old house, in my new house, to get a baseline for sound and this weekend, I'm making the big switch. I'm cautiously optimistic. Maybe I'll report back. Thanks so much for this article I'd overlooked before. Feeling even better still! Best, Daina Wilburn

Just wondering, I've been reading about this for nearly a year, but when is it actually coming? I'm sure there are distribution issues pertinent to the US that have to be dealt with. But I feel like I'm waiting for the Red Sea or something. Any late breaking news I've missed?

I just finished installing a Pi2. I had been using a Windows box with and ESI Julia Sound card, out to a Benchmark Dac 1 Pre, using Foobar. I am transfering my music to a new USB drive. The Windows box was very long in the tooth and starting to fail. My plan was to go out from the Pi to the Benchmark, but an emergency forced me to sell the Benchmark. I had also done research on the i2S dacs out there for the Pi - I wanted to compare just for giggles. But with the emergency,the sound quality of the dac took on more importance. My plan was still to buy a new dac as money permits. I purchased an IQAUDIO Pi-DAC+. I installed Volumio. I play Volumio from my Android phone or tablet. Putting it all together took about 10 minutes. Getting it set up took about an hour with the help of my Linux Geek son in law. I also have a Linux laptop as my main computer. I'm still moving my music files over from my hard drives in the windows box to a USB drive, but I also just recently attained almost a terrabyte of new all hi rez files, whereas most of my previous files have just been regular FLAC. Most of these titles on the new drive I had not heard or not heard in hi rez before. So, some of what I'm hearing may be the hi rez. I've twiddled with the Volumio gain settings. I have a passive TVC preamp (Promitheus), and gain is a little bit of an issue. I maxed the gain and originally left the gain "boost" on as well, but that proved to be too much. So I took the boost off. Once I got everything set up, I must say the sound, to these ears, is excellent. Since i'm listening to all hi rez at the moment, I can only say that from memory, compared to the regular rez files on my other hard drives, yet to be dropped in, this is superior. I find that hard to believe, but there is little doubt in my mind that this is in the ballpark of what I had. I run the TVC into a Quad 909 amp, KEF LS 50 speakers and a Vandersteen sub. It's still early. I'll report back when I start listening to the files that I'm intimately familiar with, but there is no doubt this is within the zone of what i've been accustomed to. Very surprising and great to have all the extra space.

Yea, I hear you there. I'm old enough to remember when those two publications were just starting out. I miss the all out "pans" that someone like J.Gordon Holt was not afraid to make. I was just thinking the other day that Stereophile nowadays reads a whole lot like Audio magazine did back in the 70's, if not Stereo Review. Yikes. I'm completely unfamiliar with Metric Halo. I will definitely check them out! Thanks! Daina

For quite awhile now, I've been intrigued by the wide variety of opinions on the DAC 1 and it's cousins. There seems to be some substantial debate or even controversy. I know The Absolute Sound is mixed on their opinion (and I believe it was they who interviewed Benchmark, or maybe did some other kind of testing, that shed some light on the possible causes of the differences), while Stereophile seems to be fairly uniform in its praise. Interestingly, or unfortunately, I purchased a DAC 1Pre based mostly on the almost universal early praise and from comments from a few other people I know that I respect. Has someone else read the article I'm referring to? All I can say is that while I'm certainly not unhappy with it, I too find it lacking in, for lack of another word, musicality and emotional involvement. Recently I changed amps and it's sensitivity was lower. Being as that my preamp is passive, I had a serious lack of gain and found myself listening to the system with volume turned almost to its max, quite frequently. So, for the second time, I gave the Benchmark a run as a complete Pre-amp/DAC. But, it was not very long before I abandoned it, as it just did not match my inexpensive passive (A Promitheus TVC). I'm using my DAC at the end of a homemade music server that contains a Lynx AES 16 - a very good setup, so I've read, and, for the most part, heard. For now, USB and Firewire are not my modality of choice. But, I'm looking forward to the day when I can simplify and feel that I'm not missing something. I've read a few reports on the new PS Audio Perfect Wave. It looks exceedingly promising, but with all the good things I've read, I still have one issue with it that is just a deal killer for me. I still have a significant vinyl collection and investment in turntable/cartridge/phono preamp, and without just ONE analog input, it's pretty much a non workable situation, without swapping out wires etc. (Oh, and I don't want to start a fight here, but it's the musicality and emotional involvement that keeps analog at the top of my musical experience meter, even with all its faults and worts. I'm looking for something that gives me that experience with all the other improvements that are germane to digital - improved dynamic range etc, not to mention no pops or ticks!) I bought the DAC 1 Pre specifically so I could have it as a backup (at the least). Of course, I could just use some like the Perfect Wave as a "DAC", like I do now, and feed my preamp, but I would OH SO like to find a combination box that does it all and "checks all my boxes" in terms of formats and resolution. I'm confident that we are heading in that direction, so I think I'll wait. Well, I've rambled a bit, again, but I would like to get to the bottom of the DAC 1 controversy. I think that the system synergy, or maybe even the transport, somehow affects the sound of the Benchmark regardless of its jitter reduction. There seems to be a wider difference of opinions with it than most other similar products.

Yea, tell me about it! I have a 19 inch monitor laying on the floor. I replaced it with a used flat screen that I'm using with my music server. So far I've been unable to give it away. I've been listening to my Lynx based music server more and more and it really is fairly significantly better than what I was using previously for digital music- a Squeezebox. I still have the Squeezebox in the system, connected to the Benchmark DAC, and I use it for everyday listening. It's convenient, but now that I've moved the system and re-arranged the cabinet, it's much easier to use the computer. That said, I'd really like to find a smart device to control the server from my listening spot. Any ideas on that? iPhone? Something else? Well, .......... it will all have to wait for now. I'm a recently unemployed technical recruiter, and the prospects for us folks ain't too hot right now. So, I'm probably going to have to go do something else for awhile. My daughter gave me the records, from Acoustic Sounds and Music Direct. Very nice. But, seeing as that I spent the better part of a year updating my music server, especially upgrading it so that I could play hi-rez files, I probably should have underlined the digital stuff on my 'wish list'. Well, take care and happy listening! Daina

Hey Joeinid, Great to hear! I'm finally getting to really listen to my system - do some serious setup. Has anyone read Jim Smith's book?- Get Better Sound? I got it for Christmas, along with some analog (Santa found it easier to buy vinyl- how weird is that?) Anyway, a good read. I've been at this off and on for over 30 years, and there are still some things I did not know and many I'd forgotten. But I re-arranged my listening room (which is my living room), placing virtually nothing but my speakers on the front wall and have my system on a side wall. That alone made an immediate improvement - bass and imaging for sure. (I DO have my CRT based 26 inch TV in between, which will most likely finally be replaced by a flat screen some time this year). Now I'm going through the step by step instructions to dial in perfect speaker setup. Anyway, I'm all for any improvement that doesn't cost a fortune and the $50 investment has been paid for several times over already. I have limited options, but I was able to move everything, more or less, where they would produce the best sound and still be functional. Like he says, many of us audiophiles are not getting half what we paid for if we don't have proper setup. Glad things worked out! Daina

Hi Guys! I was just getting around to making a post about what happened. THE PROBLEM HAS BEEN SOLVED!! Yahoo!! Now, my solution may only apply to my situation, but you'll know if it applies to you after a few minutes of reading. In my case, the problem turned out to be an impedance mismatch. The AES 16 sends out a 110 Ohm signal through the XLR outputs of the 1604 cable. The Benchmark Dac 1 Pre, unlike the Dac 1 and Dac 1 USB does not offer an XLR input. In fact the SPDIF inputs are 75 Ohm, 1Vpp (standards AES3-id and SMPTE 276M). What I needed was an impedance transformer. The one that worked with the cables I had on hand was a Canare BCJ-XJ-TRB Impedance Transformer, Digital Audio, 110 to 75 Ohm, Female XLR to Female BNC. It's about 3 inches long, has a Female XLR connector on one end at 110 Ohms and a Female BNC connector on the other, operating at 75 Ohms. I connected it to the end of the Output 1 Male XLR connector on the Lynx 1604 cable (the one with the 4 ins and 4 outs). I happened to have a male BNC to female RCA adapter already on hand, which I connected to the other end of the adapter and finally, I connected a nice digital SPDIF cablet to the RCA female from that adapter. What a mess!! But, it works, and I'm told that since it stays in the digital domain, the signal is intact. This took EVERYONE to figure this out. Lynx, my dealer, Benchmark, and me. I found the Canare myself. The Lynx tech, who was very willing to help out, and knows alot about their work with Reference Recordings, when they put together their reference system for their new HrX recordings (Lynx AES 16, Media Monkey and Berkley Dac), was great. I'll give you his contact info at the end. He initially worked with me to get the drivers properly installed. It was then that I mentioned that, after reading the DAC 1 Pre's owner's manual again, that the Benchmark was looking for 75 Ohms (See page 12 in the owner's manual if you have a DAC 1 Pre), and it appeared that the Lynx was sending out 110. Now, the card came with an XLR to SPDIF (RCA) adapter cable, but he verified that it stayed in the 110 Ohm domain. He was frankly puzzled that the Benchmark was looking for 75 Ohms and wasn't even sure that this was true AES/EBU. But we need to remember that all these products were designed for Pro Audio applications, and Benchmark is using a spec that is not used much in Pro audio, if at all, apparently. So, the dealer, a pro audio shop, and Lynx, both thought it was not a technically recognized spec. Anyway, a light bulb went off in both of our heads at about the same time, while on the first call. He even found one solution while on the phone- somewhat expensive, but it would work. Meanwhile I then communicated our phone call to the dealer, who called Benchmark to see if they had a solution. While I was waiting, over the weekend, for their reply, I found exactly what Benchmark wound up recommending. If this sounds like your situation, this should solve it. The guy from Lynx, who walked me through the driver install on the first call, is very helpful and willing to help. Here's his contact info: Paul Erlandson Lynx Studio Technology, Inc. (714) 545-4700 X 206 He has been great. Here's the link to that particular impedance transformer I found - http://www.fullcompass.com/product/258528.html. About $22. Here's the link to Reference Recording's reference system setup, all of which applied, except for the DAC itself - http://www.referencerecordings.com/HRxSETUPS.asp I'd like to thank my dealer, Eric Dahlberg at JRR International Music Shop. He hung in there with me to the very end! Eric Dahlberg JRR Shop PH: 949-553-1022 FX: 949-263-1818 http://www.jrrshop.com http://www.justroots.com I originally called him only about the sound card, but he is a Benchmark Dealer, so I wound up ordering both from him.- all over the phone. Personal service IS still alive, and we BOTH learned a lot! One last thing. After I got it working, I was still a little unsatisfied because other audiophile friends of mine kept telling me I needed to use the ASIO drivers on the Lynx card for better sound. But I kept having trouble getting anything higher in resolution than Red Book CD to play with ASIO. I could get WAV OUT to work, but what I'd read was that ASIO bypassed all the ugly (sounding) stuff in Windows, like KMixer. But I re- read the Reference Recordings thing and noted that they actually recommended WAV OUT as well. So, I called Paul at Lynx again and he indicated that Ref Recordings recommended the older version of the Lynx Mixer because it used WAV OUT version 1, which is much like ASIO in its ability to bypass all the Windows controls. Follow those directions on Reference Recordings link exactly and you will have the older Wav out and get the benefits of using it. He DID give me some things to try out for the ASIO as he was not sure why I was having the problems. I'm still working on that, but, at this point, I'm in sync with Reference Recordings, and that's good enough for me - I've been working on this since mid summer, so I'm just happy to have it finally all working. Paul is patient and he's knowledgeable about what we audiophiles are trying to do. If you have SPDIF inputs on your DAC, like me, nothing will work until you get the impedance (and its cabling) sorted out, and once I did, all the other stuff was small stuff. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions! Daina

Thanks Bob, You may be correct, although I sincerely hope not. But I understand what you're talking about. I tried 'un-installing' the software, and then took the card out of the box and put it in another slot. No luck. I just recently upgraded this computer from 2000 to XP, which wasn't all that easy - had to call Microsoft to prove I owned the software and get new a new key. I only did that because I'm trying to upgrade my music server from 44.1/16 to 192/24 and Win 2K does not support resolutions past 96K. So, that was a few weeks ago, but, considering what I really thought it would take, this has definitely become a royal..... well, you know. I'm going to try Lynx Supoort tomorrow and, if that doesn't work, I have one more potential ace in the hole - a son in law, who's a Windows/Linux Systems Administrator who has been there to help me through this entire process - when I went to upgrade to XP, for example, the power supply decided to take that instance as a good time to die. And he was the one who actually dealt with Microsoft, because he's had to do it many times before. Maybe he can clean out the registry entries without a full re-install of the software. Meanwhile, my humble Squeezebox continues to work nearly perfectly as does my old low tech CD player. I've moved my computer, changed the Lan connections from wired to wireless to wired again and changed internet providers - twice- and as hard as it seemed, at times, to keep the settings up to date in the Squeezebox, it's child's play compared to this. It just keeps on keeping on. Oh, and I've changed DACs as well to the higher rez Benchmark. Not so much as a hiccup. Well, thanks for info. I'll keep you posted. Daina

Thanks Keith, I completely, as far as I think is possible, un-installed the software, took out the card, re-installed it in another slot, followed the Reference Recordings method, which says was provided by Mr. Ritter (now I understand BAD!), to a Tee. I was able to find the specific drivers they mentioned and followed it exactly. I got the exact driver, the exact revision, I reset to default values as outlined.... etc etc. etc. However, my system said that the driver was not installed properly, and another 'multimedia audio card' popped up as 'found hardware', under the "Other" designation and it is also looking for a driver, nothing of which seems to help. Needless to say, when I tried Media Monkey it didn't work, saying that another program was using the card. I'd gotten that message before as well. So, after rebooting, just for good luck, and seeing that it still didn't work, I un-installed and started over, using the method that was detailed in the Lynx AES 16 Quick Start Guide (I've also tried the method described in the full users manual - same result). What resulted was that I had installed the exact driver and revision as the Reference/Berkley method suggested and got the exact same results. So, I guess I'm also going to call Lynx tomorrow. I've had other sound cards in the PC, most recently, an M-Audio Audiophile 192, playing through the Benchmark and my old DAC. There were no issues before this. I'm baffled. Thanks! Daina

Oh, boy, that's not an encouraging sign. I'm using an older home made PC that I've had for awhile and it doesn't have PCIe, which is why I have the PCI version. Very stable, but nothing's working with this card. I've now tried my older DAC. Same thing. I have a lot of open PCI slots on the motherboard, so my plan is to uninstall everything tomorrow (or should I say later today), move the card to a different slot and start over, using the drivers and the procedure that Reference Recordings recommended (by the way, who is BAD?). Maybe it's something as innocuous at the slot I use. We'll see. Thanks! Daina

Hey Chris, I failed to mention that I was previously briefly using an M-Audio Audiophile 192 card successfully with the Benchmark and Media Monkey on the same computer - I swapped up to the Lynx. Thanks! Daina

Hey Chris, Thanks so much for the reply. I believe that the impedance of the adapter cable in question is 75 Ohms - or actually whatever it's supposed to be because it came from Lynx. I will verify this tomorrow, but it is a Lynx CBL-XFDR18 S/PDIF Adapter. I DO have another non oversampling DAC, which, I suppose I could try, and will do so tonight or tomorrow. Meanwhile, Windows says that the driver is working properly, and included with the Lynx is a test generator, which generates a tone of some sort through the L/R 1 output, which visually does appear to be happening, from within the Lynx Mixer software. But it's not getting out anywhere beyond that. The latest message I get from Media Monkey, when I try to play a standard WAV file is this: "Unsupported Format (44,100 HZ, 16 Bits, 2 channels). Please Change format settings in the input plug-in configuration or change output device in WAV-Out plugin configuration. "Error Code 32 Windows error message: "The specified format is not supported or cannot be translated. Use the capabilities function to deterinme the supported formats" I have all the input settings I'm supposed to have - especially WAV and FLAC - the two I use most, and I have the output device set to the Lynx, as suggested by the Reference Recordings recommendations for this setup ( the only difference in their reference setup, as you know, is that they are using a Berkley DAC. Otherwise, we're the same including operating system). And not supporting 44.1/16bits/2 channels is, totally at odds with what it should be doing, correct? That's redbook CD that it says it can't support (or translate). I do not know what the capabilities function is - can't find that. I looked up Error Code 32, and that is possibly related to the the extremely odd manner that Lynx wants you to install their drivers - in one of the several contradictory methods given for installing this card, it says you must download and install to C:/Lynx, then un-install, then go back and have the new hardware wizard point at C:/Lynx. Something like that. I've tried it every which way I can try it. At first I thought this was part of the problem as I just happen to use D: as my programs drive, but I think I've ironed all that out, but it still sounds like a problem, from reading what that code means. Here's what I found googling the error code: "Code 32 (new in Windows 98) Windows cannot install the drivers for this device because it cannot access the drive or network location that has the setup files on it. (Code 32) To fix this problem, click Restart Computer to restart your computer. If that doesn't work copy all the setup files onto your local hard disk, and run setup from there. Solution button: Restart Computer This code indicates that the installation disk or CD-ROM was not available to install the drivers. For example, the CD-ROM drive or network connection is not available. This error typically occurs during the first or second reboot after all the files are copied during Setup. To resolve this issue, first attempt to restart as suggested. If this does not resolve the problem, determine why the installation disk or CD-ROM is not available. Typically, these devices also have Device Manager codes (such as the CD-ROM controller or network adapter). Resolve the issue to gain access to the installation disk or CD-ROM prior to resolving this conflict." This all sounds familiar but I'm quite sure I've worked this out, but I DO BELIEVE has something to do with the fact that you MUST always download the files to C:/Lynx. In fact the Ref Recording site says, as does the quick start guide for the card, to cancel out of the Found Hardware Wizard and install manually - in the case of the Ref Recordings version, a specific file which they give you a link to. That's what I finally settled on, first just installing to D, then to C: Same result no matter what. Whew! Too much information, huh? Oh, well. I'll keep you posted. Thanks! Daina

I wanted to ask if anyone has ANY direct experience with the Lynx AES 16 and Benchmark DAC 1 Pre. I'm in the process of upgrading my music server to one based upon the Lynx AES 16 and a Benchmark DAC 1 pre. I started out with a DAC 1, but liked the digital outs' sound so much that, in the process, I had a bit of a change of direction regarding the Benchmark. And begin to think that the DAC 1 Pre would be a nice little 'swiss army knife' device - that could at least double as backup preamp, as well as having a nice DAC. So, I swapped out the DAC1 for the DAC 1 Pre. It took awhile to get it all here - the dealer had to order an XLR to spdif adapter cable from Lynx, since the DAC1 Pre, unlike the DAC 1, uses RCA inputs for ALL the digital ins (with the exception of one Toslink input), However, I've had an awful time so far getting the lynx/benchmark setup to work. I've been working on it all weekend. I won't go into it in detail - I've tried a dozen different things - and there is massive misinformation on how to install the drivers for the card - but finally settled on essentially following the instructions on the Reference Recordings website for how to set up and configure the Lynx on an XP based system and then installing and configuring Media Monkey. http://www.referencerecordings.com/HRxSETUPS.asp. I've followed the instructions to the letter for both (with one exception on the Lynx card that they did not consider, but found somewhere else) , but I still have output errors in Media Monkey. Meanwhile, physical connection wise to the Benchmark, it's not happy either. I've got the XLR Output 1, through the provided adapter cable, coming from the Lynx and going into the DAC, and I'm getting error messages there as well (in the form of blinking lights - 16 fast ones - in the status display of the Benchmark, which, according to the owner's manual, could be an indicator of data dropouts due to bad cable or incompatible audio data type or presence of non audio data. Anyway, if you have any direct experience, please let me know. It's turned out to definitely NOT being a simple install and go thing, and I'm still re-reading the Lynx and Benchmark manuals to see if there's anything I've missed. But, I'm also not real confident in the dealer's knowledge. Any guidance would be helpful. I'm running XP on my AMD based music server computer (it's currently serving music to a Squeezebox). Thanks! Daina

Sweet!